The Fallout TV show is proving so popular that not only is the entire series spiking on Steam, but now one of the biggest mod hosting sites in the world is struggling under the weight of renewed demand for downloads.
Nexus Mods is home to 48,000 Fallout 4 mods that have been downloaded over 1.4 billion times, with Bethesda’s most recent post-apocalyptic RPG game the third biggest game on the site. Between Fallout 4 and Skyrim, the two Bethesda juggernauts are probably the most popular games to mod, period. While the sheer number of downloads has settled into a rhythm over the years, Amazon’s Fallout show appears to have thrown that into disarray as player counts, and mod downloads by extension, soar so much Nexus can’t quite handle it.
“We are experiencing much more traffic than usual due to the popularity of the Fallout TV series,” Nexus Mods community manager ‘Pickysaurus’ writes. “We have deployed extra resources where possible and we are monitoring the uptime and performance across the network. We have staff on call at all times to deal with any problems.
“Please do be aware that this extra traffic could cause a degraded experience across the website and our applications.”
According to the Nexus Mods status page, the main website is suffering a partial outage right now, with a degraded performance across the API, forum, and content delivery network as well. Basically, if Nexus is slow to load the site, download mods, or the forums seem sedated, you can thank all the interest in Fallout following the new Amazon show.
The explosion of the Fallout games after the show has been everywhere this week, but in just the last 24 hours alone all of the mainline games have had a collective 270,000 players on Steam. Fallout 4, the most popular game in the series for mods over on Nexus, has also hit a peak of 141,154 players, so it’s no surprise that Nexus is struggling under the weight of so many people wanting to mod the game at once.
With the Fallout 4 next gen update set to drop in a few days, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see these numbers hold steady or even go higher. Bethesda’s release date for the patch has meant that the colossal Fallout London mod has been delayed indefinitely while the team aims to get it working in the new framework, though. Project lead Dean Carter says, “We might get lucky with a day one fix; it’s unlikely but it could happen – or it might be a month from now,” so we could be waiting no time at all, or for a while.
If you’re one of the thousands revisiting Fallout or coming to the games for the first time our breakdown of when to expect the Fallout 5 release date should keep you busy, while our Fallout guide to the RPG series can help you figure out which entry to play next.
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