What's your "stress" game?

When I'm stressed out, super busy, or otherwise have low brain power, I have a go-to game. Or set of games, rather. When I don't want to play something that's going to make me think, I always go back to the Fallout franchise. I can easily just wander around, shoot a few raiders, club some molerats, and zone out.

You may have noticed a lack of posts here and on Bug & Claw over the last couple of months, despite development reaching great momentum last summer. My role at my day job started to taper as I knew it was almost done, and the hunt for the next thing began. Unfortunately, it has not been the best time to look for work. I have spent so much time and effort curating resumes, making a new portfolio site, and applying to every last thing that might be a fit. It wasn't until the last few weeks that I got any kind of reply. In between, my energy was sapped—I was expending more energy and emotional spoons job hunting than I had been in my day job. So, all I had the energy for was the odd drawing and some Fallout.

I've been grateful to have a series like Fallout. I thought I would share my setup in case anyone wants to copy me.

Streamed

Quite a while back, I picked up an Odin, an Android gaming handheld that has become such a lovely comfort. I can play tons of old-school games on it directly, and otherwise stream from my PC to it. I've slowly been letting go of any kind of console and sticking to PC streamed through this thing, and I love it.

How I stream is a totally different story. For most games, I just use the Steam Link app and it's golden. But not everything streams properly, especially Bethesda games. So I tried out Sunshine and Moonlight, a FREE PC streaming host and client duo that are a little more lightweight and care less about what they're passing through. Very nice little apps.

Fallout 3 + New Vegas

For a while, I was replaying Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Simultaneously. But not as separate games, oh no. You see, modders have found a way to merge the two games in a modpack called "Tale of Two Wastelands." This allows you to progress from one game to the other, even choosing which one you start in. It's extremely easy to get running, too. The modding scenes is so much easier to navigate in 2025/2026.

If you haven't heard of Wabbajack, it's a free app that will automate the downloading and installing of mods from curated mod lists for certain games like the Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and more. In particular, I was playing "Begin Again - Wabbajack modlist for TTW," which includes the Tale of Two Wastelands mod as well as several others that make playing these two classic games feel much more contemporary. I couldn't believe how good it looked, all the new places to explore, and the new enemies to encounter. It felt like a new game again.

Fallout 4 Trial and Error

Life In The Ruins

Since the hardest part of getting a Wabbajack modlist up and running is the waiting as it downloads and installs, I tried a couple of Fallout 4 lists. The first was Life In The Ruins, which was a wild experience. It exposed me to a slew of mods and gameplay experiences I never would have considered before and made areas of the game that were tedious before feel much more enjoyable. Gunners and Super Mutants actually felt intimidating. I planned my excursions into the wasteland. I enjoyed the Minutemen quests and interactions.

Life In The Ruins had downsides for me, though, that I couldn't live with. The main thing was that it had added so much foliage and clutter that it looked off and ran like crap even on my pretty decent PC. I am also extremely picky about how mods make NPCs look. If you're one of those weird modders who want every character to look airbrushed and beautiful and bouncy, all the power to you, but that is so not for me. Some of the core systems were close but also felt very off.

Fusion

I quickly uninstalled Life In The Ruins and kicked up Fallout Fusion, a much lighter-weight list that prioritizes efficiency and quality of life. This started to feel much better visually, although I had to manually remove a couple of mods, like ones that made Mama Murphy look like a hot 20-something-year-old yet still sound like a cracked-out granny. Same with the other NPCs looking super airbrushed again. I will never understand the folks who need every character in the game to look like this.

This is where I ran into some difficulty though, as something wasn't working with Fusion recognizing gamepads, and that's just a big no-go for me, even if I could fix every other last thing to my liking. And I am not interested in spending a bunch of time here. This is my stress relief.

Custom Fallout 4 List

These lists for Fallout 4 were cool and exposed me to some neat mods I would never have considered. But they just didn't feel like "my" Fallout. So, this is where I started to explore my own very quick, light-weight setup that would tweak what I wanted, like adding some new places to explore, but not touch some of the things I want to stay the same.

My Stable Fallout 4 Modlist (Feb 2026, Vortex, No F4SE)

Yes, I know, Vortex.

130 active mods.
GOTY + all DLC/CC.
Vanilla exe launch.

Tested: Vault 111 stable, settlements smooth.

Essential Fixes & Patches

Visual/Immersion Overhauls

Settlements & Building

Gameplay Tweaks

UI/Quality of Life

I'd love to hear where you start with Fallout 4 and what your essential mods are. I'd also love to hear what your "stress" game is and how you unwind when your brain can't handle much else.