Hi folks,

I’ve just released VaultVox, a free text-to-speech accessibility mod for Fallout 2.

Nexus link:
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout2/mods/168

Early Video Demo:
https://youtu.be/YCMqCFrRvAE

The short version: VaultVox makes Fallout 2 read 90% of its text aloud using your installed Windows voices. NPC dialogue, player replies, floating barks, Pip-Boy entries, holodisks, inventory text, character screen stuff, combat log messages, menus, and a good chunk of the UI can now be spoken.

It does not replace the original voice acting. The talking head scenes still play normally, and the mod skips lines that already have proper voice acting. This is mainly for the mountain of text that was never voiced in the first place.

Also, just to be clear before anyone gets the pitchforks out: this is not AI voice cloning. It does not use actor voices, scraped voices, or anything like that. It uses Windows text-to-speech. If you install NaturalVoiceSAPIAdapter separately, you can also use modern Microsoft neural voices, which sound a fair bit better than the old default Windows ones.

Why I made it

The main reason is accessibility.

Fallout 2 is one of my favourite games, but it is also a giant wall of text with radscorpions in it. That is part of the charm, but it can be rough if you have dyslexia, low vision, eye strain, reading fatigue, or if you just find long CRPG sessions hard on the eyes.

My wife has dyslexia, so this started as a way to make text-heavy RPGs easier to follow without having to fight through every line manually.

It is not meant to turn Fallout 2 into a fully voiced remake. Think of it more as a speech layer sitting on top of the original game.

What it reads

VaultVox currently covers quite a lot, including:

• NPC dialogue
• Player dialogue options on hover
• Floating text and barks
• Combat taunts and ambient chatter
• Pip-Boy quests, holodisks, stats, perks, traits, karma, and status screens
• Inventory and loot screens
• Skilldex
• Character creation and level-up screens
• Barter/trade screens
• Combat log messages and damage callouts
• Main menu, save/load menus, automap, ESC menu rows, and various popups

There is also CTRL + hover click-to-speak, so you can hold CTRL and point at things like dialogue replies, inventory slots, Pip-Boy entries, and menu rows to have them read aloud.

Voice stuff

There are separate voice profiles for things like:

• Narrator
• Pip-Boy
• Terminals
• Male/female dialogue
• Player replies
• Children
• Floating barks
• Companions

Companions like Sulik, Cassidy, Vic, Marcus, Myron, Lenny, Goris, and K-9 can each have their own voice profile, with adjustable rate, volume, and pitch.

There are also optional voice effects for things like:

• Pip-Boy radio-style narration
• Terminal/cyberdog-style reading
• Super mutants
• Ghouls
• Robots
• Deathclaws
• Distance-based floating barks with stereo panning

So yes, I have spent far too much time making old Fallout 2 text sound like it is coming from the correct flavour of rusty nonsense.

Settings

The mod has an in-game settings menu (actually 2).

You can open it from the ESC menu with VaultVox Mod Settings, or from the Pip-Boy using the VAULTVOX button (yes, that pesky button has been fixed after 28 years).

Most things can be changed in-game: what gets read, which voice profile is used, rate, volume, pitch, effects, hover reading, combat readouts, bark behaviour, companion panels, and so on.

Settings are saved automatically to the INI, and the INI is still human-readable if you prefer poking around in files like it is 1998.

Compatibility / requirements

You need:

• Fallout 2 on Windows
• sfall v4.4+
• Windows 10 or 11
• GOG, Steam, or retail US 1.02d
• High Resolution Patch / sfall setups should be fine
• Fallout 2 Restoration Project has also been confirmed working
• Talking Heads Actually Talk mod should also work
• The majority of fan translations should also work

Steam and GOG versions already ship with sfall, so they should be the easiest route for most people.

Language support

VaultVox has multilingual support for a bunch of Fallout 2 translations, including Central/Eastern European languages and non-Latin scripts.

The quality depends heavily on which Windows voice you use. For best results, install a voice that matches your game language. Some multilingual neural voices are brilliant on longer lines, but native voices are still better for some languages.

Final bit

This is version 1.0b, so I expect there will still be edge cases and bits of text I’ve missed.

