Fallout 4 Creation Kit Enters Beta

Published: April 26, 2016 5:36 PM /

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Fallout 4 Creation Kit

Fallout 4's Creation Kit has entered Beta according to a news post on Bethesda's website. They've released an accompanying video that details some of the upcoming features:

The Creation Kit is the same software that Bethesda uses to develop Fallout 4. The naming scheme is a departure from the previous Fallout titles; the SDK for those games was branded as the G.E.C.K. (Garden of Eden Creation Kit), a longstanding important item in the Fallout series that can seemingly restore heavily irradiated and damaged land with fresh plants.

Fallout 4 Creation Kit Horse Armor
All due credit to Bethesda Softworks for having a sense of humor. The "Horse Armor" mod adds Power Armor based on the Giddyup Buttercup children's toy in the Fallout universe and is a reference to the infamous "Horse Armor" DLC from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

Right now the Creation Kit beta is only open to PC players via the Steam platform. The instructions to enter the beta are as follows:

How to access the 1.5 Update in Steam Beta:

  • Log into Steam
  • Right Click on Fallout 4 in your Library
  • Select Settings
  • Select Betas
  • A drop down menu will appear. Select beta
  • Select OK
  • Wait a few minutes and Fallout 4 should update
  • When done, Fallout 4 should appear as Fallout 4 [Beta] in your Library

The ability to use mods will be coming to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 sometime in June.

A new "Mods" option is added to the main menu of Fallout 4. Players can browse mods, install them, and post feedback all from within the game's environment. It appears that you can also view the mods and their pages in a web browser at mods.bethesda.net. Bethesda has requested that people who playtest this Beta leave feedback in their forums.

Fallout 4 Download Creation KitThe Creation Kit itself is available via the Bethesda.net Launcher which you can download here or by clicking the "download" symbol at the top right of Bethesda.net. The download symbol doesn't actually appear until you've created a Bethesda.net account, and an account is necessary to use the in-game mods system or the Creation Kit (via the launcher).

An F.A.Q. on the forums reveals some further details. Modded saves will be flagged with "[M]". There's no size limit on mods. You can delete mods from the Bethesda.net service, but anyone who has them downloaded locally will still be able to use them. Using Local Mods with the beta currently requires that you are logged into Bethesda.net but they are working on an offline solution.

I couldn't find any official word on Steam Workshop integration or how third-party mod clients will be handled. The mods that I had manually installed showed up in the list at least and it seems like they're only making tiny changes to the standard .esp file format for mods.

Mods and the Creation Kit are being rolled into the currently ongoing 1.5 Beta which added Survival difficulty.

 


Quick Take

Well, it looks like Bethesda is going to handle mod management themselves. I gave it a quick spin and it loaded up my OCDecorator mods (the only ones I have installed) immediately and even gave me the option to swap the load order. A Bethesda.net account doesn't seem to be necessary to actually use mods with a third-party environment, thankfully. Oh, and the Bethesda.net launcher (which you need to download the Creation Kit) has a SPLASH SCREEN. I'm still laughing.

What do you think of Bethesda's decision to include the Creation Kit in their own homegrown environment? How do you feel about using Bethesda.net integration to download and manage mods? Let us know in the comments below!

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A photograph of TechRaptor Senior Writer Robert N. Adams.
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One of my earliest memories is playing Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo Entertainment System. I've had a controller in my hand since I was 4 and I… More about Robert N