Five Mods That Push Fallout 4’s Post-Apocalyptic Visuals To The Limit

Fallout 4 is one of 2015's most ambitious and immersive games, with a vast open world to explore and an enormous branching story to experience. The game also boasts an in-depth crafting system, the ability to build and deconstruct bases, a dynamic dialogue system and other exciting new features. Bethesda went all out to make it the best-looking Fallout game yet, and the result is a much more visually rich game with a variety of settings and a whole new dynamic weather system that gives the world extra depth.

But if that's not enough, you can go one step further and use Fallout 4's ever-growing library of community-made mods to give it an extra graphical push. We've picked out five of the best Fallout 4 mods that'll give the game an assortment of visual makeovers—they're all available to download now and, best of all, they're free.

Note: Mods are a wonderful thing and can greatly enhance your gaming experience. However, incorrect use of certain mods can result in unpleasant things like corrupt save game files and games not launching. Always read mod author’s installation instructions carefully, back up save files and other important files, and proceed with caution.

True Storms – Wasteland Edition

Fallout 4's weather is good, but if you’ve been thinking it could use a little more pizzazz then you're going to love this mod. (And if many of you may be familiar with its Skyrim predecessor.) True Storms – Wasteland Edition gives Fallout 4's storms a complete overhaul, with intense new visuals – including fork and sheet lightning, 20 new thunder sounds, new weather types including radiation rain, heavy dust storms and thick fog, and much more.

The mod also does away with the white rain you tend to get at night, with proper alpha blending and lighting for rain particles. It even adds a volume slider for thunder and rain sounds so that you can get them sounding just right with your rig.

Fallout 4 Seasons Project

Moving Fallout 4 northeast to New England allowed the developers to give the game a much more rich and vibrant look than the blasted deserts and townships of earlier titles. However, you can take this a step further by adding seasons with the Fallout 4 Seasons Project. Created by mixing and matching different textures from various mods, it enables you play through Fallout 4 at different times of year.

There are four season packs to choose from. Fall provides bright autumn foliage and plants, plus a harvest time look for appropriate crops. Winter kills off all the foliage and dumps snow everywhere. Spring makes everything more colorful with green crops and bright blooming flowers. And Summer tones down the green a bit, has fewer flowers and adds a harvest time look for appropriate crops. Future plans include actual falling snow for winter, improved tree leaves for all seasons and possibly the ability to install all four seasons at once so that they can switch automatically.

Decay – Reshade Preset

Of course, if all these bright colors are a bit much for you and you want Fallout 4 to look more like the older Fallout games, this mod has you covered. Decay is a Reshade preset that attempts to recreate the visual mood of previous Fallout games by making everything look bleaker, moodier and more desaturated.