In case you haven’t been putting enough time into Fallout 4, the first DLC arrived a little while ago and gives a whole new mission sequence for you to get your teeth stuck into. Automatron is, as the name suggests, a storyline all about robotics and on the whole is pretty cool, but it’s pretty short and those of you with a hefty arsenal of weapons in your backpack will be able to brush it off in 3 or 4 hours.
But let’s look at what we actually get for our £7.99 – when you first load up your game after installing the addon you’ll have access to a new radio signal, requesting help from anyone nearby. As you rush to the spot highlighted on your map you’ll find a single robot trying to fight off several bigger, slightly more badass looking machines. It turns out that the last remaining friendly robot is Ada, who’s human companions have been killed in the attack and wants to track down The Mechanist, the guy behind the influx of robots into what’s left of the city. From this point onwards there’s a series of tasks requiring you to hunt down various robot parts, kill a lot of quite cross robots and find your way to the Mechanists lair, buried deep inside an awesome sprawling robotics factory.
In terms of the storyline that’s pretty much it really, there’s a great ending which I won’t ruin for you, but apart from that it’s mostly just trying to survive against these ever-increasingly violent and gun-heavy robots until the final few moments roll. It’s a strange one really, while playing I really enjoyed it, but looking back it was pretty samey and often boiled down to a war of attrition between me and the robots – one I often had to back out of to grab a bit more ammo from somewhere. I suspect I enjoyed it because it’s basically more Fallout 4, and who doesn’t want that?
But alongside the main quest is the other cool addition in Automatron: the new robot crafting station. This lets you gather up various parts of other robots and build your own destruction machine. Certain levelled up perks will help with this, but even without them you can still build a pretty neat robot using parts from those bots you’ve friend on your travels. There are hundreds of possible combinations, with weapons, body types, armour and colouring all up for customisation and upgrades. With some work you could very easily craft yourself a very handy partner to wander round the wasteland with.
So would I recommend Automatron? Yes, I would. Not because it adds loads to the storyline, but because it offers something different. There’s a new gang of raiders wandering round, there are now robots out and about waiting to throw everything at you, and the ability to build a small army of robots isn’t to be ignored either. And for £7.99, you’re hardly breaking the bank either. Definitely worth a look if you’re enjoying your time on Fallout 4.
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