Nexus Mods Is Feeling the Strain as Fallout 4 and New Vegas Popularity Surges

The popular modding platform, Nexus Mods, has faced significant strain on its servers recently due to a surge in demand driven by the popularity of Fallout 4 and Fallout: New Vegas. This surge in activity is attributed to the success of the Fallout series on Amazon Prime, along with discounted game sales on platforms like Steam, GOG, and the upcoming launch of Fallout 4 on Epic Games.

Fallout 4 is a post-apocalyptic action role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios. Set in a retro-futuristic world devastated by nuclear war, players navigate a vast open world, undertake quests, engage in combat, and build settlements. On the other hand, Fallout: New Vegas is an installment developed by Obsidian Entertainment, known for its complex narrative, morally ambiguous choices, and focus on role-playing elements, set in the Fallout universe but with a different storyline and setting from Fallout 4. Both Fallout 4 and Fallout: New Vegas have extensive modding communities that enhance gameplay in interesting ways.

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The impact of the Fallout Amazon Prime show’s popularity can be seen in the download statistics provided by Nexus Mods. Fallout 4, which had fewer than 1.5 million downloads by April 9, experienced a rapid increase, reaching a peak of 7.4 million downloads by April 21. Similarly, Fallout: New Vegas saw a surge from fewer than 1 million downloads to 4.8 million downloads within the same timeframe. In a statement addressing the situation, Nexus Mods acknowledged the challenges faced by its users as the website’s performance has been degraded, particularly in terms of slow file download speeds. The team behind Nexus Mods emphasized their efforts to maintain the site’s functionality despite the overwhelming demand, noting that they have been battling to ensure a smoother experience for users.

Nexus Mods’ Fallout Download Activity Spike

The charts shared by Nexus Mods illustrate these spikes in download activity, showcasing the immense interest in Fallout games and the engagement of users in modding their gaming experiences. This surge has resulted in peaks of 24 million total file downloads per day on Nexus Mods, compared to the usual daily average of 10 million downloads. The site served over 6.3 petabytes (6,300 terabytes) of mods to users between Friday and Sunday alone.

Despite Nexus Mods’ efforts to scale up and invest in their download infrastructure, they highlighted the challenges of meeting very large, short-term spikes in site traffic. According to the site, implementing fully scalable solutions for such spikes would be prohibitively expensive and unsustainable for the business.

Looking ahead, Nexus Mods anticipates another significant surge in traffic for Fallout 4 and New Vegas mods and pledges to do everything possible to ensure the site runs smoothly. The team plans to deploy extra resources where feasible and will closely monitor uptime and performance across their network. Despite the challenges, Nexus Mods expressed gratitude to their users for their patience and enthusiasm during this period of heightened activity.

Fallout 4

Fallout 4 is an RPG in the Fallout series, being the fourth major installment. This time around, players are in The Commonwealth, formerly Massachusetts, in the year 2287.

Released

November 10, 2015