Looking for something to do this weekend? It could be a perfect time to patch Fallout 4! A new beta patch is now live on Steam, taking the game to version 1.3, all without (based on the current lack of complaints in the comments) messing with mod support.

The patch doesn't bring anything super-exciting to the table, unless you get charged up by ambient occlusion settings or new status menus. And hey, I don't judge if you do, but this patch seems to be more about the tweaks and the fixes rather than the new hotness: General memory and stability improvements, improved performance when looking through a scope, MacReady's Killshot perk now calculating headshot percentages properly, that sort of thing. Important business to be sure, but not the sort of thing that really makes a headline pop.

Here's the full list of new features:

• New ambient occlusion setting, HBAO+
• New weapon debris effects (NVIDIA cards only)
• Added status menu for settlers in your settlements
• Added ability to rotate an object you are holding with left/right triggers and pressing down on left thumbstick lets you switch the rotating axis
• Improved "ESDF" keys remapping support while in Workshop mode

If you want to lay your hands on this patch right away, you'll need to be opted in to the beta update program, the process for which is explained in the update announcement. Generally speaking, Bethesda is pretty good at not pushing patches before they're ready, but it is a beta patch, so consider yourself warned and exercise whatever degree of caution you feel appropriate.

Speaking of Fallout 4, we recently updated our compendium of some of the best Fallout 4 mods on the market. The weekend is saved!

In an admirable display of skill and patriotism, YouTuber GPG Shepard has used Fallout 4's settlement building mode to recreate Bioshock Infinite's flying city of Columbia. The video above will take you on a tour through the surprisingly dense settlement, and thanks to all of the Revolution Era Americana already found in Fallout 4, the settlement brilliantly evokes the hyper patriotism of Infinite's Columbia with relative ease (the lovely tune helps, too). 

Shepard has uploaded and linked to everything you need to get going on your own utopic vision of Columbia, though it won't take much. According to the builder, "99 percent of the objects are vanilla objects" which means you can get started on that sky city almost instantly. They've even uploaded their save file if you want to explore, but don't want to spend several evenings putting it all together. This is one of the more evocative, impressive settlements I've seen. Amazing work. 

It's a strange thing that 200 years after the nukes fell hardly a sprig of cress has sprung up in the Commonwealth. Modder GameDuchess invites us to check out photos of Nagasaki and Hiroshima a mere 70 years on to prove that point, and she's spruced up the Wasteland four times over: once for spring, summer, autumn and winter.

Fallout 4 Seasons (top name) combines a number of mods such as More Grass and All Tree Have Leaves to create greenery to rival that jungle we hear so much about on the radio. Some of the foliage looks a little off, particularly in autumn, but I'm still amazed by what modders are capable of without official tools.

The textures range from standard resolution up to 4K, so Seasons may tax the odd GPU. GameDuchess promises optimisation as time goes on in addition to working on the mod's most obvious flaw: seasons don't cycle. The switch has to be made manually, which doesn't do much for immersion, but such functionality is limited until the Creation Kit arrives. As GameDuchess says, "BACK UP YOUR DAMN DATA FOLDER AND SAVE GAMES".

Thanks, Eurogamer.

This week on the Mod Roundup, extend the reach Rico's grappling hook—infinitely—in Just Cause 3, and take Borderlands' cel-shaded look and smear it all over to Fallout 4. Plus, fight your way through a deadly theme park in a mod for Dying Light.

Here are the most promising mods we've seen this week.

Grappling Options, for Just Cause 3

Download link

Just Cause 3 is a game about taking mayhem to the limit. But who needs limits? This mod by Qub1 removes the distance limit on your grappling hook, meaning if there's an object loaded into the map, you can grapple to it, even if it's a distant building or mountaintop. Hang on tight.

Harran The Ride, for Dying Light

Download link

This impressive looking mod for Dying Light takes place in an abandoned theme park in which survivors have been trapped. There are new cutscenes and weapons, a radio station called ZombieFM, collectibles, custom voice work, and a few more hidden goodies and surprises. You can check out a trailer here.

Cel-Shaded SweetFX/Reshade EMB, for Fallout 4

Download link

I am personally not a huge fan of Borderlands-style cel-shading, but I have to admit if looks pretty neat when applied to in Fallout 4. Reddit user 'Reddit_is_wrong' started out using a SweetFX preset for Fallout 4 and adjusted the .ini file to give it those thick edges and comic page look. Here's the thread that gives you the .ini file and a list of other mods being used to bring that style to life in your own game.

Here's a mod that answers two questions. When will someone get round to modding Thomas the Tank Engine into Fallout 4? And what's next for the Fallout 4 NPC wars series? Really Useful Fallout by 'Well obviously Trainwiz did it' replaces deathclaws, vertibirds, mini-nukes, missiles, Liberty Prime and "one of the Flight Helmets, I don't know which, it's a surprise" with the little blue scamp.

Trainwiz (and Friends) was the madman responsible for replacing Skyrim's Alduin with Thomas. Though Thomas no longer has the Thuum, he can still eat your entrails and stalk your nightmares.