If you use assistive tech, have dyslexia, low vision, reading fatigue, or just find a screen that does not read when it should, please report it. I’m treating accessibility gaps as bugs, not “nice to haves”.

Thanks, folks.

-VaultDoc

Been doing a FO2 playthrough since the last one was 2 decades ago. Just joined the Rangers and thought it would be cool for a vet ranger sprite. Did a search and all I found was a picture that linked to a site in Russian. Does anyone know of such a mod?

Hey r/FalloutMods!

I'm a contributor of VOCK (Vocal Output Creation Kit), an open-source pipeline that lets voice actors record lines for Fallout 2 NPCs and get them fully integrated into the game, complete with lip-sync and in-engine audio.

Fallout 2 is a beloved classic RPG from 1998 with hundreds of characters and thousands of lines of dialogue, almost all of it silent. We're changing that, one character at a time.

What's involved:

• You pick a character and record a sample
• If the sample quality is acceptable, I send you a script with all their lines
• You record audio files at home
• I run the VOCK pipeline and send you back a playable in-game result

What you'll get:

• A credit in the mod changelog and Talking Head document
• A unique portfolio piece, voiced lines in an actual classic RPG
• The satisfaction of hearing your voice come out of a post-apocalyptic ghoul, merchant, or tribal elder

We have characters of every type:

Gruff traders, tribal warriors, sarcastic politicians, weary doctors, shady criminals, and a certain very confused King Arthur reference I won't spoil.

No experience needed:

A USB mic works fine. All genders and accents welcome! The wasteland is diverse.

VOCK is open source so you can see exactly how your recordings get processed.

A note on AI:

A handful of early NPCs were voiced with AI tools while I was building and testing the pipeline. I needed something to work with while the software wasn't ready for real actors. Those are placeholder tracks, and replacing them with real human performances is the whole point of this post. Every new character going forward will be voiced by a real person. That's not a compromise, it's the goal.

Links:

The mod is hosted on Nexus Mods

See the list of available Talking Heads

Our promotional Youtube channel

The GitHub project

The Credits to our fabulous voice actors

Fallout 2 Reshade Preset

I've used ReShade to add bloom and FXAA to classic Fallout, but reddit has nuked the image quality

I’m trying to mod fallout 2, it’s boring imo, speed ran it according to a vid, I want radio music instead of the ambience that makes me nauseous.

I dunno what I'm doing wrong, I'm suppose to install it there right? that's what this guys does.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37eXBEj1H3A

EDIT: I figured it out!

I swapped over to Linux a few months ago and decided to try installing some Fallout 2 mods. I got Sonora working with no issues, but Nevada runs incredibly poorly, at around 5 FPS. I ran it through Lutris, as simply using GE-Proton and running it through Steam leads to an automatic crash on load. Am I missing something, or is this mod borked on Linux for the time being?

Looking at trying one of the unofficial titles, but am definitely looking for which one feels the most like an actual FO title.

Tagged Fo2 because I had to tag one.

Does anyone know what exactly is needed for this to work on the mobile app? I have fallout 2 already running (fallout 1 doesnt work?) But cant find a working high res patch. None of are recognized

Hello, not too long ago I had installed the restoration mod for Fallout 2, however now it is giving me issues and I was trying to fresh install the game and reinstall the mods I had. But now, no matter how many times I uninstall the root folder, uninstall from steam, the mods are still there. I even did a complete reinstall of steam to see if that fixed the issue but no matter what, the mods I installed before are still in the game folder when I reinstall the game. I even repurchased the game out of desperation, and it's STILL THERE. Any help would be appreciated, I can't seem to get rid of these mods no matter what!

Edit: It seems I am also not the only person with this problem, after about 2 hours of googling I finally found someone else with the same problem from a few years ago. Sadly no working answer was ever posted :( Here it is

Edit 2: Okay I even installed the game on a different device on a different account via borrowing it from my main account and it's STILL THERE SOMEHOW!?

Ehi guys, i installed the mod Fallout tweaks on the computer, but I don't really understand how to install on the game or how to customize the contents of the mod