From Far Harbor’s impactful choices, Automatron’s mixed storytelling, and Nuka-World’s questionable engagement, let’s talk about some of the Hits and Misses of Fallout 4 DLCs.

Fallout 4 is an extremely fun game with tons of elements from different genres.

While most people agree that it is an Adventure and Action game, veterans of the Fallout series argue that it is not an RPG.

For various reasons, I won’t go over that and I won’t join in on that conversation as well. Instead, I want to go over the DLCs Fallout 4 and whether they added something substantial to the base game.

If anything, I enjoyed Fallout 4 for what it was but there definitely were flaws in the game. Bethesda released DLCs that aimed to enhance and expand this experience.

To keep things shorter and focused, I will only go over three DLCs that added more story content in Fallout 4. Also, these are in the order by which I played them.

Fallout 4 DLCs I will Discuss

• Far Harbor
• Automatron
• NukaWorld

Far Harbor

Far Harbor’s main story is set on Mount Desert Island and revolves around the rising tensions between its factions, and the island’s radiated fog.

Some important notes to be had here are that its factions are Far Harbor’s citizens, the Church of the Children of Atom, and Acadia.

Acadia is a Synth faction led by DiMA, who aims to create a place for synths to live freely while cohabiting with other creatures. The Children of Atom is a religious group that believes in radiation as some divine power. Then, we have Far Harbor whose citizens are; mostly, humans trying to survive the fog, and its monsters.

After finishing Far Harbor DLC’s main story, the first ending I chose was getting DiMA punished by the citizens of Far Harbor. Unlike, the base game’s main story, I liked that your interactions with its various characters in Fallout 4 DLC actually showed its effects. In particular, every citizen in Far Harbor you helped will disagree on attacking Acadia and those you didn’t help will not.

Each character will have a specific dialogue and will react on this ending which actually evokes more weight to your actions than just showing Acadia being raided or DiMA getting killed.

Still, the citizens of Far Harbor will kill DiMA for this action so I actually tried doing another ending.

Aside from having different Faction endings much like the base game, there are different ways to go about these Faction endings.

The second ending I chose was to keep DiMA alive to maintain Acadia and their production of Fog Condensers, while maintaining peace with Far Harbor and the Children of Atom.

Albeit seemingly the perfect ending, you will have to replace the leader of the Children of Atom. You may go about this by killing him or convincing him to leave.

While this ending is less interesting and has less variety than the first ending I chose, it kept itself consistent with one of Fallout’s design pillars of having no “correct” choice.

The map itself is interesting, reminding me of Silent Hill but on a swampy island. There are tidbits of lore scattered around in Fallout 4 DLC but I felt that they were not as interesting as they could have been.

The side quests are enjoyable, veering more to the serious side but that is also fine. One mission that broke this tone was The Great Hunt, which was fun.

Overall, a great DLC that allows a much more RPG experience than the base game but I wish the developers added more.

Automatron

After finishing the Far Harbor DLC, I went on with the Automatron DLC.

The story and the plot twist were mediocre with nothing much to add to the character of the Sole Survivor.

Moreover, the main villain of this Fallout 4 DLC was the Mechanist whose lair was horrendously designed. It was a linear dungeon with repeated enemies and no unique features.

I believe there are only two endings, with one sparing the Mechanist through a speech check. Unlike the Far Harbor DLC’s endings, there aren’t different ways of achieving either endings.

The only thing I found interesting about the Mechanist was the Robobrain companion you could find in her lair called Jezebel.

There is a bright side to this Fallout 4 DLC, there is new content that brings more variety to the world of Fallout 4. These include a new hostile faction called the Rust Devils, robot companions, new settlement objects, and weapon mods.

However, these don’t seem to affect the main story of Fallout 4 which I think it should be considering the Mechanist’s technology is something the Institute and Brotherhood of Steel would certainly take interest in.

Bad story for unique content? Seems like a fair trade.

Nuka-World

The last DLC I played was the Nuka-World which got me asking, ‘Why?’

After spending 155+ hours in Commonwealth and Far Harbor, why am I in Nuka-World?

First, let’s go with the introduction. It starts with you finding out that Nuka-World, a famous amusement park that existed even before the Great War, still stands today. You travel to Nuka-World and things take an interesting turn, you then find yourself becoming the leader of the three raider gangs occupying Nuka-World — The Operators, The Disciples, and The Pack.

Fallout 4 DLC’s introduction lacks appeal and doesn’t make sense. The way I was brought to Nuka-World also did not compel me to engage with the new area and its citizens.

Some of the questions I asked were: What is my purpose for going to Nuka-World? Why am I the boss of a raider army? Why do I trust Gage? Why is my character doing odd jobs for the raider gangs? Why is my character fine with all this? And so much more.

The Main Story, at least up to where I managed to play, just did not make sense. Admittedly, there are some fun side quests and characters you will find in Nuka-World. However, none of it held its ground as I constantly questioned my existence in the DLC.

Even after tens of hours in Nuka-World, I had to wonder: What does the Nuka-World DLC add to what Far Harbor DLC or the base game has already given?

Moreover, does Nuka-World even add more enjoyment than that which I have had in Far Harbor and the base game?

I think it has not.

Unfortunately, I shelved this one and decided to stick with wandering the Commonwealth. It actually feels more fun playing first-person Sims than progressing Nuka-World.

As a final note, Fallout 4 DLC Nuka-World did not give me a fun Adventure Exploration or RPG experience.