Update: According to Bethesda, mods are live
Update 2: Mods and Bethesda.net are having connectivity issues, Bethesda reports.
Don't look now, but the entire landscape of console gaming is about to change. Today, Bethesda enables mod support for Fallout 4 on Xbox One, giving console players access to the treasure troves of user-created content that have been available to PC players for decades. Better late than never, after all. The company has already let us know how the whole thing works via a Twitch stream, however, so here's how you'll get started on changing things up with Fallout 4 on Xbox One. Mods aren't nearly as complicated to use as they once were, and the process of screwing around with your save files should be very simple.
Mods aren't live yet, to be clear, but Bethesda has promised to tweet when they are later today.
Because the console lacks the sort of exploratory interface available to PC players, mods have to be done entirely in game. So first you've got to update Fallout 4 -- you'll know you've done so if you get a new option on the main menu labelled "mods." Click on it. You'll need a Bethesda.net login to get started, but that's easy enough. That will take you to the rapidly expanding library of player-created mods available on Xbox One, and now it's just a matter of selecting what you want, be they new weapons, settlements, gameplay changes, cheats or characters. When you install some, it will clone your save files with "modded" equivalents. That not only disables achievements, but offers you some backup versions of unaltered files for when things inevitably go wrong. Here's what the menu will look like:
After that, the most important advice is to be careful: Bethesda has said that it's going to be cracking down on nudity and copyrighted content for console mods, but it's also trying to get out of the way as much as possible. That means it will definitely be possible to totally mess up your game, something that console players are not quite used to yet. Some mods will require other mods to work, some mods might conflict with each other, some might not work at all, and some, inevitably, will slip some of that nudity and copyrighted material in there anyway. That's the fun of mods, after all. Just know that the Xbox One imposes a 2gb limit to the number of mods you can install.
And just like that, console players gain a literally infinite amount of content for one of the best games of 2015. Let's hope other games follow suit: the weird world of mods has long been one of the greatest advantages that PC players have over console players, but those old divisions are weakening every day. Check back later for some info on the best mods to use. If you'd prefer a video guide, Eurogamer has a pretty good one:
