Now that the belated “next-gen” Fallout 4 update has finally arrived (nearly four years into said generation), Bethesda has at last offered up and enhanced way to play on Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5. However, the bar was already set fairly high by the excellent Xbox Backward Compatibility programme, of which Fallout 4 was an early beneficiary: thanks to the Xbox One X 4K patch and then the FPS boost, we already had the choice of whether to run in high frame rate or resolution modes (not both) on Xbox Series X and Series S. At least, that’s the idea. Currently it’s a bit broken on Xbox, but we can expect it to run as well as the PlayStation 5 version soon, and the improvements there are welcome.
If you’re playing on Xbox Series X/S or PC, the process of updating to the new-gen version of Fallout 4 is as seamless as any other update – just download it and go. If you’re on PS5, you must manually, but simply, transfer your old saves from the PS4 version using the same method Sony first-party games, such as Ghosts of Tsushima, have used.
Straight away when I started playing, one of the first things I noticed was that old, and maybe some new, bugs remain in play. Such as lights not being active at times, I was locked into a hacking screen forcing me to reload an earlier save, and missing textures that were present before this update. The PC player base has also reported crashes on the largest GPU market, and years of mods have been broken overnight by this patch, at least until the Script Extender that many of them rely on is updated. Those changes have also delayed the forthcoming and highly anticipated Fallout London mod, which was due last month but has now slipped to an unspecified time until the team can make sure everything works after the patch.
On Xbox, the toggle does nothing in the current build. Bugs aside, though, the main feature of this 22GB update is that it adds a Performance toggle for Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5, which creates a Quality (off) and Performance (on) choice. (The PC version didn’t need this, so its settings are unchanged.) Taking this as our basis we can see if, as per the patch notes, Fallout 4 has increased effects over the old console versions. This is where I intended to bring in the Series X as the before and after comparison, but this update patch is, unbelievably, currently broken on both Xbox Series consoles. The toggle does nothing in the current build.
I first tried the update that patched Fallout 4 from the old XDK (Xbox One) codebase build, to the latest GDK (Xbox Series X/S) build, giving us a native .exe file. When the Quality/Performance toggle showed no change, I deleted it and re-downloaded the full 35GB fresh install. That didn’t work on either the Series X or S, so the toggle is simply window dressing at present. This leaves Fallout 4 locked into the Performance mode on Xbox. Ironically (given that Bethesda is now an Xbox studio), the patch for the PS5 works as advertised, though it does come with a far larger footprint at 56GB, some 60% larger.
So that’s why I ended up looking primarily at the PlayStation version, where the aims of Bethesda’s team can at least be demonstrated, and we can give Xbox players a view of what they can expect once this patch is patched (presumably soon).
Viewed side by side with the pre-patch Backward Compatibility mode, the increase is obvious. On PS5, the updated Quality mode gives us the same 4K 30fps performance we had before the patch when using the Xbox One X Backward Compatibility mode on Series X, but we do see some minor visual improvements. Specifically, the level of detail is slightly higher, with more grass and incidental objects into the middle and far distance. This results in less fade-in of new scenery as you walk through the world compared to the previous version. Long view distance shots highlight this, and when Performance mode is viewed side by side with the pre-patch Backward Compatibility mode the increase is obvious.
The other noticed change is the extensive use of volumetrics (a technology that was part of Bethesda’s Nvidia collaboration back in 2015) and tessellation, making Fallout 4 very demanding on PC. After the patch, these are a higher-resolution quality, again highlighting the disparity of geometry resolution and shading, alpha, and other effects that make up the final image of any game. The updated version is more refined due to the higher precision, allowing the background details to come through, whereas the previous 4K Backward Compatibility mode has lower-resolution fog volumes. This results in a sharper, clearer view. This is even more evident when you drop to the old FPS Boost mode, which necessitated a 75% resolution reduction to a base 1920×1080. Using that setting at native 4K, the volumetrics look even milkier and blockier as the fog volumes often run at half or quarter resolution of the target output. In the old 4K mode they were likely using a 1080p grid base, whereas in the 1080p boost mode, they are using a 540p grid. In the post-patch Quality mode that’s no longer an issue because they are likely full resolution, which matches the PC’s highest settings. Shadow map cascade looks identical – if it’s better the difference is very, very slight. Textures are also identical across all versions, with Series S just appearing softer due to the lower 1440p resolution.
All formats hold a locked 60fps 99% of the time.Thankfully, the resolution boosts work correctly on all consoles, and Series X and PS5 render at a full 4K in both modes (or rather, I assume it will once we get a Quality mode working on Xbox). But Performance mode appears to be dynamic; I counted a 1980p low on both PS5 and Xbox Series X in my stress tests, but they are most often 4K. That’s achievable thanks to the reductions made to the detail level in the world, which help reduce the performance gap required to maintain 60fps at the same 4K output. The Xbox Series S’s resolution is most often 65% lower (in the Performance mode at least, which is all I was able to test here) than the Series X, but it’s at least higher than it was in its previous FPS Boost mode, now running a dynamic resolution that ranges from 2560×1440 down to 1920×1080, with many counts being an approximate 2240x1260p. That’s a minor improvement, but the increased volumetrics and alpha resolution do help improve the image stability. Aside from this, all three consoles have identical Performance mode settings.
Performance is very solid, with all formats holding a locked 60fps 99% of the time. You can still get some streaming, context, and CPU workload stutter on occasion, such as on the Series S where it spikes for over 200ms. That’s certainly not a GPU-related hitch – I’d guess it’s code based, most likely. These can happen mostly during game trigger moments, such as context switches or when it spawns in new objects, and we have seen this as a constant Achilles heel for the Creation Engine even on PC, which means it’s not something an update like this will likely fix. These impact Xbox consoles more than PS5, but are fleeting.
So the 4K Performance mode on the Series X and PS5 is the one to choose, as is the 1440p mode on Series S. The resolution hit is minimal due to Fallout 4 lacking modern graphics tech like physically based materials and high-frequency details, leaving a similar but softer image overall. Using the Corvega factory as a stress test, which has long and high views that ramp up geometry and fill rate, we take a run from the top down to the bottom. Cutting our way through to enemies and here we can see some minor drops in performance on Series S and Series X, but these are often only into the mid-50s at worst and you’ll probably barely notice if you’re on a screen that supports variable refresh rate (VRR). The PS5 remains a locked 60fps here, though, and across the tested action sections (covered in the video) I did not catch any dips on Sony’s console. You can still get dips with a long view spinning the camera at the top of Corvega factory: we see 54fps on Series X vs 56fps on PS5, so margin of error advantage at best, but one that certainly reinforces that PS5 players are currently benefiting the most from this update.
The PS5 in Quality mode is, as expected, fully locked at 30fps, which leaves plenty of headroom left over. A pleasant surprise is Bethesda’s team has taken advantage of the higher modes these consoles offer. By simply making a call to the console operating system, the engine can detect what resolution, frame rate, and other settings it can run at. This is a core area that Xbox’s FPS boost is built upon, and it means the toggle in the main menu can activate hidden modes when the Quality mode is active – at least on PS5 for now.
It has to be mentioned that this version of the Creation Engine remains limited to 60fps, even on PC (without modifications or GPU driver tweaks). But if you have a 120Hz output available, you do have two further options. When set to 1440p/120hz, Fallout 4 runs at native 1440p, but the Quality mode, complete with the increases in level of detail (LoD), now targets a stable, locked 60fps, which is a welcome benefit to those with a 1440p monitor. But if your TV supports 4K at the same 120hz setting, the Quality mode now targets a common Sony 40fps rate (or 25ms response time). This, for my money, is the perfect middle ground of image quality and performance, feeling far smoother than 30fps but with 4K image quality. Again, this is effectively flawlessly paced and delivered, and I commend and welcome this from the Bethesda team and hope more developers lean into this type of mode. It may be a sign of an upcoming Starfield update – offering a similar 40fps boost in its Quality mode would be a nice enhancement to that Creation Engine 2 game, considering its current 30fps cap (a theory that was proven true with the May update announcement after this review was completed).
Summary
Fallout 4’s “next-gen” update is a most welcome improvement for a nine-year-old game. Giving us the choice of four modes, all of which come with improved visuals and some with rock-solid 60fps performance, along with some new free mission DLC is revitalizing for the console versions. However, the fact that it launched broken on Xbox Series X and S makes it feel like another one step forward, two steps back situation for Bethesda and Microsoft, especially when the PS5 gets all of the intended boosts with no issues noted. Presumably, though, that’ll be fixed soon and we’ll see the Series X achieve parity. As an update to Fallout 4, it presents a compelling reason to return to the vaults of Fallout.