Next up: 1,000 tank engines vs. Randy Savage.

Thanks, Eurogamer.

Referring to Macho Claws as a mod is a disservice. It's the continuation of a proud and noble tradition of inserting 'Macho Man' Randy Savage, a legend of professional wrestling, into Bethesda games. First he was a mighty dragon in Skyrim, and now the Man has come to Fallout 4.

Unfortunately, the radiation has got to him (nobody's perfect), and Randy can be found roaming the Commonwealth as a deathclaw, making him marginally less dangerous than he was before. Still, one glimpse of that hat and those shades and all the power armour in the world won't save you. Macho Claws is the proud work of AronaxAE and FancyPants, and you can download it here. If that isn't enough for you, here's our selection of some of the other greats.

Thanks, Gamerant.

I was out late doing last-minute Christmas shopping when I stumbled across a tiny little store I'd never seen before, nestled in an alley between a Wal-Mart and a check-cashing place. The shop was called "Curios, Rarities, Bibelots & Old Sci-Fi Magazines That Inspired Games From 2015". Strange name for a store, but I decided to stop in, if only to warm my hands for a moment. It was a chilly night filled with snow and wind and maybe, just maybe, a little magic.

The shopkeeper was odd, with a vacant stare and questionable facial animations. "Looking to shop? I'm sure I have something you'd be interested in," he said. "I guess I've got a few minutes to browse," I replied. "Take a look at what I've got," he said, showing me his entire inventory, sortable by category. Strange thing was, after I paused my browsing to reply to a text, we had the exact same conversation again when I resumed looking through his offerings.

This may sound unbelievable, but did you know that a number of the games released in 2015 were based on stories from old pulp science fiction magazines? It almost sounds like I'm making the entire thing up just to pad our website with content while we're on vacation, right? But I have proof. Just take a look at some scanned pages from an old issue of Thrilling Tales of Wonder From the Radio Planet. It was published in 1933, and it contained a story called Fallout 4. After reading it, It's hard to believe Bethesda didn't draw a lot of inspiration from the story within.

Weird, right? That definitely feels like it was used as source material for the game. A little later on, we get to see some combat and a return to Sanctuary, which the Sole Survivor had begun to turn into a bustling settlement. It's really eerie, in a way, how much the game mirrored the themes and ideas of the magazine's story, as you'll see.

In case you're wondering if Dogmeat, Fallout 4's faithful companion, is included in the story, the answer is yes! Here's a scan from the magazine that clearly shows why Bethesda felt Dogmeat was a useful and necessary inclusion in the game.

Much later in the story—which I have to say weirdly focuses a lot on the protagonist managing her inventory, running back and forth between her various settlements, and buying items from stores so she can improve her weapons—we finally reach the moment where she acquires some important information about a missing child. Don't worry, I won't spoil anything for you. And oddly, the magazine doesn't spoil anything, either.

Amazing, huh? I haven't heard officially from anyone at Bethesda, but I have a sneaking suspicion this issue of Radio Planet was a big inspiration for their game. Anyway, I picked up a couple of other magazines while I was at that little strange shop, so I'll share some more scans this week.

By the way, if you're interested in making your own covers of sci-fi magazines, there's a great online tool called The Pulp-O-Mizer! I know that if I ever wanted to create a fake sci-fi magazine cover for some reason, it's definitely what I'd use.

Remember when Todd Howard said that Fallout 4 would give players the option to take a less-violent approach to life in the wasteland? Not entirely without bloodshed, of course, but one in which you can avoid [killing] a lot? He wasn't kidding, but it turns out that he wasn't entirely correct, either. As Kyle Hinckley demonstrates over a 37-part YouTube series, it is possible to get through the entire game—on Survival mode, no less—without snuffing out a single, precious life.

That's not to say that lives aren't snuffed, but Hinckley's high charisma means he's able to convince others to do the dirty work, so his hands remain technically clean. Naturally, there are numerous reloads over the course of the adventure, as he's forced to retry ability checks in lieu of simply blowing holes in things. But given the way the game pushes players into killing, and the tendency of companions to be quick on the trigger, I'd say it's a fair compromise, and the ultimate goal here is not to avoid death, but to avoid personally inflicting it. 

Despite Howard's promise of increased player freedom, Hinckley told Kotaku that he's disappointed in the lack of diplomatic solutions to problems, which he sees as a departure from the previous games in the series. My version of pacifism isn t really diplomatic, it s more exploitative of the game mechanics to achieve a zero-kill record, he said. In other [Fallout] games, you had a lot of alternatives for bypassing the combat, whether it was with sneaking, speech checks, or a back door opened with lockpicking and hacking. In fact, in previous games (at least 3 and NV), your companion kills didn t count towards your record either.

The last minute of Hinckley's final video proves his claim that he made it from start to finish with zero kills, but of course there are some spoilers along the way, and in the Kotaku interview as well. Consider yourself warned, and then watch the whole thing here.