The games from Bethesda Game Studios (BGS) and Obsidian Entertainment aren’t bad, but from one specific perspective they have a long-standing problem that only now is getting a really solid fix.

Nexus Mods is currently hosting a Fallout modding marathon timed to coincide with the second season of the TV series. The most notable new feature is Lip Motion Fix, a mod that solves the same lip-syncing problem in both Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout 3. As modder Asterra points out in the before-and-after video below, the lip-syncing is wrong in exactly the same way in both games.

The dialogue generation system makes numerous mistakes. For example, it displays the character with their mouth closed by default when they should be pronouncing the “ee” sound at the end of the word “modesty.” It also treats the word “town” as if it were pronounced “tone.” Additionally, the system has issues with elements of the script, such as dashes and voice-actor instructions in parentheses. If we take a closer look at the dialogues in the two games, we’ll notice many other issues.

That’s why Lip Motion Fix has a lot of work to do, not only fixing multiple synchronization issues in the two games but also ensuring compatibility with popular mods that modify dialogue and replace actors. Brave New World and mods that change the appearance of NPCs are also supported by Lip Motion Fix. This is an impressive amount of work. Installation is also complicated because it comes with an executable file that must be run to fix other mods.

The lip-syncing in the two games isn’t great, but let’s not forget that they were released in 2008 and 2010. Since then, we’ve gone through two console generations and are slowly starting to look toward the third. When lip sync isn’t as accurate as we would expect, it can be very noticeable, and Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas really fall short in this regard. Mods are a good remedy for this issue.

Source: PCGamer, Nexus Mods Fallout 3, Nexus Mods New Vegas