Fallout

The 10 Best Fallout 4 Companion Mods

Published

1 year ago

June 7, 2023

Shawna Schofield

What are the best Fallout 4 companion mods?

The companions in Fallout 4 are some of the best and most fleshed out in the franchise.

Traveling with them and hearing their commentary about the world really helps players understand more about the lore and the personalities of these characters.

However, while the vanilla game companions are good, a few things about them could always be better.

As with most Bethesda games, the responsibility to fix what is lacking falls to modders, which the community is infinitely grateful for.

The Best Fallout 4 Companion Mods

Whether you want to improve the companions already in the game or add entirely new ones, you’re going to need to download mods.

Thankfully, Fallout 4 has a huge modding community that never fails to deliver some incredible add-ons, improvements, and tweaks.

If you’re looking to get the most out of the companion system in Fallout 4, you’ve come to the right place.

Here’s our list of the 10 best Fallout 4 companion mods:

10. Visible Companion Affinity

Despite being released in 2015, Fallout 4 is still one of the best Xbox One games to play right now, and it brings back a few staples of previous games.

In particular, the karma system, which was featured in Fallout 3, has a new system that functions exclusively with companions.

The further you raise your affinity, the more a companion will like you. This leads to more dialogue with them and, eventually, you can unlock a special perk once you’ve reached the max level.

On the other hand, if your affinity drops too low due to doing things that a particular companion dislikes or hates, they will eventually refuse to travel with you altogether.

While this is pretty straightforward, the problem is that affinity levels cannot be seen anywhere in the vanilla game, leaving players to speculate where they stand with a companion.

Sure, you can ask them what they think of you, but even this is vague at times.

Fortunately, with the Visible Companion Affinity mod, you can see exactly what percentage you are at, as well as if a companion tolerates, likes, loves or hates you.

This is incredibly useful, especially if you are switching between companions to try and unlock their perks or reach the level needed to start some of the personal quests.

This mod is available on the PC and Xbox One, and it is easy to install and run without the risk of file corruption or crashes.

9. Companions Go Home

For whatever reason, when a companion is dismissed, they tend to either stand around in their homes like lost puppies waiting for you to come back, or they start farming mutfruit at your local settlement.

This is sort of bizarre, seeing as each companion has their own lives and things they should be doing.

For instance, Piper is supposed to be the only person in Diamond City interested in investigating the Institute, so why would she be content to sit in Sanctuary farming tatos, especially given that her little sister is still in DC selling her papers?

Similarly, Hancock is literally the mayor of Goodneighbor, so seeing him chilling out abandoning the responsibilities that are a massive part of his character is kind of immersion-breaking.

The creators of Companions Go Home felt the same about this problem and decided to fix it with this PC mod which enables characters to go back to their lives when they aren’t traveling with you.

It just makes sense, and, in the immortal words of Todd Howard, “It just works.”

8. Companion Infinite Ammo

Are you tired of having to buy or share your hard-earned ammo with your companions? We are too.

Ammo is a precious commodity in almost all of the best post-apocalyptic games of all time, and in Fallout 4, the last thing you want to do is give any up.

Seriously, the Sole Survivor is supposed to be a fish out of water when it comes to the wasteland, so why is it their responsibility to outfit and supply companions who have spent their whole lives in it?

Come on, Piper, scavenge your own ammo for a change!

Although the default companion weapons have infinite ammo, they’re often subpar at best, and more often than not, players will want to give them better options to choose from.

Unfortunately, this also means forking over piles of ammo to ensure that their new weapons can actually be used.

Thankfully, the Companion Infinite Ammo mod for the PS4 and PC was created to solve this problem and ensure that you don’t have to share or spend your hard-earned caps just so companions can actually be helpful in a fight.

7. Dogmetal (Dog Robot Companions)

Dogmeat is the best dog, hands down, but if you’re an animal lover, you may feel conflicted about taking this good boy into combat. After all, who doesn’t feel terrible when he gets hurt and starts whimpering?

If you want to keep Dogmeat safe at home but still travel with a rugged canine companion, Dogmetal is the mod for you.

With this mod, you can replace Dogmeat completely with a Dogbot, or you can add three dog robots without console commands while still keeping him around.

The great thing about these dogs is that they are entirely immune to radioactive and poisonous enemies, and they have stronger attacks due to being made of metal.

Using this mod, you can customize your dog companions and give them special armor using the armor workbench. Although the armors are only for aesthetic value, they do make your Dogbot look like a complete badass.

This mod is available on the PC and Xbox One, and if you want to keep Dogmeat and gain the three robo-dogs, you’ll need to have the Automatron DLC installed.

6. Heather Casdin

Fallout 4 is one of the best open-world PS4 games, and it is filled with fascinating characters.

However, there are also some incredible fan-made characters that fit so seamlessly into this world that you could easily mistake them for vanilla companions.

Heather Casdin is an example of one of the best fan-made companions, and she is wonderfully fleshed out. Even more so than some of the base game companions, which is saying something.

Heather has a custom voice with over 1200 lines of unique dialogue, and the acting fits perfectly into the game.

She has a phobia of synths corresponding to her lore-friendly backstory, which players can learn about organically as they travel with her.

She also functions as a trader with a full stock of unique items that cannot be found anywhere else in the game.

The creator of this mod, LlamaRCA, is a legend in the Fallout modding community, and this mod is one of their best that you can download today for the PC and Xbox One.

