Let's be real for a second. Bethesda games are basically giant, beautiful sandboxes held together by digital duct tape and the hopes of a thousand developers. While playing "legit" is cool for the first thirty hours, eventually you just want to fly. Or maybe you're stuck in a wall. Or perhaps a legendary Deathclaw just ate your last stimpak and you’re tired of seeing the "You Are Dead" screen. That’s where fallout 4 cheat codes come in. It isn't just about giving yourself infinite money—though that helps—it's about taking control of a world that sometimes feels like it’s actively trying to glitch you out of existence.
You hit the tilde key (~), the game pauses, and suddenly you're a god. It’s a rush.
The Console is Your Best Friend (And Your Worst Enemy)
Accessing the console is easy if you're on PC. Just tap the tilde key, usually right under the Escape button. If you're on a non-US keyboard, it might be the apostrophe or the grave accent key. Console players? Honestly, it’s a bummer. You don’t get a true command console. You have to rely on mods or specific glitches. For the PC crowd, though, the world is your oyster.
But here is the thing: the console doesn't care about your save file. It will let you type a command that breaks a quest trigger or deletes a floor tile you're standing on. Always, and I mean always, save your game before you start messing with reality. One wrong ID code and Preston Garvey might start floating into the stratosphere, and while that sounds funny, it makes finishing the Minutemen questline a nightmare.
The Heavy Hitters You’ll Use Every Day
Most people just want the basics. You want to be invincible? Type tgm. That’s God Mode. You get infinite health, infinite ammo, and your AP never drains. It's the "I just want to see the story" button. Then there’s tcl. This is "Toggle Collision." It lets you walk through walls and fly. If you’ve ever fallen into a gap between two rocks and couldn't jump out, tcl is the only way to save your sanity without reloading an hour-old save.
Another favorite is player.setav speedmult [number]. The default is 100. Set it to 500 and you’ll run across the Glowing Sea in about ten seconds. Just be careful; at high speeds, the game engine can't load textures fast enough, and you might find yourself running into a void.
Why Some People Struggle With Item IDs
The most common frustration with fallout 4 cheat codes is the player.additem command. It’s not enough to just type the name of the item. The game doesn't know what "Stimpak" is; it only knows 00023736. This is where a lot of players give up because looking up hex codes feels like homework.
Here is a pro tip: use the help command. If you want a specific gun, type help "Combat Shotgun" 4. The game will spit out a list of every ID associated with those words. The "4" at the end tells the game to look for items and objects specifically. It saves you from having to alt-tab out to a wiki every five minutes.
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Crafting Without the Grind
If you’re into settlement building but hate scavenging for copper and oil, you can just dump resources into your inventory. Use player.additem 0000000f [number] for bottlecaps (money) and player.additem 0000000a [number] for bobby pins.
For the hardcore builders, you can literally spawn entire shipments of materials. Want 1000 units of wood? player.additem 001ec157 1. It beats picking up every tin can and desk fan in the ruins of Boston. Honestly, the settlement system feels a lot more like The Sims and a lot less like a chore once you stop worrying about where to find screws.
Managing Your Character’s Soul (Stats and Perks)
Sometimes you realize fifty hours in that you built your character wrong. Maybe you put too many points into Charisma and not enough into Strength, and now you can't carry a single piece of Power Armor without moving at a snail's pace. You don't have to restart.
Use player.setav strength 10 to instantly max out a stat. You can do this for any S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute. If you want to add a perk without leveling up, use player.addperk [Perk ID]. For instance, if you want to pick any lock in the game, you’ll need the Locksmith perks. It’s a multi-stage process, but it works.
Be warned: skipping the progression can sometimes make the game feel hollow. There is a psychological "hook" to earning your power. When you just type a code and become a demi-god, the tension of a raider ambush disappears. Use these sparingly if you still want the game to feel like a game.
Fixing Broken Quests and NPCs
We’ve all been there. You're supposed to talk to an NPC, but they’ve wandered off into a wall or decided to stay in a basement three towns away. Or worse, the quest stage simply won't trigger. This is where fallout 4 cheat codes act as a DIY patch.
moveto player: This brings an NPC directly to you. You need their RefID first. For example, if Nick Valentine is missing, you find his ID and teleport him to your feet.sqt: This shows "Show Quest Targets." It gives you the internal name of the quest you're on.setstage [Quest ID] [Stage Number]: This is the nuclear option. It forces a quest to move forward. If a door won't open because a script failed, you can manually tell the game, "Hey, I finished this part, move to the next one."
It’s technical, and it’s a bit messy, but it’s often the only way to fix a "broken" playthrough. Just make sure you look up the specific stage numbers on a site like the Fallout Wiki, because skipping too far ahead can break the story's logic.
Modifying the World and NPCs
You can also mess with the scale of things. Click on any NPC with the console open and type setscale 2. They will double in size. Type setscale 0.5 and they become tiny. It doesn't really change the gameplay much, but seeing a three-inch tall Super Mutant trying to be threatening is some of the best entertainment the game has to offer.
If you're feeling particularly chaotic, killall will drop every non-essential NPC and creature in your immediate vicinity. It’s a great way to clear out a crowded room if you’re overwhelmed, but be careful—it can kill friendly NPCs and even your own companions if they aren't marked as "essential."
Advanced Tweaks: Field of View and Time
The default FOV in Fallout 4 can feel a bit claustrophobic, especially on wider monitors. You can fix this instantly. Type fov 90 90 or fov 100 100 to pull the camera back. The first number is your world view, the second is your hands/gun view. It makes the game feel much more modern.
You can also change the passage of time. The game usually runs at a scale where one minute in real life is twenty minutes in the game. If you want a more "real-time" experience, use set timescale to 1. If you want to see the sun fly across the sky like a time-lapse video, set it to 1000. Just don't set it to 0, as that can cause the weather system and certain AI routines to get stuck in a loop.
Avoiding the "Save Corruption" Trap
There is a myth that using fallout 4 cheat codes automatically corrupts your save. That’s not true. What is true is that some commands create permanent changes that the game engine struggles to track over hundreds of hours.
If you spawn 5,000 water melons in the middle of Sanctuary, the game has to remember the location of 5,000 individual items every time you load that zone. That is what crashes your game. Keep your cheating focused. If you spawn items, pick them up or delete them. If you change a stat, leave it. Don't constantly toggle scripts on and off while the game is trying to process a heavy combat scene.
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Taking Action: Your Cheat Sheet Checklist
If you're ready to start tweaking your game, here is the most efficient way to do it without turning your Commonwealth into a glitchy mess:
- Hard Save First: Do not rely on an autosave. Make a manual save labeled "Before Cheats."
- Identify Your Need: Are you stuck (use
tcl), poor (useplayer.additem f), or bored (usetgm)? - Find Your IDs: Keep a list of your favorite weapon and ammo IDs in a notepad file. It’s faster than searching every time.
- Test the Change: After entering a code, walk around for a minute. Make sure the UI is responsive and NPCs are still moving.
- Commit: If everything looks good, make a new save.
Remember that using these codes will disable Achievements/Trophies for that session unless you have a specific mod installed to re-enable them. If you're a completionist, you’ve been warned. But if you just want to turn a post-apocalyptic nightmare into your personal playground, the console is the most powerful weapon in the game.
For anyone looking to dive deeper into the technical side, researching "bat files" is the next logical step. You can write a list of commands in a text document, save it in your game folder, and run the whole list with one command. It's the ultimate way to set up a new character with all your preferred gear and stats in under three seconds. Stop struggling with the wasteland and start running it.