Top Lists

The 10 Best Fallout 3 Mods

Published

10 months ago

July 17, 2023

What are the best Fallout 3 mods?

When Fallout 3 was released in 2008, it was crowned Game of the Year for good reason, and it remains a fan favorite today.

However, having been out for so long, it’s likely that most players are on the lookout for ways to revitalize this amazing game.

Fortunately, the modding community hasn’t let us down, and today we’re looking at the best mods ever created for Fallout 3!

The 10 Best Fallout 3 Mods

There are hundreds of mods for Fallout 3 on Nexus, and we’ve gone through all of the highest-rated ones to create this list.

We selected these particular mods based on their popularity, number of downloads, and how they impact gameplay.

So, if you’re ready to head back to the Capital Wasteland, here’s our list of the 10 best Fallout 3 mods:

10. EVE — Energy Visuals Enhanced

Kicking off our list, we have EVE – Energy Visual Enhanced, which is an absolute must-have if you’re a fan of energy weapons.

The energy effects in the vanilla game leave a lot to be desired, but fortunately, this mod fixes these effects to make them feel incredibly rewarding.

This mod redoes almost everything about energy weapons, including their animations, textures, sounds, and effects.

Creator Weijiesen even made 32 custom-animated critical kills for laser, plasma, nuke, missile, and pulse weapons!

You can even turn people into skeletal remains with these weapons now, which is just amazing.

If you’re someone who has avoided energy weapons because of their lackluster effects, get ready because you’ll never want to use standard ballistics again!

While there is a lot of debate over the best Fallout games and which is the top dog, with this mod, we can confidently say Fallout 3 has the greatest energy weapons!

9. A Note Easily Missed

This mod, by the wonderfully named Puce Moose, adds a unique brand-new quest to Fallout 3, and it’s incredibly well made.

A Note Easily Missed takes a look at the lives of people from before the war, and gameplay is a bit different than what you’d find in the vanilla game.

In this mod, the focus is all on exploration and going through different areas to try and uncover pieces of the past long since forgotten.

If you’re not someone who enjoys reading notes, taking terminal quizzes, or exploring just to learn the lore, this probably isn’t for you.

However, if you love a good story as much as we do, you’ll definitely be glued to your screen as you unravel this mystery.

There are many different areas to explore, and some notes even have some really solid voice acting to accompany them.

What we really love about this mod is that it’s simple but still requires some critical thinking, and it doesn’t hold your hand at all.

Bethesda has always been good at environmental storytelling, and this mod definitely taps into that in a way that we find extremely engaging!

8. FOOK 2

FOOK 2, also known as the Fallout Overhaul Kit, is, as the name suggests, a huge overhaul of basically the entire game!

It’s almost like building one of the best games like Fallout, only inside Fallout 3 itself, using tons of brand-new features.

This mod is enormous. It adds thousands of new items, new high-quality textures, and many new gameplay mechanics and features.

Just to touch on a few things, there are over 150 new weapons, 3 new followers, and an entire overhaul of the NPC templates and leveling systems of all factions.

Basically, every facet of this game has something new to explore, making it almost like playing Fallout 3 for the first time all over again!

Arguably just as impressive as Tale of Two Wastelands, FOOK 2 is a hugely impressive mod, and it’s quickly become one of our favorites!

7. Mart’s Mutant Mod

The world of Fallout 3 is filled with mutated creatures, but have you ever wished that they had more variety? No? Well, too bad because they do now!

With Mart’s Mutant Mod, now all of the vicious monsters that want to kill you can be a bit more diverse and interesting while they do it!

Not only does this mod jazz up the mutants we’ve all come to know and shoot at, but it also introduces brand-new varieties!

For instance, you can now run into Super Mutant Enforcers in Enclave Armor, complete with big spikey gauntlets specially crafted to ruin your day.

There are also Abominable Mutants that are severely deformed and grotesque, as well as large wild mutant boars and monstrous dogs that definitely aren’t good boys.

Oh, and those deathclaws the Enclave catch and use mind control on? Yeah, they have armor now and a giant blade on one arm!

On the plus side, this mod also adds body part amputations so you can remove the teeth, eyes, horns, and claws from the new creatures you take out.

So, when you’re not running for your life, you can sell the viscera of your fallen foes for some sweet, sweet caps!

6. Fellout

When you’re not running from mutants, you might get the chance to look around at the wasteland and see that it looks really, really green.

While this green tint can be charming a first, after a point, it can start to wear out its welcome like a molerat in a deathclaw den.

Fortunately, the Fellout mod gets rid of this gaudy green tint and provides you with a gorgeous blue sky to gaze up at when mongrels aren’t tearing you apart.

This mod also tweaks the lighting and weather in the game in other subtle ways that really make the Capital Wasteland feel more immersive.

