The hype for Fallout is as endless as a nuclear winter, with Fallout 3 celebrating its 17-year anniversary in 2025, and Fallout Season 2 heading to Amazon Prime Video in December, there's never been a better time to immerse yourself in the Capital Wasteland. Fallout 3 was, for many players, the starting point to their journey into Fallout, as it's where the series turned into an FPS/RPG hybrid. However, many of the mechanics and systems in place can feel a tad outdated to the modern player, so why not check in here to find the best Quality of Life mods that will turn Fallout 3 into a remaster deserving of 2025.
Fallout 3: Best Companions, Ranked
Fallout 3 has plenty of potential companions to make surviving the Capitol Wasteland a little easier, but which is the most useful?
Fallout Stutter Remover
Improves General Performance for Consistent Frames
- Mod Link
- Mod Creator: SkyRanger-1
It's not uncommon for older games to experience a few performance issues when they encounter more modern hardware, which is why players will want Fallout Stutter Remover, a mod that does exactly what the title says it will do. This mod helps the performance, allowing the game to feel smoother without stutters that might reduce framerate and generally just make the performance a pain to experience. Without this mod, players will experience more unpredictable framerate drops, which, for a modern game, is a big no-no.
Updated Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch
A Remade Patch to Fix Bugs and Restore Cut Content
- Mod Link
- Mod Creator: Hairylegs222
One of the best Fallout 3 mods on the market is the Updated Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch by Hairylegs222, a mod that receives a steady supply of updates to ensure compatibility with other mods and further fixes to the vanilla experience. For a bug-free time in the Capital Wasteland, Updated Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch is a must-have, as it will optimize Fallout 3 while also fixing a multitude of bugs and errors in the base game and its DLCs. The hard work of this mod makes it an essential part of the modding process, as it fixes far more bugs than you could possibly know about to ensure your experience isn't ruined.
Visual Objectives (FOSE)
Adds Floating Markers for Quests
- Mod Link
- Mod Creator: c6dev
Navigating through the Capital Wasteland can be a tad tricky, especially when all you have to rely on is your map from the Pipboy and the visual markers on your HUD. Thankfully, modern gamers won't have to fear getting lost so much, as this mod from c6dev adds visual floating markers for your active quests so that you can tell exactly where you want to go across the multitude of buildings to enter with their own loading screens. This mod really helps with navigation, and it will mean that you won't get so easily lost.
IStewieAI's Tweaks
Optional Game Tweaks and QoL Improvements
- Mod Link
- Mod Creator: IStewieAI
IStewieAI's Tweaks is a mod that brings about an assortment of collections and tweaks that really helps to modernize the game in some useful and subtle ways. Whether it's an improvement to the hacking minigame, faster sleep wait times, or even the ability to display caps in the PipBoy, numerous changes and tweaks can be enabled or disabled in IStewieAI's Tweaks, making it worth using. Players are definitely going to want to check this mod out for its assortment of QoL changes, Menu and HUD changes, along with a variety of gameplay features and balancing tweaks to ensure a smoother performance.
Iron Sights Plus
Allows for True Iron Sights When Aiming
- Mod Link
- Mod Creator: AtomicTEM
Pairing exceptionally well with IStewieAI's Tweaks is the Iron Sights Plus mod, which adds true iron sights animations and meshes to the weapons in-game through IStewieAI's Tweaks for iron sight nodes. This mod includes every single weapon, including energy weapons. With the subtle changes to weapon meshes, players will have a great mod that allows them to use iron sights for better aim and accuracy when it comes to killing the horrifying enemies that plague the Capital Wasteland.
Weapon Mod Kits
Add Customizable Weapon Mods Like Silencers, Extended Magazines, and Scopes
- Mod Link
- Mod Creator: Antistar
Another modern implementation in FPS games is the inclusion of weapon modding, which allows players to add a variety of attachments to their guns, creating unique weapons that complement their playstyle. The weapon selection is rather limited here, which is why the Weapon Mod Kits mod comes in as a great addition, allowing players to modify weapons with Weapon Modification Kits to add silencers, extended magazines, auto-fire, laser sights, and scopes, all to their weapons. This can really up the ante and power of a gun and make what was once a piece of junk, a more valued member of the team.
Sprint Mod
Use Action Points to Sprint Across the Wasteland
- Mod Link
- Mod Creator: Lork
Older titles like Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas simply had the jog option, the default movement speed that wasn't bad, but it wasn't exactly a sprint. Expansive regions like the Capital Wasteland would take quite some time to explore since players were constantly forced into a brisk jog, but thankfully, the Sprint Mod will allow you to actually run freely. The Sprint Mod also comes with tweaks to a new perk to tackle enemies by sprinting into them, and has speed multiplier formulas, as well as AP drain, ensuring that you can set your sprint to your own custom settings if the default isn't for you, but it works so well and brings deeper life to combat and exploration.
Loot Menu
Adds Real-Time Looting
- Mod Link
- Mod Creator: lStewieAl, Yvileapsis
Looting in Fallout 3 can take a bit longer than one might want, as you'll have to click a container or a corpse and fish through a menu of items to see what's even worth taking in the first place. Thankfully, this system was changed from Fallout 4 onwards to be far more immersive by allowing you to loot in real-time. This means that you can approach a container or a corpse and see the loot inside, and pick it up directly from there. This is a very useful mod and a great quality of life improvement for the game, and these loot menus are even sorted for ease of use by allowing quest items to be first, followed by weightless items, keys, notes, ammo, and more. You'd be surprised how much more energy this provides the game with by allowing you to seamlessly loot without opening a time-pausing menu.
NMCs Texture Pack for FO3
Adds New High-Resolution Textures
- Mod Link
- Mod Creator: NeilMc_NMC
It wouldn't be a true remaster without upscaled textures, which is why NMCs_Texture_Pack_for_FO3 comes in as a super useful mod. This global texture pack might not cover the DLCs, but it will replace terrain, trees, interiors, exteriors, and most other objects with high-resolution upscales with compatible sizes depending on your specific PC. This mod simply buffs the textures with real-life photograph-based equivalents (which is what it says on the tin) to really make the graphics pop more and seem less flat and dull, which most gamers would want, considering that this game is almost 2 decades old.
- Released
- October 28, 2008
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Use of Drugs
- Developer(s)
- Bethesda Game Studios
- Publisher(s)
- Bethesda Softworks
- Engine
- Gamebryo
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG
