"Wandering through these forests can get you killed very quickly."
— Knight Jared Fitch
Fallout 4: Northern Springs is a Fallout mod first uploaded to Nexus by mod author Jshrapnelc in 2018, featuring a large new worldspace: a fictional, particularly hostile area of New Hampshire some 210 years after the Great War.
Your adventure begins on a deserted road in the Commonwealth when you meet Badass in Distress Quinton Grant, who needs your help tracking down his kidnapped aunt, Cerina. As you meander towards Diamond City to enlist the help of his old friend, DC Security Chief Pete Cooper, you learn he and Cerina were attacked by Raiders in pursuit of a prototype weapon they had recently purchased from a mysterious drifter.
However, rescuing Cerina and recovering the prototype is only the beginning. To learn the weapon's origins and true purpose, you must travel to Northern Springs, a strange, frozen land (allegedly) cursed to eternal nuclear winter. Your journey is complicated by the presence of unique monsters adapted to the bitter cold, competing Raider gangs in the midst of a ferocious turf war, heavily Armored Mooks wearing stolen samurai gear, and WORSE. Every answer leads to more questions, and every step could be your last. Bring a coat.
Following the original author's sudden passing in 2022, a small team began the Northern Springs Completion Project to correct its bugs and implement its incomplete content. The first official bugfix patch is slated for release in August 2023.
Tropes in Fallout 4: Northern Springs include:
- Aborted Arc: And how. The author's sudden death in 2022 left many plot threads dangling and several ongoing questlines incomplete. The Northern Springs Completion Project is currently at work reconstructing his plans based on development streams and information disclosed on the mod's official Discord server, but whether his full vision will ever be completely realized is unknown.
- Acceptable Breaks from Reality: New Hampshire's nearest border is some 30 miles from Boston, but to prevent ruining time-sensitive quests, the in-game calendar does not advance the period of time it would realistically take to travel there on foot.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot:
- Played with- Emmett the Stand-Up Synth was programmed to subvert his masters by building the Prototype G. Rifle, but simply ran away with the device when said programming kicked in. He was taken in by a Vault on the verge of collapse, where he used his vast knowledge to save the survivors. He is almost entirely incidental to the chaos that ensued when he first broke and then lost the Prototype G.
- Played straight: explore the military bases in the area and you will eventually find a nascent robot rebellion, planning to take advantage of the chaos caused by the gang war. Time to do what you do best.
- Action Survivor: All residents of the decimated village Orchardfield are heavily implied to be this, standing their ground despite being smack dab in the middle of three warring Raider tribes. Unlike yourself, they have no access to sophisticated weapons or power armor in this frozen hellscape — all they have are some pipe guns and each other.
- Anti-Frustration Features: Early versions of the game placed the travel point for the Cavern of Broken Faith right at its entrance... in the middle of a pond so toxic it kills the player immediately. The marker was later moved to prevent this.
- Author Appeal: The heavy influences of death metal and Japanese medieval culture felt throughout the mod.
- Autobots, Rock Out!: The original death metal soundtrack, composed and performed by its author and his band, Heart Impaled, is a highlight of the game and can pump you up for any battle.
- Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: Two for one: Frosty the Sasquatch, a blue Super Mutant Behemoth who can be found lingering below the Broken Bridge, and the Abominable Snowman, a blue gorilla-like creature that dwells in Northernfield Mine. Both are immediately hostile and dangerously powerful.
- Cozy Catastrophe: Sanatogan has weathered the Great War and the following perma-winter of Northern Springs relatively well. This is largely thanks to the high value of Sanatogan Mushrooms, farmed almost exclusively in a nursery within the city walls. The town boasts a thriving business district, a cushy residential district, a pub serving many local delicacies, and to top it off, a huge library where you can turn in books you find around the area.
- Creepy Cemetery: A massive graveyard/hedge maze occupies a large swath of the eastern side of the map. Rumors say it's haunted. Local peacekeepers say it's just infested by feral ghouls. The haunting may or may not be real, but the ferals with plenty of places to hide are VERY real. Hope you brought some Berry Mentats along.
- Death World: This place is actively out to get you. The water can lethally irradiate you in seconds, perpetual rad-storms plague the northwest sector of the map, packs of wolves roam the countryside, and that's not even getting into the human threats or the powerful monster variants. Only the toughest and scariest can survive the frigid conditions. Not an area to approach as a low-level player.
- The Dreaded:
- The Chimera Deathclaw. There are only two in the entire map, but they leave a lasting impression. Larger and more lethal than any Deathclaw in the vanilla game, your best choice for survival is to avoid them altogether.
- The Gojun is made of the terrifying Albino Deathclaw tamed by the Kagatsuchi gang, but it's no more powerful than any other Albino Deathclaw you can encounter.
- Fight Clubbing: You can find a bareknuckle boxing tournament in the northwest corner of the map where Raiders duke it out to the death. You can also sign up to compete yourself. To prevent cheating, all your items are confiscated at the door. No weapons, no PipBoy, no cure items except what you assign to hotkeys. Have fun.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Inverted. No matter how infamous you may be in the Commonwealth, no one in Northern Springs has a clue who you are when you first arrive — unless you've made an enemy of the Brotherhood back in the Commonwealth, in which case they will attack you on sight. Justified Trope — In Northern Springs, only the Brotherhood has access to long-range communication devices.
- Game-Breaking Bug: Early versions of the game disabled players' ability to interact with N.P.C.s, for reasons still not entirely understood. Fortunately, this bug has been patched out.
