'Fallout: London': Here's How To Get It Now, For Free

'Fallout: London' is out right now, so hop, skip and jump to it.

Fallout: London is finally here. After its planned April 23 release date was delayed–hampered by Bethesda’s next-gen Fallout 4 update, which rendered the mod unplayable–GOG has announced that Fallout: London is available to download, for free, right now.

Despite rumors it was arriving in early August, the fan-created expansion, which has been years in the making and, at last, takes the Fallout universe out of North America (and no, you can’t count “outer space” because of Mothership Zeta), Team FOLON and GOG decided to drop it today (July 25).

In real terms, the hype hasn’t been so good–well, it might’ve been a little better on its originally planned release date, which was just two weeks after Fallout landed on Amazon Prime–but it continues to ride a wave of popularity, especially with reports that Fallout season 2 is ahead of schedule.

A remote community of talented developers has spent over five years creating London in its post-apocalyptic form, developing a new story, fully-voiced characters, new factions, Anglicised weaponry, and new gameplay elements.

Of course, London–a hive of world-famous buildings and areas that Brits like me love to visit, but only once or twice a year, if only to avoid bankruptcy–appears to be recreated in delightful ways. St Paul’s Cathedral is a sanctuary. The Imperial War Museum looks formidable. Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery look surprisingly untouched by nuclear war. The Thames looks safer to swim in than it does right now–you can probably bet both the real-life and in-game rivers have a similar rad count.

The Imperial War Museum, recreated here for 'Fallout: London,' really is a delightful day out, if ... [+] you ever plan to visit London. Pair it with a trip to Borough Market, which probably has the best food stalls in London, or if you're a cricket fan, The Oval's just down the road. The IWM London (as it's often referred to) is a stone's throw from Elephant & Castle (weird name, right? We're good at that), and it's full of exhibitions on the First and Second World Wars, plus all those other wars us Brits got into (too many to count, but I'm sure Americans will remind us of the Revolutionary War, but we're fine with it, it's fine, you won. No really, it's fine. Well done. It's good. We're OK with it). There are also some incredible and moving temporary exhibitions on truly important issues; the Holocaust retrospective is among the most brilliantly presented yet harrowing experiences going, and it's a can't-miss. If you're in the U.K., go to our museums at every opportunity—all our publicly-owned museums are free. It's like the NHS, but for education. The British Museum's a personal favorite (though it comes with controversies about how it acquired its items), while the Natural History Museum, V&A, British Library, Tate Modern, Science Museum, and National Maritime Museum are unmissable. Anyway, on you go, I should probably finish this article.

Even the wider UI is inspired by British sensibilities. Fallout: London chose Gill Sans for subtitles and other materials–a typeface used by British Railways and, at one time, the BBC–and a close derivative of the London Underground’s Johnston Sans, which is impossible to license. That said, praise the art and not the artist–creator Eric Gill apparently took the Devil’s Highway perk.

So, most importantly: you can download Fallout: London right here for free at GOG.com. The company offered to host it as it had a lot of delivery challenges due to its size; GOG has also promised to support the experience with a custom launcher both now and in the future.

This also helps mitigate those tech issues Fallout: London would face due to the next-gen update. Owners of Fallout 4: Game of the Year Edition on Steam need to downgrade their version then install Fallout: London via a dedicated launcher; full instructions are available on the download page.

GOG has clearly planned for this moment because Fallout 4 GOTY Edition appears cheaper there than anywhere else right now. If you’re one of around 14 worldwide players who wants to play Fallout: London but somehow doesn’t own Fallout 4 on PC, GOG is offering it for $17.71.

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