Following the wipeout of a game I had been playing since 2019, I made a concerted effort to resolve several key issues I had been having with a new download of Fallout 4 (ver 1.10.0.19).

Bethesda support was very helpful and escalated my issue to their Advanced team, but after several days they couldn’t resolve the issue. I also worked with Microsoft’s Xbox Support but they couldn’t or wouldn’t help; by “wouldn’t” I mean, it was pretty clear to me that the version was being rolled out by Xbox Services and Microsoft wouldn’t pursue the problem that far. I’m not angry about this because I trust that Microsoft is still trying to deal with the problems created by the SolarWinds hack. So, I decided to try to live with the new version despite the fact that it is inferior across a broad list of categories. Nonetheless, it is stable…so far.

I restarted my game without any Creation Club (CC) items or Mods. I played quickly through the lower levels but around level 20 I started adding some CC items: dogs, back pack. I continued moving forward and eventually added more CC items, then a couple mods, then a couple more. I’m currently back to Level 50. I’ve also been very strategic in developing my factions, and I met with the Minutemen and took back Fort Independence (The Castle), but there’s a new problem.

The new problem: I’m reasonably certain that the version of Fallout 4 I’m running on Xbox does not notify me when my settlements are under attack. This would be something I might be able to live with normally, but after taking The Castle I noticed that the morale of all four of my settlements cratered 30 to 40 points. At Abernathy Farm, several settlers told me that they are “really in trouble here.” But it was not at all clear what I needed to do to help. I’ve played this game a lot over the years and I’ve never seen this level of morale destruction. So, here I am, once again, wondering where this will lead.

About a month ago I repurchased the Fallout 1st subscription within Fallout 76, so I’ll probably put Fallout 4 on the shelf for awhile and return to FO76. My hope is that at some time in the future, a new version of FO4 will be release that solves the many anomalies I’ve discovered. I really, really, really hope Microsoft/Bethesda comes through with better version of FO4, but it’s an old product and they may be putting their money elsewhere.