You’re not in the Commonwealth anymore” - Fallout: London’s animation whiz is hyped to see players try its rad new weapons

If you're a Fallout fan, there's a good chance you can't wait to play Fallout: London when it arrives in April. Funnily enough, the modders who've been working on it are in a similar position, and we've spoken to one of them to get a lowdown on which bits of the mod they personally can't wait for players to experience and try out for themselves.

If you’re not familiar with it, Fallout: London is a massive Fallout 4 modding project that’s set to let you leave The Commonwealth and explore the ruins of the English capital. It’s been in the works for a few years now, with the team behind it having offered plenty of sneak peeks at the interesting factions and locations it features.

Modder Neeher, who we also recently spoke to about the big Bethesda community modding showcase that's taking place this weekend, is just one member of the "huge" team behind Fallout: London, Team FOLON. "I'm mostly a character animator and 3D modeler on the team, but I'm not the only one," the modder explains, "It's nice as we can talk to each other if we need help on something or to take over another's workload should time be an issue or [if] real life gets in the way."

Given that a lot of the animations in Fallout games are designed to make things like firing guns or smashing things with a Super Sledge look seamless, it's not too surpising that Neeher's really looking forward to seeing players get to try out Fallout: London's weapons. "Running around and exploring London with the various sets of weapons I animated is going to be fun," he says, "This is one of the things that connects the player to the world around them and having all these unique weapons really solidifies that you're not in the Commonwealth anymore. The flintlock weapons we made are pretty funny, [and] we've shown them a bit before. [They're] very powerful, but don't miss [with them], because then you're greeted with a 15 second reload where you have to go through the whole rigmarole of loading a musket with black powder. It's very time consuming, best find a spot to hide!"

There are also some one-time animations the modder's designed to help make certain in-game moments feel a bit more unique and special. "One of my favorite things I've done is this boat sequence, [which] you can see a snippet of in the recent Fallout: London release date video. At first, there was a self-driving automated boat that would take you from one place to another. Later on it was decided that it would be neat if a real character were piloting it and taking you to your destination. It took a while, but I animated a character using the boat and reacting to the world around him for this segment and I think it turned out really good."

Working on parts of mods that work fine as is, but can be made a bit more interesting or immersive via the addition of some extra animations looks to have become a bit of a specialty for Neeher, something you'll see near the start of your Fallout: London adventure. "In the beginning of the game," the modder outlines, "you would [previously] get the Atta-Boy, our version of the Pip-Boy, by just pressing a button on your keyboard, and then you moved on to the next objective. That's boring! I went in there and made an animation where your player character actually goes up to it and grabs it, looks at it, and interacts with the Atta-Boy. Makes it feel more substantial, more memorable. I do this a lot with weapons too."

"There are plenty of other things [like those] I want to talk about," Neeher concludes, "but then we'd be getting into story spoilers and well, you'll all have to wait and see!"

Make sure to stay tuned for more coverage of Fallout: London as its release inches ever closer. Also, be sure to check out the latest updates on the likes of Starfield and the Fallout TV Show while you wait!