Fallout 4 settlements: the biggest and best

Fallout 4 best settlements

Fallout 4’s Workshop mode is a haven for creative players. Essentially The Sims: Post Apocalypse Edition, you can craft a dizzying amount of items and fit them all together to make anything from a cosy shack to a multi-tiered hotel complex. 

Want to make some major changes to the Commonwealth? Try out these Fallout 4 mods.

Since Fallout 4 released, players have been busy creating incredible settlements and posting photos of them on the internet. Rather than gaze at them and feel inadequate, we thought we’d collect together some of the best out there to help inspire you to make something amazing. 

Scrap Dragon

Fallout 4 settlements Scrap Dragon

Fallout 4 settlements Scrap Dragon

Who says a settlement has to be somewhere to sleep for the night? Fallout player kavkavkav rejected usual thinking and instead used the game’s incredible build mechanics to fabricate this incredible work of modern art: it’s a dragon made from scrap metal!

An amalgamation of rusted cars, scaffolding, generators, and other metal components, the Scrap Dragon acts as the overseeing protector of Downtown Boston.

Hydroelectric Dam

Fallout 4 settlements Hydroelectric dam

Fallout 4 settlements Hydroelectric dam

When it comes to powering settlements, in the radioactive future of Fallout you have to think green. Renewable energy is plentiful thanks to Boston’s rivers, and creator dakishimisan realised that potential when building this town, which acts as a hydroelectric dam. May the juice ever flow into its defensive perimeter.

Columbia

Fallout 4 settlements Columbia

Fallout 4 settlements Columbia

One of the coolest Fallout 4 settlements ever made, GPG Shepard has recreated the flavour of Bioshock Infinite’s floating city of Columbia. It’s just perfect, from the bright colours and statues that adorn the decks, to the fact that it’s actually built floating above Boston’s lighthouse.

Should you wish to create this combination of sweet and sinister for yourself, take a look at this list of required mods.

Graygarden Overpass

Fallout 4 settlements Graygarden

If you head away from the typical build regions of Sanctuary you can discover some really stunning plots for development, such as this great area at Graygarden. The highway flyover means there’s prime estate to build a multi-tier project, and that’s exactly what RuxConk has done here. The fortified ground area, filled with greenhouses and crops, is overlooked by a complex built on the raised road, which works as a great vantage point for scoping out threats.

Prydwen fortress

Fallout 4 settlements airship

Fallout 4 settlements airship

The Brotherhood of Steel know exactly what it takes to make a flying fortress, but one player clearly doesn’t think the Prydwen is good enough. Using Fallout’s settlement tools, they’ve bolted together dozens of steel sheets to create an airship of their own.

Not only that, but the ship is a flying dog kennel. That little metal basket beneath the main bulk? Yup, it’s a floating palace for Dogmeat, filled with toys, the proud american flag, and a typewriter, just incase he fancies writing a bestseller.

The Starlight Bazaar

Fallout 4 settlements Starlight Bazaar

Fallout 4 settlements Starlight Bazaar

The Starlight Drive-in is one of Fallout’s greatest settlement locations, thanks to its wide stretch of flat land. It’s the perfect foundation for practically any build, and SeraphinFoad has used it to produce an incredibly detailed trading post. With more than 130 beds and a bustling population of 56, it’s a real community, complete with warehouses, farmland, and a highly fortified central bazaar.

Best of all, a giant grid of lights produces a cinema-screen effect that really keeps the spirit of the Starlight drive-in alive.

Power Armour Storage

Fallout 4 settlements power armour hangar

On your travels through the Boston wastes, you may find some power armour by the wayside. You may find quite a few, actually. If you find as many as Thantos- has, well, you may just want to convert the Red Rocket into a hangar for your many bullet-proof suits.

It’s the uniformity that makes this build so great. The fact that every suit has it’s own compartment, with those circular frames that neatly divide the floor. What’s more, each and every suit has it’s own workshop area with toolbox and docking station. No doubt an expensive build, but worth every cap.

AT-AT Walker

Welcome to the Hotel AT-AT, where you can snuggle up in one of many beds located within the housing of this Star Wars Imperial walking tank. Yes, not only is Ops_Specialist’s build an amazing recreation of the famous Star Wars vehicle, it’s also a fortress filled with home comforts. The entrance looks a little undefended though, so our advice to budding recreators is to fill the thing with generators and line the flanks with laser turrets. It’s what George Lucas would want.

Space Invaders animated sign

Best Fallout 4 settlements space invaders

Admittedly not an actual settlement, but a superb addition to your rusty utopia nonetheless. Rytackle has created this Space Invaders sign that flashes between two different images to make it seem like the iconic alien is animated. There’s even a detailed tutorial over at Imgur to explain how to rig one up yourself using Fallout 4’s settlement building tools.

Red Rocket Garage Bar

Best Fallout 4 settlements Red Rocket Garage bar

Best Fallout 4 settlements Red Rocket Garage bar

The garage workshop near the start of your Fallout journey is a popular foundation for many a settlement, and this rooftop bar made by Octaviapus is no exception. The shining lights act as a beacon for all those far and wide desperately in search of a JD and Nuka Cola, and you can relax over a game of pool on its remarkably well-preserved table.

