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Fallout 4 Mod
Description
Step into New Atomic Hotels, a custom map for fallout 4, designed to showcase atmospheric storytelling and encounter design.
Setting: A decrepit prewar hotel with Dark, ominous lobby with crumbling architecture. Stairways connecting to the 2nd floor. A destroyed apartment, rich with environmental storytelling.
Features: Detailed set dressing with furniture and static objects to create a lived in, immersive atmosphere. Lighting to enhance mood and player tension.
Gameplay: Dynamic encounters with lurking enemies: feral ghouls and raiders.
This level is made in Fallout 4's Creation Kit, blending design, atmosphere, and engaging gameplay into a cohesive experience
Project Summary
Game Type: RPG, Action Adventure - First Person
Genre: Sci-fi, Dystopian,
Platform: PC, Console,
Role: Level Designer,
Development Tools Used: Creation kit for Fallout 4, Miro
Team Size: 1
Gameplay
The level is a mix of tight, collapsed interiors and broken apart hallways, creating close quarters combat scenarios. Since Fallout 4’s encounters scale with the player’s level, the space is designed to support a variety of playstyles but close to mid range weapons are ideal given the narrow layout.
Combat unfolds in two primary stages:
Feral Ghouls swarm the player in the open lobby, using surprise and numbers to overwhelm.
Raiders occupy a more confined top floor office, offering a contrast in pacing with tactical cover based combat.
An emergent moment occurs when raiders are attacked by ghouls, allowing the player to approach the chaos strategically or let the factions weaken each other before engaging. This setup encourages dynamic decision making and reactivity in how the player navigates the space.
Video
Core Design
This level was created to expand on the interior exploration opportunities in Fallout 4’s Commonwealth. My goal was to design a believable, atmospheric apartment complex—worn down and partially destroyed by time—that feels like a natural extension of the game world.
The space includes:
A multi room apartment interior with collapsed walls, debris, and blocked passageways to enhance immersion and narrative through environment.
A ground floor lobby and entrance area that sets the tone for the rest of the level.
Feral ghouls populating lower levels, creating tense and reactive encounters.
Raiders occupying the top floor, forcing players into more intense, coordinated combat as they progress upward.
Loot and container placement balanced across spaces to support exploration and reward risk taking.
The level balances environmental storytelling with layered combat pacing—beginning with creepy, reactive threats and ramping up to more aggressive human enemies.
Level design process
The design process began with learning the Creation Kit and Fallout 4’s modding pipeline. My initial focus was on creating small, self contained rooms to get familiar with the tools and workflow. From there, I expanded into building a larger, connected environment.
I started with a ground floor apartment layout, then iteratively added:
A hotel style entrance lobby as a focal point.
A central staircase to guide vertical navigation.
A top floor in a separate cell, designed to support performance and modularity.
Throughout development, I worked in layers—testing basic functionality before expanding scope. Each addition was grounded in gameplay purpose and player flow, and I continually iterated on layout, encounters, and spatial storytelling as I learned more about the engine’s quirks and best practices.
Technical Breakdown
In Fallout 4’s Creation Kit, levels are built using modular “cells”, individual spaces that can be connected via loading doors or triggers. Each cell acts like a self contained level, and by linking them together, you can create both linear and branching experiences.
This map began as an exploration of that system. I started by creating small, modular interior cells, then expanded by connecting them through interactive doors, building out a full multi floor structure. The ground floor leads through a damaged lobby, up staircases to a second floor and a top floor encounter cell.
This project was also my introduction to encounter setup and environmental storytelling in the Creation Kit. I learned how to place enemy spawns, control faction behavior, and manage loot container logic to make the world feel reactive and grounded, all while set dressing spaces to match Fallout’s iconic post apocalyptic style.
Problem Solving
One of the biggest challenges was understanding how to load and test custom maps within Fallout 4. The process isn’t straightforward, custom levels must be built as mods, packaged correctly, and then launched using third party mod managers to appear in game.
Through research, experimentation, and community forums, I successfully installed and launched my own mod. This allowed me to playtest the interior and make iterative design and bug fixes.
Another technical hurdle was navigation mesh (navmesh) setup, which is critical for AI to properly navigate the space. I encountered bugs with navigation and enemy pathing, but by studying Creation Kit documentation and community guides, I resolved these issues and ensured functional AI behavior throughout the level.
This experience taught me the importance of self directed learning, reverse engineering tools, and using available documentation even when it's incomplete, to overcome modding limitations.
Feedback / playtesting
Most of the iteration focused on room composition, pacing, and encounter balance. I playtested frequently to determine if interior spaces felt too cramped or too open, adjusting dimensions and layout to create a better fit for both exploration and combat.
Enemy encounters were refined based on difficulty, tuning the number of enemies to ensure that fights felt challenging but fair, and placing them strategically to surprise or pressure the player without overwhelming them. I also adjusted loot placement to reward exploration without unbalancing the progression.
From an environmental perspective, I evaluated which rooms felt visually complete and which were under or over-dressed. Some spaces were too cluttered and lost readability, while others needed more storytelling props or lighting adjustments to sell the atmosphere.
These refinements helped elevate the map from a functional blockout to a believable, immersive space that feels integrated within Fallout 4’s world.
Reflection
Working with Fallout 4’s Creation Kit taught me that the engine is surprisingly accessible for quickly prototyping and set dressing interior spaces. It was rewarding to work on a smaller scale project where I could focus on immersive environmental storytelling, layout composition, and pacing for a survival RPG in first person.
I learned how to build compelling spaces filled with narrative clues, combat encounters, and exploration hooks, important pillars of Fallout’s level design. This project deepened my understanding of how to support both action gameplay and slow burn exploration through spatial design and mood.
I’m excited to continue creating more interiors and full levels in Fallout or other Creation Kit supported games. This project was just the beginning of my journey into mod driven level design for narrative and systemsrich RPGs.
Showcase
