A new Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas mod is designed to alter the names of various weapons and gear in order to remove all mention of the police from the Bethesda and Obsidian RPG series, with the mod’s creator saying it is intended to make the games “more comfortable” for players who may have “very real trauma and discomfort regarding police”.
Simply titled ‘No Police Gear’, the mod can be used with either Fallout 3 or Fallout: New Vegas and are created by modder UnrealSeptim. Speaking exclusively to PCGamesN, they say the objective is to allow players to experience Fallout however they want.
“I personally harbour no ill will or animosity towards police,” UnrealSeptim says. “However, there are many people who have very real trauma or discomfort regarding police, and for very valid reasons. It was for the sake of those people that I created my mods, not because they couldn’t play the game without it, but because they might feel more comfortable with it, and I think we all deserve to feel comfortable when we play games. That’s the beauty of mods. We can use them to change the game however we want, until we have the experience that is most desirable to us.”
No Police Gear either removes items from Fallout that are police-related, such as the police hat clothing item, or renames them so they no longer have any connotations with the police, such as the police baton in Fallout 3 being rebranded as the “truncheon”. Though UnrealSeptim says this may be “controversial”, they believe people should be allowed to experience games how they like.
“Obviously the idea of removing content from a game is controversial because it’s not something everyone wants,” UnrealSeptim explains. “But if someone wants to remove a certain character, or flag, or item from their game, they absolutely should be allowed to do so. In a way, it allows us to personalise our games and make them our own, and I would encourage anyone who’s against that idea to rethink their stance. What someone else does to their game is their business, not yours.”
UnrealSeptim has also created a mod for Fallout: New Vegas which removes the dialogue options allowing you to talk the character Frank into taking his own life. They have plans for further mods both for Fallout and Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls series, saying “as long as I continue to play games, I will continue to make mods for them, for the reasons I’ve outlined.” UnrealSeptim’s mods are all available at Nexus Mods for free.