Although this mod may not be for everyone, and if you like the tint, we won’t judge; it’s definitely worth trying out at least once!

After all, just because it’s the post-apocalypse doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy blue sky anymore, Bethesda!

Especially since plenty of the best post-apocalyptic games feature clear skies and no obstructive tints!

5. NMCs Texture Pack For FO3

Since Fallout 3 came out in 2008, it’s safe to say that its graphics aren’t looking the best by modern standards.

While they’re by no means terrible, there is a lot of room for improvement, which is where NMCs Texture Pack comes in!

Although this mod doesn’t cover the DLC, it replaces the textures of the terrain, trees, vehicles, furniture, and all exteriors and interiors of buildings and cities.

These new textures have all been made with high-resolution photograph-based equivalents, and there are 4 resolution sizes to choose from.

This mod really makes things look gritty, rusted, and worn-down, as they should, and it really brings the game to life!

We seriously spent way too long looking at chipping paint, wooden doors, and stop signs after installing this mod.

Everything just looks so good, and NMC has even made a similar texture pack for New Vegas so that you can improve its visual appeal as well!

If you want to improve the look of Fallout 3, NMC’s Texture Pack is the best you can find on the Nexus, and over 3 million players have already downloaded it!

4. Rogue Hallow’s Iron Sights

Okay, so going from playing New Vegas back to Fallout 3 takes some getting used to, mainly because 3 lacks iron sight aiming.

While VATS helps, trying to aim manually in the vanilla game is like trying to hit a bloatfly with a crooked sight while having the shakes from a jet withdrawal.

Thankfully, mod creator Rougehallow created this mod that integrates iron sights with most of the vanilla guns in Fallout 3!

This makes hitting your targets so much easier, and it was originally in the game’s framework; only Bethesda didn’t include it upon release.

With this mod, you don’t have to constantly worry about creating an action point-focused build every playthrough.

It seems like such a small tweak, but it really makes a huge improvement to the gunplay in Fallout 3, and now we can never play without it!

Although manual aiming will never be as refined as it is in the best PS5 FPS games, it’s leagues better than it was before!

3. FWE – Combat Overhaul

Speaking of gunplay, if you want something more in-depth, you may enjoy the FWE – Combat Overhaul for Fallout 3!

This mod adds a ton of new features, including iron sights, weapon mod kits, thermal vision, a dynamic crosshair, a Pipboy flashlight, and immersive recoil.

With this mod, you can now add silencers and scopes to your weapons and configure a unique POV when wearing helmets or glasses.

We really love this feature because you can actually make it seem like you’re really looking out of the helmet you’re wearing.

The Pipboy flashlight is also configurable, as are the night and thermal vision options, which are actually really cool to use!

FWE also adds around 130 new weapons to the game, so you have a good incentive to try and find them all.

All of the updates made by this mod are incredibly well done, and they really improve the quality of combat throughout the entire game!

2. Fallout 3 Wanderers Edition

Fallout 3 Wanderers Edition is arguably the best overhaul mod available on Nexus, and it’s a compilation of 50 individual mods that improve gameplay.

The goal of Wanderers Edition is to make things more challenging yet balanced while adding more immersion and depth to all gameplay aspects.

One of the best things it does is enhance the FPS elements of the game, making combat faster-paced and more based on player skill.

However, it doesn’t just turn Fallout 3 into a straight-up shooter, as it also improves all of the RPG elements as well.

The mod does this by putting a greater emphasis on choices and their consequences, along with character development and progression.

It has a built-in alternative start option, configurable leveling options, rebalanced perks, an improved karma system, and a larger focus on skills.

In combat, global damage has been increased, while body-part-based damage has been added for more realism.

If that wasn’t enough, new armor and over 40 new weapons have been added from prior Fallout games.

Basically, if you can think of it, it’s probably been added to by this mod. Wanderers Edition is incredibly in-depth, and it completely changes the game.

With this mod, Fallout 3 can easily rival any of the best PS5 survival games. That’s how good it is!

Plus, it even has support for Energy Visuals Enhanced and Mart’s Murtant Mod, and they work together perfectly!

1. Updated Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch

Taking our number one spot is the Updated Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch, and it’s an absolute must if you’re playing this game.

This mod is designed to fix all of the errors and bugs in Fallout 3, and since it’s a Bethesda game, there are many!

Some cut content has also been added to the game, including Rivet City morning council meetings, bartering for Charon’s contact, and routines with Mr. Burke.

Some dialogue from the citizens of the Republic of Dave has also been restored so that candidates will comment if the player rigs the election.

To put into perspective how huge this mod is, it consists of around 53,000 fixes, meaning it interacts with a ton of coding because the vanilla game is just that buggy!

If you download nothing else from this list, we strongly suggest at least downloading the Unofficial Patch, if only for a smoother playthrough!