5. Ellen The Cartographer

Ellen the Cartographer is another fully voiced and developed fan-made companion that can be downloaded on the PC and Xbox One.

Similar to Heather, Ellen has over 1200 lines of custom voice dialogue and an incredible backstory that starts back in New Vegas, where she grew up.

This companion even has her own original quest, as well as a fully fleshed-out affinity system and romance.

Ellen the Cartographer is one of the best fan-made companions that you can add to your game, and traveling with her is incredibly enjoyable, especially if you have already exhausted everything to do with the base and DLC companions.

She is even compatible with Amazing Follower Tweaks, allowing users to customize Ellen’s behaviors further.

However, it should be noted that this mod does alter the Quincy area, meaning that if you have any mods that change that region, there could be some conflicts.

Other than that, this mod is very stable, and you’re unlikely to run into any game-breaking issues while running it.

4. Unlimited Companion Framework

Despite being one of the best-selling PS4 games of all time, there are things in Fallout 4 that fans wish would have been different. This includes the limit of companions you can have with you.

Fortunately, the Unlimited Companion Framework mod makes building your own small militia easier than ever by giving you the option to have up to 15 companions at once, and more if you don’t mind sacrificing dialogue to have as many companions as possible.

While this can make large firefights a bit easier, it can also cause some significant traffic jams in small spaces if you actually take a ton of characters with you.

Although most people aren’t going to use this mod to take every companion along, it definitely does make adventuring with a small team a fun possibility, and it can also help players reach max affinity with companions much faster.

For instance, having MacCready and Cait together can help boost their affinity in tandem since they both like it when you pick locks.

Similarly, Cait and Hancock both like it when you run around naked or do chems, while Nick and Preston both like it when you help people.

By bringing multiple followers who have the same likes, you can level them more quickly together, allowing you to experience everything they have to offer without grinding.

Available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One, the Unlimited Companion Framework mod is a must-have even if you don’t plan on assembling a small army, especially since it’s just incredibly fun to put together your own rag-tag band of misfits.

3. Everyone’s Best Friend

In Fallout 4, there is a lot to suggest that players were initially supposed to be able to travel with Dogmeat and another companion.

This is largely because Dogmeat doesn’t benefit from companion perks, and you don’t lose the Lone Wanderer perk while traveling with him.

Fortunately for players who want to keep Dogmeat while still having another companion along, the mod Everyone’s Best Friend does just that.

Unlike the Unlimited Companion Framework, this mod only supports the standard single companion, which keeps it more in line with the vanilla game’s intentions.

This makes it one of the best Fallout 4 mods to download for fans who only want a minimal change to the companion system.

Keep in mind that this mod isn’t compatible with Amazing Follower Tweaks (AFT), both on the PC or Xbox One, since that companion mod makes more people recruitable and conflicts with this one.

So if you currently have AFT installed, you’ll want to disable it before playing with this mod.

2. Nora Spouse Companion

Fallout 4 is all about your Sole Survivor scouring one of the biggest open-world maps in gaming history in search of his kidnapped son, who was taken from the lifeless arms of his wife.

But what if Nora didn’t die after all and instead escaped the Vault before you to find Shaun?

The Nora Spouse Companion mod is an incredibly well thought-out mod that reimagines the game’s story and makes it much more about family instead of forgetting about your son in favor of 600 different side quests and new romance options.

Nora as a companion, comes fully voiced, with quest dialogue and a working affinity system.

She works as well as, if not better than, many vanilla companions since she has so many unique lines about the story and the player’s character.

Although other companion mods sometimes offer the ability to save your spouse, few make them fully integrated companions like this one with their own quests and story.

While it isn’t available on the PS4, this Fallout 4 mod can be downloaded for the PC and Xbox One.

1. The Machine And Her

The Machine and Her is unlike any other companion mod available for Fallout 4 on the PC and Xbox One.

Not only does it introduce a new companion, but it offers a brand new hours-long questline that could very well be considered DLC in its own right. It even earned its own IMDb page!

While we won’t give away any spoilers because you definitely need to experience this mod for yourself, we will give you a taste of some of the best things this mod can offer.

With a good four to five hours of additional gameplay, as well as a fully voiced unique companion with over 6000 lines of dialogue, it’s evident that modder Nikacola has really gone above and beyond.

The new companion, Kit, is an engaging and mysterious character who uses a complex AI to judge your actions and morality.

She has been designed to be able to pick locks and hack terminals in a way that allows her to get better over time, and players can change her AI and combat abilities on the fly to make her more in-synch with their playstyle.

The story is also very RPG-focused, reacting to the player’s choices in a way that even rivals New Vegas.

There is even a brand new soundtrack and radio station with a voiced DJ that is absolutely capable of rivaling the original score and acting in the base game.

If you need any more convincing, just know that the creator of this mod has since gone on to be an official Quest Designer for Bethesda, which should tell you just how impressive her creations are.

Summary

Fallout 4 is a phenomenal game, and it has a lot of replayability. However, mods help take this game to another level by fixing annoyances and adding brand new content and features.

All 10 of these mods come highly recommended, both by the modding community and by us, as they are the best you can download when it comes to companions.

Remember to always thoroughly check for mod compatibility before installing any of these, especially if you are using a lot of mods already.

With that in mind, you can get the most out of all of these mods by either using some of them together or incorporating them into specific playthroughs.

Here’s a quick recap of the 10 best Fallout 4 companion mods: