Monkey’s paw: players are reporting problems with mods
Dear old Fallout 3 got an update on Steam this morning to remove Games for Windows Live, which is not a headline I expected to write in 2021 — or ever. I’m no stranger to years-old games in my Steam library updating out of the blue, but of all the possible reasons and all the possible games, this is pretty surprising. Also, it’s on sale.
Officially, Update 1.7.0.4 makes it so that the Steam edition of Fallout 3 “no longer requires Games for Windows Live and will now launch,” which is an amusing patch note.
The developers recommend “uninstalling and reinstalling” the game for the best results, so if you’re facing issues, especially with mods, try that first. Here’s hoping it launches!
That said, don’t be surprised if there are wider repercussions with this update, especially if your game is decked out. Plenty of players previously turned to mods to bypass Games for Windows Live (and improve or expand upon Fallout 3 in general), while others just went with the less finicky GOG version. Heads up: some players responded to the patch’s discussion page to say that the Fallout Script Extender (FOSE) has stopped working.
My memories of Fallout 3 and Games For Window Live are both a blur. I was enthralled with the former at the time, though I don’t think I could go back; it would probably feel like walking through my weirdly-small-in-retrospect elementary school as an adult. As for Microsoft’s pesky-at-best, outright-broken-at-worst PC service that bloated some of our favorite games in the late 2000s, the less said — and remembered — the better.
It’s wild that the remnants of GFWL haven’t been eradicated from all of the big-name games that used it, and it’s even wilder that the needle is slowly moving in that direction.
As for that Steam sale, it’s a franchise-wide promo. Some titles, including Fallout 3, are as cheap as $3. What are the odds that this game will get Steamworks support one day?
[Image credit: Ceril The Evlat]
