Everything you need to know about Fallout 4's "next-gen" update

Last Fall, Bethesda officially announced that Fallout 4 will be receiving updates that take advantage of this generations hardware. We pretty much know what will be added to the game. What is unknown is when it exactly releases. The only information we have on a release date is "2023."

What's new in this "next-gen" update?

• Bonus Creation Club content (free?)

• Upgraded visuals

• Upgraded performance

• Upgraded "functionality"

• Performance modes (high frame rates)

• Quality modes (4k support)

The greatest changes actually come with the functionality of the game. You see, Bethesda games use a very limited engine that is notorious for bugs, 60fps caps, and resolution problems. This update should fix the basic functionality of how well the game plays on the most modern pcs and consoles.

For pc, the game must be capped at 60fps no matter what specs you have. This is simply due to the Creation Engine that Bethesda uses. Above 60 frames, the games plays double the speed and the physics are messed up. As for resolution, there are bugs that can stretch the games past your screen boundaries, misplacement of the mouse, buggy pip-boy, and other things that can cause the game to just crash.

For modern consoles, the game itself already offers to be played at 4K but there are still issues with the games visuals and frames. A PS5 can naturally play games at 4K 120fps thanks to some checkerboarding but this is not possible due to Fallout 4's engine limitations I mentioned earlier. This update should allow modern consoles to take advantage of their recent ability to play above 60fps.

Again, not much has been shown off in terms of gameplay. The only thing that was revealed were these promises of features and the release date of 2023.