Fallout

The 10 Best Fallout 4 Texture Mods

Published

11 months ago

June 6, 2023

What are the best Fallout 4 texture mods?

Fallout 4 is a beautiful game, and its graphics have aged well. However, there is always room for improvement in graphics, and if you love playing Fallout 4, chances are you want to make the game look as next-gen as possible.

Fortunately, graphics mods are a hot commodity, and there is no shortage of enhancements you can download, both big and small.

The Best Fallout 4 Texture Mods

There are thousands of mods for Fallout 4, and it can be tough to decide which of these mods to download since you don’t want to risk downloading something you don’t like, or worse, a mod that will break your game.

To save you a lot of time and give you an idea of which graphics mods will make your game look the best, we’ve scoured the Nexus, so you don’t have to.

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

10. Synth Overhaul – C.A.S.T

The Institute and its synths are the boogymen of the Commonwealth, and the game initially sets them up to be on par with some of the toughest video game bosses to beat.

Although the story ends up being a lot less black and white, there is a reason they inspire so much fear and anxiety around Boston, and this mod helps reflect that.

While the Gen 1 and 2 synths in the base game were mildly creepy to look at, this synth overhaul mod takes them to a whole other level.

It overhauls all synths by giving them 70 new armor sets, 77 new helmets, 42 new uniforms, and two unique synth weapons, all of which feature new texture packs in both 2k and 4k resolutions.

All of this together gives the synths a much more sinister, futuristic appearance, making it easier to understand why the wasteland is terrified of them. They also look a lot more varied instead of being cut and paste versions of each other.

When you run into these overhauled synths for the first time, you will definitely be in for a surprise, and it will give you a whole new opinion of the shadowy Institute.

9. Clean Water of the Commonwealth

At the end of Fallout 3, the Capital Wasteland is given a second chance with the help of Project Purity, making clean water accessible for everyone.

While this is great for them, the Commonwealth has no such luck when it comes to clean water in the base game, and almost all the water you’ll run into is highly irradiated and hard to see into.

Although it could be argued that this is because of the frequent rad storms from the Glowing Sea, which irradiate the Boston area, it definitely does make getting around more difficult, especially if you’re trying to get to Spectacle Island.

If you’re tired of getting rads every time you step in a puddle or go for a swim, this mod can help, and it also makes the water in the game look 10x better!

The Clean Water of the Commonwealth mod comes with four different water settings ranging from incredibly clear to Bahama blue, just in case you feel like bringing a bit of the tropics to Boston.

There is even an option to retain the radiation or make the water even more irradiated if you really want to test your survival skills.

8. Improved Map With Visible Roads

When it comes to graphics mods, most people think of massive overhauls that revamp the landscape or character textures. However, this map mod proves that changes don’t have to be large to better gameplay.

Improved Map with Visible Roads makes getting around the Commonwealth much easier, as you can actually see where roads and major locations are without having to squint at your screen or manually adjust the contrast.

This mod also considers the general topography of the area reflecting it on the map and adds distinct waterlines and more accurate map markers.

You can also choose to enable some optional features such as numbered grid lines and numbered regions, allowing you to better understand the distinct areas of the map.

While it may not sound like a game-changer if you’ve never tried this mod, trust us when we say that it is one of the best Fallout 4 mods to add to your load order today.

7. Better Handmade Weapon Textures

Although Fallout 4 isn’t one of the best first-person shooter PS4 games, it can feel a bit like one at times if you play in first-person.

Because of this, you’re going to spend a reasonable amount of time looking at your weapon on screen, as opposed to your character.

During the early part of the game, this means you will undoubtedly be staring at mostly pipe weapons, which, unfortunately, leave a lot to be desired, especially those that are covered in that unnaturally bright orange rust.

Better Handmade Weapons fixes these lackluster textures by making the vanilla weapons look more realistic and much less orange.

Each weapon is still lore-friendly but much more pleasing to look at, with a sleeker, darker finish that doesn’t overdo it.

The weapons still look handmade and put together with scraps of metal and wood, but there is definitely more sophistication to them than there was in the base game.

Overall, it actually makes you want to use pipe weapons instead of doing everything you can to avoid them.

6. HI-POLY Faces

Now, the faces in Fallout 4 have come a long way from the melted plastic crayons that they were in Fallout 3 and New Vegas. However, they can still sometimes be a bit too uncanny valley with their too pointed noses and boxy necks.

To improve the appearance of the faces in Fallout 4, this mod introduces new high polygon face meshes for player characters that give them a much more realistic touch.

This mod has also been created so that the polygon count is reasonable enough that you don’t have to have a $2000 gaming computer to run it smoothly!

HI-POLY faces is also a highly stable mod that isn’t going to put you at risk for messing up your character, so long as you’re not using anything else that affects the face meshes.

It should also be noted that this mod does require LooksMenu, a mod that overhauls the character creator, to run. However, this is also a tiny mod that doesn’t impact anything else in the game.

