Home Gaming Fallout 4’s Creation Club downloads content whether you plan to use it or not

Fallout 4’s Creation Club downloads content whether you plan to use it or not

2 min read
11

Overcucumbered

Yesterday, Bethesda launched its “totally not paid mods, you guys” service, the Creation Club for Fallout 4. In theory, it seems a decent way for content creators to make some cash for their hard work making new items, quests and other digital extras for the games they love.

Of course, for many the simple idea of paying for content that’s traditionally been free has raised more than a bit of ire, resulting in grumpy gamers. It’s set to get worse. There are problems with the technical implementation of the Creation Club that are making the launch worse than it should be.

The problems were all verbosely highlighted in video by Youtuber Gopher, who ran through some of the problems with the Creation Club. The first and possibly the most egregious is that The Creation club is baked in to the game itself. What that means is that it forms part of the game’s updates – so it downloads the Creator’s Club whether you intend to use it or not. That’d be fine, if it didn’t also download all the content for the game along with it. When you buy those items in the game, it downloads a licence file to use them – a bit like on-disc DLC.

Right now, the Creation Club for Fallout 4 only has a handful of items, and that content only tallies to around 680MB. But, as the Creation Club grows, you can expect the game to keep downloading everything. If you’re the sort of gamer who likes to keep games on an SSD or have limited bandwidth, you may find Fallout 4 (and soon Skyrim SE); filling your drive with nonsense you may not need, while sucking up all your bandwidth.

It seems to be the same on console – so Fallout 4 and Skyrim will be downloading stuff you’ll probably never use. It’s a big problem, and one that needs changing soon.

It seems like because the Creation Club is baked in, as new content is added the game’s executables get updated, which breaks compatibility with the already established modding tools like the Fallout 4 Script Extender. While the team behind that seems to be on the ball updating the extender to work with the new files, modding fans are going to have to wait for updates with more regularity.

It’s not ideal – and the general consensus amongst Fallout fans is that Bethesda’s messed up with this.

Last Updated: August 31, 2017

11 Comments

  1. Admiral Chief

    August 31, 2017 at 10:49

  2. Kikmi

    August 31, 2017 at 10:52

    Are these even being moderated to a decent degree? Considering the tons and tons of mods both Skyrim and Fo3/NV has, the stupid installation folder is going to bloat to over 100gb without even a sweat. This is astoundingly fucking stupid. Good lord.

    Reply

  3. Ottokie

    August 31, 2017 at 11:21

    That is the fastest way to get uninstalled on my PC. Don’t auto download a bunch of shyt every 2nd day.

    Reply

  4. Original Heretic

    August 31, 2017 at 11:29

    The general consensus among gamers is that Bethesda messed up Fallout 4, so this is just par for course, I suppose.

    Reply

  5. Matthew Holliday

    August 31, 2017 at 11:30

    Currently have fallout 4 uninstalled, because SSD etc.
    Skyrims still installed though, so what, do we just ignore the next update? If we dont wanna have skyrim updating gigs daily?
    Or is creation club a download of its own, external to skyrim?

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief

      August 31, 2017 at 11:36

      Skyrim is always installed on my PC, you just never know when the urge to FUS RO DAH creeps up

      Reply

  6. RinceThis

    August 31, 2017 at 11:50

    Man this is stupid.

    Reply

  7. zero

    August 31, 2017 at 16:59

    Ok it’s pretty simple. As a console user(both PS4 & Xbox One) if you force me to download content I do not need or want(especially considering how small the hard drives are on these fucking things. And yes I have huge externals)….

    I will DELETE YOUR FUCKING GAME & SNAP THE DISC IN TWO YOU FUCKING FUCKS.

    Simple as that. Fuck you Bethesda.

    Reply

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