Fallout 4's Sanctuary Hills gets its old neighborhood back with a complete prewar rebuild

Remember those first few minutes of Fallout 4? The nice little houses, clean streets, green lawns, and that brief, almost suspiciously peaceful glimpse of life before everything went to hell?

Well, Fulvin5 has been busy putting the neighborhood back together.

PreWar Sanctuary Hills - Rebuilt recreates Sanctuary's prewar appearance with restored roads, houses, driveways, vegetation, and even the North Bridge. The homes have walkable interiors, there's a considerably expanded workshop area covering the island and nearby water, and players get new building pieces including house variants, fences, hedges, carports, trees, and other neighborhood essentials. Better still, much of it can be scrapped and customized, so you're not simply looking at a pretty recreation that can't be touched.

This is a from-scratch remake of the creator's earlier Sanctuary project, rather than an entirely new idea, and it doesn't require a stack of additional mods or DLC. There are some limitations, though. The creator has only tested the older PC version of Fallout 4, other Sanctuary overhauls may conflict, and distant scenery can still show the original ruined layout because the LOD hasn't been regenerated.

But there's something oddly satisfying about the idea of bringing Sanctuary back to the way it looked before the bombs fell. Although knowing Fallout, somebody will probably have turned the whole place into a heavily fortified military compound by the end of the afternoon.