If you want the best-looking character in the Commonwealth, HI-POLY faces is a must.

5. Wasteland Creatures Redone – Retexture Compilation

Every creature in the wasteland has the ability to ruin your day, and this is one of the best texture mods to help them look their best while doing it.

You’ll be so busy being awed at just how great the deathclaws look that you’ll almost forget to be angry that you died and forgot to save!

Best of all is that this mod pack combines all of the many textures into a straightforward download, making it easier than ever to improve the appearance of the creatures in the game.

This mod pack improves all of their textures, from bloat flies to Yao Guai and Stingwings to Mirelurk Kings.

You can even choose which textures you want and which ones you don’t, so if you like a vanilla texture more, you won’t have to give it up!

Like HI-POLY faces, this texture mod is performance friendly, allowing most users to install it without worrying about framerate drops or crashing.

Likewise, this mod is lore-friendly, and it fits into the environment of Fallout 4 seamlessly.

4. High-Resolution Texture Pack

Speaking of the environment in Fallout 4, this High-Resolution Texture Pack created by Valius gives a massive boost to graphical fidelity, and it is one of the most downloaded in the modding community.

As an ongoing project, the goal of this mod is to replace the lackluster textures within Fallout 4 with higher resolution replacements without compromising the original style.

The result is a much more realistic world filled with a multitude of tiny details that help make the entire game feel much more like a next-gen title.

Seriously, you’re going to want to examine every door, desk, and desk fan you come across just to appreciate all of the enhanced textures that give them so much more life.

This mod comes in a 2k and 4k version, with the 4k being recommended only for those with 4GB+ video card memory. That said, even players with lower spec computers should be able to run the 2k textures version with little difficulty.

Keep in mind that this isn’t a graphics overhaul for the entire game, meaning it’s not suddenly going to look as good as The Last of Us Part II; however, this mod proves just how small details can matter when it comes to transforming the entire atmosphere of the game.

3. Fallout 4 Texture Optimization Project

If you are running an older computer and want to get the most FPS possible in Fallout 4, we hear you, and we feel your pain.

Fallout 4 can be a nightmare to run on older computers without completely turning your graphics down to a level that resembles Doom 64.

While you can get some of the best gaming laptops for under $800, for those who want to make the most out of the hardware they have now, the Fallout 4 Texture Optimization Project aims to help you out.

The size of the vanilla graphics in Fallout 4 is surprisingly large, and instead of raising the texture resolution like many other graphics mods, this one lowers the resolution without sacrificing visual fidelity.

The result is surprisingly nice to look at, and it can significantly boost FPS and improve the overall stability of the game!

If you’re having trouble running the game well on your computer and are suffering from framerate drops, stuttering, crashes, and lag, it’s worth adding this mod to your load order just to see how much it can improve your gaming experience.

2. Vivid Fallout

If you have a decent computer but don’t want to risk slowing down your game with high-resolution graphics mods, there’s a solid middle-ground for you, and it can easily take the place of other mods, saving you a lot of space.

Vivid Fallout is an all-in-one mod pack that overhauls the landscape textures, including buildings, bridges, and roads, to make them pop and look a lot more realistic.

Although these improvements were once separate, Vivid Fallout compiles them all together in a single mod, making it easier to install with your mod manager and easier for your system to run.

In fact, this single mod has a much lower impact on performance than the separate individual mods, which is incredible considering that Fallout 4 has one of the biggest open-world maps in gaming history.

The quality of this mod is incredible, and you only need to look at the before and after pictures on Nexus to see just how much of a difference it provides.

If you want one of the best retexture mods to improve the graphics in your game, Vivid Fallout is definitely one that you’re not going to want to add to your load order.

1. Fallout 4 Seasons

Taking the top spot as the best Fallout 4 texture mod, we have Fallout 4 Seasons.

The unique world of Fallout has helped make it one of the best post-apocalyptic games of all time. However, none of the games have ever shown signs of changing seasons.

Sure, Diamond City will put up Halloween and Christmas decorations when the dates roll around, the world around it remains the same, and the trees are still perpetually dead.

For some, this can be immersion-breaking, especially given that Fallout 4 has a functioning weather system that makes it feel more dynamic than its predecessors.

Although there are more mods than we can count that change the environment in Fallout 4, this mod is by far the best and most developed.

All of the seasons fit seamlessly into the natural environment without feeling lore breaking, and not a single detail was spared.

The only downside is that you have to manually activate the seasons yourself since there is no in-game cycling system to support the changes automatically.

Unfortunately, this mod has since been removed from the Nexus, but mod authors FrogprincessQ4 and MsRae are working on getting it hosted over on Damanding’s Creative Family Mods.

As one of the best quality mods to ever be created for Fallout 4, you’re going to want to keep an eye out for when it becomes available to install once again so that you can experience its awesomeness for yourself.