While Fallout 3 may be a great RPG, its age is now quite apparent. With these ten great mods for Fallout 3, you can improve your game in certain aspects for it to feel less dated and modernized.
However, I must say that I haven’t seen as many great mods for Fallout 3 as there are for New Vegas or Fallout 4. Because of a certain patch that broke mod support and completely prevented the game from being modded, it’s fair for modders and authors to feel like there are better games for them to make mods for.
In any case, there are workarounds to downgrade the game and mod it. Hopefully, these ten great mods for Fallout 3 will be great additions to your list.
Also, all of these mods are perfect for a first-time playthrough.
RELATED: Great S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl mods for the first playthrough
Essentials
These are some of the most essential mods that every modlist should have.
Command Extender: https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/23682
Unofficial Patch: https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/19122
OneTweak: https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/25485
StewieAI’s Tweaks: https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/23561
Iron Sights Plus
Iron Sights Plus is a simple mod that allows you to aim down the sights of Fallout 3’s weapons. In the vanilla game, you can only zoom in with your guns and generally, they were quite inaccurate. This mod allows for relatively more precise shooting. If you’re coming back to Fallout 3 after playing New Vegas or any other 3D Fallout game, you will need this mod. The lack of aiming down sights in the vanilla game can be distracting.
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/24995
IMPACT
IMPACT is a mod that adds more details to the gunplay of Fallout 3. The vanilla game’s gunplay is really, really bad and this mod helps with it greatly. With new bullet decals, great bullet impacts, gory and realistic wounds and excellent particle effects, any gunplay enthusiast will definitely need this mod.
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/20977
Simple Realism
This is another fabulous mod that makes the game more natural in progression and better balanced. With Simple Realism, you need to be tactical and strategic about combat, ammo management and consumable management. The game becomes a little more challenging but immensely more satisfying. For me, this made the game’s many battles and encounters feel that much more immersive and realistic. There are many features to this mod; some being: many builds being viable, rarer ammunition and items, more realistic damage and so on.
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/18752
Fellout
You may be very familiar with Fallout 3’s green tint by now. At first, I actually found the colour palette to be nice, so I didn’t use this mod for my first playthrough. However, if you prefer more natural and realistic lighting, I can’t recommend Fellout enough. This mod also features some lighting tweaks that make every location -indoor and outdoor- look more realistic and natural.
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/2672
Sprint Mod
In vanilla Fallout 3, you can’t sprint and you’ll always be running at a slow and constant pace. However, almost every single modern game features sprinting and it’s more or less an essential feature by now. This mod allows you to sprint in the game. Exploring the beautiful Capital Wasteland will be much easier with this.
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/1854
Fallout 3 Flora Overhaul
Almost every Fallout and Elder Scrolls game has flora overhaul mods made by Vurt. This is Fallout 3’s version. This mod adds beautiful trees, shrubs and many other foliage to the game world. They all fit the overall atmosphere perfectly, and some more detail and beauty to the wasteland.
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/19864
NMC’s Texture Pack
Another mod that needs no explanation. NMC’s Texture Pack overhauls many textures in the game greatly, providing higher visual fidelity, details and sometimes, all-new textures. This is a retexture mod and will make the game look substantially better than vanilla without straying far from the original look at all.
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/12056
Weapon Enhancement Pack
Weapon Enhancement Pack is another retexture mod that makes many guns of the Capital Wasteland look way better than their vanilla counterparts. However, it does not retexture every single weapon in the game, but it’s still worth getting nonetheless.
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/21245
Fallout 3 Enhanced Camera
When you look down in first-person, you cannot see your lower body in the vanilla Fallout games. That’s where the Enhanced Camera mods come in. It’s available for many Bethesda games and this version is for Fallout 3. This makes the game way more immersive and realistic. An essential, in my opinion.
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/20183
Loot Menu
This mod is a very simple but essential one that vastly improves the Quality of Life of Fallout 3. With this installed, you no longer have to grab items by opening a container. Instead, it can be done in real time, similar to the loot menus in many modern RPGs.