- Genki Girl: Terra. Written as a expy to Moira in Fallout 3, this exotic flora vendor is relentlessly upbeat.
- Ghost Town: Wolfendale. As implied by the name, the area is infested by wolf packs who killed off most of the previous inhabitants (or drove them underground to be torn apart by feral ghouls). Today, the town is occupied almost exclusively by the Brotherhood of Steel, who commandeered the ruin as a base of operations. Fortunately, the old hardware store is completely intact, and a bounty of crafting materials can be found there.
- Grim Up North: While not exactly north of Massachusetts, this snowy patch of New Hampshire is about as grim as it gets.
- Hidden Elf Village: An outright evil example. In the center of the largest and most irradiated lake on the map is an island entirely peopled by radical Children of Atom who attack all outsiders regardless of faction alignment, provided you survive long enough to get there. Obviously, this sect does NOT want to be disturbed.
- Hidden in Plain Sight: Charred Ghouls populate the Northernfield mine, where the muddy walls match the color of their scorched hide almost exactly. Keep your guard up.
- Homage: Lo Pan's Castle in the northwest section of the map is solely an elaborate reference to Big Trouble in Little China.
- Hypercompetent Sidekick: Quinton sure doesn't ACT like he needs your help. His extra powerful flamethrower can make quick work of any enemy in the Commonwealth, and goes a long way towards helping you survive against the far deadlier enemies of Northern Springs.
- An Ice Person: The Harvester Mirelurks. Their shells give off a cold mist similar to dry ice and their touch alone can freeze a character in their tracks, leaving them open for attack. Pause screens advise against short-range combat.
- Monster Clown: Homeboy, a clown you can encounter in the Wolfendale Sewers, doesn't actually do much unless provoked, but he does... stare. Menacingly. Another example of Aborted Arc- early development streams revealed there was meant to be an entire Circus of Fear down there.
- Made of Explodium: Beware the red mushrooms. Some are only dangerous if eaten, but others are more... volatile.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Is the "curse" of eternal nuclear winter exactly that, or some bizarre confluence of scientific phenomena caused by the war? Until the incomplete missions of the game are fully realized, the answer will remain a mystery.
- No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: In earlier versions of the mod, you lost the Prototype G. Rifle once you returned it to its makers, as they need it to complete the device and ascertain its original purpose. The updated version averts this by allowing you to craft a new, slightly nerfed one of your very own after completing the main quest.
- Nothing Is Scarier:
- In Ravenhead Quarry, you can find some sort of Satanist shrine, complete with flaming inverted cross. Besides a few Mirelurk Kings, however, there are no enemies and no indication of where the worshippers may be or what they could be planning. The place is just... there, with no explanation or context.
- The Demiurge. The tunnel leading to the subterranean Eldritch Abomination Dema Baala is currently inaccessible, but the mine shaft leading down to it and the cowering cultist at the bottom muttering ominous warnings are disturbing enough in their own right.
- Paper Tiger: A juvenile Deathclaw hides in Northernfield Mine, and will both roar threateningly and hurl rocks when approached; however, unlike his larger brethren, he will flee rather than fight if attacked.
- Quirky Miniboss Squad: Beef and his crew, Aunt Cerina's kidnappers. Each has his own gimmick (e.g., Craw Daddy and his pet Mirelurks).
- Schmuck Bait: Go ahead, eat those weird red mushrooms. What could possibly go wrong?
- Snow Means Death: Oh, yeah. Welcome to America's Winter Playground, BITCH.
- Super Prototype: The Prototype G. Rifle is stated to have been part of a device intended for peaceful purposes, but being partially broken made it unstable and dangerous, enough so to kill even a Legendary Deathclaw in seconds. This excessive amount of power is mitigated somewhat by the cost of manufacturing more ammo for the weapon.
- Took a Level in Kindness: In the vanilla game, the Brotherhood of Steel has devolved into outright fascism and fanaticism. In Northern Springs, a more remote local branch has greater interest in helping the people, though this is partly to keep open trade routes for the rare Sanatogan Mushroom.
- Unfinished Business: A ghost rewards you with ownership of his farm if you slay the gigantic Radscorpion who killed him and his family. Another ghost can be found in an abandoned home near a poem explaining she deliberately became a ghost because she wished to echo her anger at the world through eternity, though she does little besides watch when you find her.
- Unobtainium: Why does anyone bother to settle this terrifying, frigid wasteland? Because it's the only place in the world where one can cultivate the Sanatogan Mushroom, a very special fungus that rivals Little Lamplight's algae in radiation-curing properties. Its value is such that despite the harsh surrounding conditions, Sanatogan is one of the cleanest, prettiest, and most prosperous settlements in the remnants of New England.
- Wide-Open Sandbox: Northern Springs boasts a map larger than Nuka World with more interiors (though most are considerably smaller).
- Woman Scorned: Kassandra Jones sics you on a specific Raider gang for the princely sum of 1000 caps. She may or may not mention that its leader is her ex-boyfriend. Yikes.
- Zerg Rush:
- Imagine this, but with the vast numbers of weak enemies replaced by packs of DEATHCLAWS, to the point of being pinballed from one power attack animation to the next until you succumb to your wounds. Venture into the pea-soup fog in the northwest section of the map and you can experience it first-hand. They never stop coming, either — some half-dozen populate the area by default and they respawn after death almost instantly. One wonders how there's enough food up there to keep them all alive.
- As for more traditional examples, the packs of wolves and mobs of low-level feral ghouls.