Sanctuary City

Best Fallout 4 settlements Sanctuary city

Fallout 4 Sanctuary city

If you’re looking for some exceptional architecture, take a stroll through OMGconex’s Sanctuary. Those empty streets have become atmospheric lanes flanked by towers and gently-lit homes for apocalypse survivors. There’s a genuine sense of community to it, with proudly painted front doors and twee picket fences. The true jewel in the crown though is the communal assembly room, complete with hanging flags and lectern stage. A little Nazi in its design, sure, but you can imagine settlers having 1950s movie nights there with a scavenged projector.

Giant-ass Rubik’s Cube

Best Fallout 4 settlements rubiks cube

“I made a giant-ass Rubik’s Cube,” writes theowest. It’s certainly a way to one-up Matt Damon’s “we bought a zoo”. The cube represents 25 hours’ work and the possibilities offered by an infinite size mod. The sheer number of wires, worse than the back end of a software engineer’s desk, is down to the fact that one terminal is needed per colour. And no, you can’t solve it – only change the colours of each square via their terminals.

Mech hangar

Best Fallout 4 settlements mech hangar

Remember Liberty Prime, the iron giant holed up with the Brotherhood of Steel in Fallout 3’s concluding Broken Steel DLC? That’s the kind of vibe we’re getting from Cuon’s mech hangar, which resembles a NASA launch pad. Could’ve at least turned the titan so that it could see the sea, though.

Rooftop gym

Best Fallout 4 settlements rooftop gym

Best Fallout 4 settlements rooftop gym

For some, Fallout is as much about pecks as it is perks. It’s that way for I_like_mangoes, who decked out a roof with enough heavy equipment to have the Sole Survivor looking like Grognak the Barbarian. Well: gotta work out if you’re going to handle those weighty themes.

Starlight

Best Fallout 4 settlements Starlight

Best Fallout 4 settlements Starlight

Built in the ruins of the Starlight Drive-In Movie Theatre, K4SHM0R3’s settlement is a walled-off village complete with those vital local amenities such as a bar, water-purifying plant, and clinic for all those cuts, missing limbs, and chemical dependencies.

Red Rocket Garage 2.0

Best Fallout 4 settlements Red Rocket

Best Fallout 4 settlements Red Rocket

ONLINEMANONELINEMANONLINEMAN’s (think he’s trying to tell us something?) refurbishment of the Red Rocket Garage includes everything you could possibly need to live a fulfilling life in the wastes: stocked Nuka-Cola vending machines, magazine racks, lunch boxes a-plenty, and dozens of holotapes to keep you entertained. It puts Vault-Tec’s attempts at comfortable living to shame.

Sanctuary Hills Mancave

Best Fallout 4 settlements Mancave

Best Fallout 4 settlements Mancave

A perfect retreat after a hard day of murder, TrippEvans has created this mancave in Sanctuary Hills. Most impressive are the perfectly organised weapons racks, with a variety of devices ideal to pulverize even the most legendary super mutant.

Abernathy Tower

Best Fallout 4 settlements Abernathy Tower

The creation of the concerningly named Ireallywishicouldpee, Abernathy Tower is an absurdly tall tower block, casting shadows over electrical pylons and the mere mortals at its foundations. Due to the fact it causes frame rates to drop because of its mere existence, Abernathy must remain empty and unfurnished. At least until the creator picks up a hardware upgrade.

Ten Dollar Tower

Best Fallout 4 settlements Ten Dollar Tower

Best Fallout 4 settlements Ten Dollar Tower

Remember Tenpenny tower from Fallout 3? Well this is Ten Dollar Tower, which apparently is ten times better than Tenpenny because maths isn’t a thing. It’s the brainchild of Grindolf, who has furnished the block with a 24-hour bar, a communal bath house, and a games room. There’s even space for a brahmin. It’s also a colossal power drain, with 95% of energy going to power the blinged-out sign on its roof.

Sanctuary Shanty Town

Best Fallout 4 settlements Shanty Town

Best Fallout 4 settlements Shanty Town

This sprawling residential district, created by FredtheBeard, is impressive in that the entire thing has been made without the unlimited settlement crafting mod. At 95% of the game’s limit though, it does demonstrate just how much you can pack into a settlement. So much of Sanctuary is covered with shacks and decking in this build, and the multi-tiered construction is very impressive.

Sanctuary (complete with Wolverine)

Best Fallout 4 settlements Wolverine

Best Fallout 4 settlements Wolverine

brady8807 spent a whole week building this, getting just a few hours sleep per night, and neglecting relationships in order to get the build done. It’s a build that not only includes a fabulous high-rise observation platform filled with things to do, but also a wall to keep the filth out, and a giant pixel-art Wolverine made from lights.

The Castle

Best Fallout 4 settlements The Castle

Best Fallout 4 settlements The Castle

For this build, TheLordOnHigh used The Minutemen’s Castle base as a foundation. Those crumbling walls have been fixed, and multiple tiers of living quarters set up within them to create a true rival to Diamond City. Amusingly the potted plants dotted around the wood decking give a real Mediterranean feel to the place; a sense of vaction when the rest of the world is going to hell. The place is that big that it filled the limit bar three times (thanks, unlimited construction mod!)

Have you been building your own piece of home in Fallout 4? Why not take some photos and link to them in the comments below?

Want more? Here’s our Fallout 4 review.