Fallout 4's biggest modding site buckles under the game's renewed popularity

Fallout 4 (and other franchise entries from Bethesda) are currently enjoying an unexpected surge in popularity thanks to the Fallout TV show. As modding is a key part of the Fallout experience on PC, it should come as no surprise that Nexus Mods, too, is buckling under pressure.

Notably, Nexus Mods is one of the biggest mod-hosting websites on the Internet, and it’s been struggling with the sudden influx of Fallout traffic for days now. As per Nexus Mods’ own report, the site has been experiencing “much more traffic than usual due to the popularity of the Fallout TV series.” The announcement explains that the site has already deployed additional resources and monitoring to keep up with the demand, but the problems are persisting still.

Nexus Mods is having trouble keeping up with Fallout 4’s new burst of popularity

The Nexus Mods’ status tracker page reports that all of the following site features are currently experiencing problems with degraded performance: the website itself, the Nexus Mods API, the CDN, and the forums. In other words, if you’re trying to download some mods for your burgeoning build of Fallout 4, the odds are good that you’re having trouble.

The first report of problems was posted on Friday, April 19, and Nexus Mods staff is still dealing with the fallout, if you’d excuse the pun. “We are continuing to investigate this issue,” says the update posted earlier today, on April 22.

The Fallout TV series isn’t the only one to blame for this, keep in mind. Following the series’ launch on Amazon Prime, Bethesda was quick to announce that a “next-gen” update for Fallout 4 would be dropping soon. On PC, specifically, this means support for ultra-wide resolutions (21:9 aspect ratio) and some additional Creation Kit goodies. Arguably, the biggest “feature” of the update is the fact that it’s bound to break a bunch of mods. Mods that are now being aggressively downloaded by PC Fallout fans.

It’s not all grim, mind. Bethesda claims that it’s worked to “minimize impact to the majority community mods.” We don’t know yet what that means, exactly, but it’s better than nothing. Not that it helps the situation with one of the biggest Fallout 4 mods we’ve seen yet: Fallout: London, the release of which was postponed following Bethesda’s next-gen update announcement. It’ll be an interesting couple of weeks for the Fallout 4 modding community, that’s for sure, as while many modders are sure to update their releases to accommodate for the new game update, others may leave them behind entirely, causing problems with legacy support and beyond.