The Return of the Fens Sheriff's Department: An Ambitious Fallout 4 Mod

The modding community for Bethesda's Fallout 4 is as active as ever, producing a wide range of content and even producing mods of a size comparable to the game's official DLCs. One such mod is "The Fens Sheriff's Department," a sequel to a 2019 mod that offers a plethora of quests, characters, and voice lines, as well as a new ending to the base game.

The Fens Sheriff's Department is set in Diamond City and offers a vast array of new content. There are 50+ quests available to play, 15 unique NPCs, and 17,500 new voice lines. The mod also adds a fully-fleshed-out companion with its own quest line. It's an impressive amount of content for a mod and is the size of a standard DLC.

The biggest complaint with The Fens Sheriff's Department is that the protagonist's lines are unvoiced. This has been a contentious issue with Fallout 4's mods, with some feeling that a voiced protagonist restricts role-playing potential. To combat this, mod authors usually use AI voice generators; this mod, however, has gone with an unvoiced protagonist. As such, it may be wise to use a mod that adds a silent protagonist to the game to avoid any disconnect between the mod's dialogue and the base game's.

In spite of the lukewarm reception of Fallout 76, the Fallout franchise remains a beloved series, with an upcoming Amazon TV series set to air in 2023. With Microsoft's acquisition of Bethesda, many fans are hoping for a quick turnaround on a new Fallout game, though the priority, for now, seems to be on Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6. Until then, ambitious mods such as The Fens Sheriff's Department will be offering a wealth of content to explore.