Mods enable players to build their own content for the open-world game. Hundreds of unofficial patches already exist, but Bethesda's certified toolkit will allow Fallout 4 players to contribute to an official framework and see their work easily distributed via Steam.

According to Howard, mod support will drop between "the first two DLCs." The $10 Automatron pack is scheduled to drop in March, with the $5 Wasteland Workshop following the month after. "All of that stuff will go up on PC. People are beta testing it," noted Howard. "There'll be a lag on consoles. We want to get it up on PC and have it work. It'll probably be a good month before it hits Xbox One, and another month for PlayStation 4."

The launch of Fallout 4 also signalled "a big change" in the way Bethesda distributes its titles. On day one, the game sold more digital copies than it did at retail. That's a company first. While Bethesda isn't likely to mess with the status quo, it could signal more digital rewards in the future.