15 Best Fallout 4 Mods To Alter The Weather & Environment
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Weather in Fallout 4 is much different from what we were used to seeing in previous titles from the franchise.
It’s no longer quite as dark or haunting, giving Bethesda a chance to show off their new visual effects and better take advantage of the new hardware at their disposal.
The result is a beautiful game that lets you experience both the serenity of nature and the dangerous scars that nuclear war left on the climate.
Still, for many players this arrangement isn’t to the benefit of the series. For some the game looks too cheery, too colorful – too alive.
It’s supposed to be a post-apocalyptic wasteland, so why wouldn’t it look like one?
Whether you belong to one group or the other, I’ve made sure to include something to fit your needs in this list. Let’s get to it!
15. Climate Control
Thanks to user Bowser62, changing the climatic situation of your immediate vicinity is as easy as typing a command into the console.
CcClear for clearer skies or ccRadstorm to bring down the wrath of the heavens upon us – you get the drift. It really doesn’t get any simpler than that.
14. No Green Weathers
And if you’d rather leave a more permanent mark on the world’s climate, consider No Green Weathers by MrTroubleMaker.
This mod simply brings new weather possibilities to areas like the Glowing Sea, Atom Springs or Nuka World, which are usually plagued by the ugly and notoriously dangerous green fog of radiation.
Once installed, you’ll notice these places can now be sunny, rainy, or foggy without any green color. In fact, you can remove the green tint from radiation weather in general.
With this, a summer at the Glowing Sea doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.
13. Calamity Weathers
On the other hand, perhaps you find the Wasteland uncharacteristically cheery for what it’s supposed to represent.
Thinking that games like Metro 2033 or Last Light have a better concept of a post-apocalyptic world, modder Omega2008 replaces the cartoonish vanilla weathers for a darker, more grim climate.
Not only does the weather feel truly menacing and, well, apocalyptic… but the Radstorms actually do hit harder with this mod installed.
If I were you, I’d find cover. Fast.
12. Nuclear Weathers
If you’re a hardcore survivalist and Calamity Weathers just isn’t enough of a challenge for you, then perhaps Nuclear Weathers will do the trick.
This dangerous mod from creator Densalegion adds eight new kinds of storms into the game, including firestorms to burn the fields, acid rain to poison your water and mind storms where the Institute tries to take control of your actions through mind-controlling technology.
11. Wasteland Weather – After Nuclear War
Rather than taking inspiration in other franchises to make the Commonwealth feel more, well, wasted, modder CorenseWolf decided to bring back the charm of old-school Fallout.
What this means is that, rather than the varied and lively weather of the vanilla game, you’ll be seeing a post-apocalyptic brown fog cover the land 97% of the time.
The other 3%? Those are the chances that a Radstorm will hit.
You’ll never see the sun again.
10. Fallout 76 Weather
On the other side of the cheery spectrum, we have Fallout 76 Weather, which aims to – you guessed it – bring Fallout 76’s weather to the Commonwealth.
Modder Masshep simply turned up the contrast a bit and tweaked color correction to make the game look lush and alive.
They also made sure to increase the probability of nice weather, and the rest of the time you’re unlikely to be hit by anything worse than a light fog.
9. Apocalyptic Weather
We’ve gone through Calamity Weather, Nuclear Weather, Wasteland Weather… there’s clearly something wrong with having decent weather in a Fallout game, if modders are any measurement.
Apocalyptic Weather by AtomicFailure attempts to do the same as all of these mods, which is making the Commonwealth look more polluted and treacherous than ever before.
Other than tweaking the vanilla weather types and adding a couple more to make the Wasteland cruel and unforgiving, this mod makes nights considerably darker and improves interior lighting as well.
So you can be more immersed while cowering in fear indoors.
8. Polluted Climate
Despite science telling us that over 200 years after the bombs fell, the world would look prettier than ever, efforts endure to worsen the Commonwealth’s living conditions.
However modder MandragoraSprouts has taken a much more subtle approach, adding some fog here and there as well as clouds of dust and overall reduced contrast to make colors less vibrant.
Of course, they couldn’t stop at that.
So Radstorms are also more frequent now, and those accompanied by radioactive rain and dust will deal much more damage than the regular kind.
7. Polluted Climate – Winter Edition
As a companion piece to the original Polluted Climate, anyone who liked it should also try the Winter Edition.
This mod does the same as its predecessor, but it tweaks and adds some things to make it work with the snowy weather you’d expect from Winter.
It was made to go with the Icepick Overhaul mod, but it’ll work with anything that adds snowy textures to the landscape.
6. Morose – Psychological Horror Overhaul
One of the most exciting mods I got a chance to review for this list was Morose, a Psychological Horror Overhaul for Fallout 4 by creator Thumblesteen.
Not only does it tweak the weather and lighting to bring you a more intense and oppressive experience Fallout, but it also replaces most of your soundtrack with a new one meant to induce fear, anxiety, and the feeling of serene isolation.
Fun!
What makes this mod so interesting and real is how the author draws from their own experiences with anxiety and depression and shares it with others through this mod.
5. Simply Better Weather II
In contrast with the complex aspirations of the previous mod, Simply Better Weather II might come off as a bit basic, and maybe it is.
Still, making the entire Commonwealth look and feel like a Summer vacation in Buenos Aires is no small feat. No clouds, no fog, no dirty water – nothing.
Not even in Far Harbor!
It may not feel like much, but this mod really changes the gaming experience greatly. And it may even give you better performance due to loading fewer effects.
4. Unified Commonwealth Weather
On the other hand, if what you want isn’t to stabilize the Commonwealth’s weather but to make it more vicious and unpredictable, Unified Commonwealth Weather might be what you’re looking for.
This mod by user HomicidalGrouse will allow the special weather types present in Far Harbor and Nuka World to appear anywhere else on the map as well, with varying chances depending on the region.
What sets this apart from many similar mods promising more varied weather is that it only uses vanilla assets, and therefore doesn’t alter the overall style of the game.
3. Vivid Weathers – Fallout 4 Edition
The same can’t be said of Vivid Weather, a mod ported from The Elder Scrolls V that adds a grand total of 75 new weather events to Fallout 4.
That said, NexusMods user Mangaclub assures us it’s all lore-friendly. Even if the overall feel of the Wasteland is completely changed.
This is partly due to the mod improving general image quality with some tweaks, as well as replacing the cloud textures for more diverse ones.
Unlike other weather-changing mods, this one also includes a new player home and a complete questline explaining the backstory behind these changes.
2. True Storms – Wasteland Edition
If what you’re looking for is an intense weather mod that makes you remember why “shelter” is so high up on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, then True Storms is the thing you’re looking for.
Thunder, rain, and all other weather events have been entirely redone by modder FadingSignal. He hasn’t only intensified the vanilla weather but added other unique and intense possibilities.
Most weathers now employ new particle geometry meant to make them feel more treacherous, and heavy dust storms or blinding fog are just some examples of what to expect.
1. NAC – Natural and Atmospheric Commonwealth
If any other mod claimed to be “the most advanced” and complete weather, lighting, and visual overhaul Fallout 4 has seen to date, I’d doubt it immediately.
But after taking a look at Looping’s work on NAC, I have no reason to doubt it.
This mod is easily among the most in-depth overhauls I’ve ever seen, introducing over 500 random weather events as well as tweaking visual effects and lighting to better complement these new meteorological possibilities.
Among the best bits about this mod is how easy it is to control – all done from your PipBoy, down to the visual effects.
Add to that the fact that it loads different weather presets depending on the in-game date to simulate the passing of seasons, and you can understand why I think this is easily the best weather mod in Fallout 4.
