Fallout 4 Automatron Review

With little to no fanfare, the first Fallout 4 DLC, Automatron dropped today. This came as a welcome reprieve from the hours I have been dumping into the Division. With that being said, the DLC is not all that interesting. It is important to note that I never really got invested into the crafting side of FO4, so an expansion like this is not really meant for me. Find out below what I thought.

Robots with flames

Re-entering the world of FO4 was fun. Seeing my collection of powersuits and guns, brought back memories of the games launch week. Just as I was wondering how the DLC started, I was immediately given a quest to listen to a lost caravan’s distress signal. This sparked the roughly 2 hour storyline of Automatron. Unfortunately the story is weak. An ‘evil’ individual called The Mechanist, is creating an army of robots who are raising havoc on the Commonwealth. You partner with a robot named ADA, who wishes to see justice taken on the Mechanist. What follows is a bland mix of fetch and craft quests. For two hours I was simply instructed to go here and gather x, or go there and gather y. Once everything was gathered there was a final showdown. Pretty lackluster in terms of the story department. There was never a real wow moment(either through setting or story). Areas felt bland and repetitive. With that being said the overall purpose of this DLC is to introduce the Robot Crafting Table.

Robot Crafting allows for players to gather robot parts and create their own robot companions. I tried out the system and for those that like this sort of thing, it seems robust. My robot design included flotation,a pink color scheme and a hand that was a flamethrower and a hand that was essentially a sledgehammer.  Unfortunately robots are considered companions, so I had to dismiss trusty Dogmeat. This is unfortunate as the robot that I created felt lacking in any distinct character and would serve better as a complimentary character to a main companion.

Look at my robot. It looks so amazing!

Combat is basically fighting robots of varying difficulty. I did find that a certain robot had a lazerbeam of death that could basically one shot me, even when I was wearing a full suit of power armor. This is an odd difficulty spike given how easy the rest of the enemies are. There is a bunch of new weapons and armor which is nice. However having a character in endgame, made most of them feel useless.

In closing, it has to be said that this review is largely based on the fact I don’t really like the crafting in FO4. If you like crafting, I can see the value here. The Automatron DLC is simply an extension of the crafting system with a bit of storyline tacked on. If you loved crafting, I can definitely see this being a must have piece of DLC.

Arbitrary score 6/10