Fallout 4: Automatron Review – Building a Better Boston, One Sexy Codsworth at a Time

Fallout 4’s DLC season has begun with the arrival of Automatron! Build your very own robot and defeat the evil Mechanist in this $10 content update, featuring a new settlement, armour, and a few new weapons to boot. All of that does sound pretty sweet, but is it worth the price tag?

Honestly, the answer greatly depends on whether you are picking this up for the full price, or unlocking it with the cheaper season pass that’s no longer available. While all of the new areas, lore, and weapons are interesting to say the least, the quests themselves are still kind of dull. It’s also rather short; if you push yourself, the quest line can be completed in just a couple hours. There’s certainly much more to Automatron than the questline, but I found myself disappointed after finishing the final encounter. Not disappointed in what I had just experienced, but disappointed in knowing that I was finished and would be learning nothing further of the nefarious robobrain origins.

If you take the time to read through all the terminal entries and listen to a couple holotapes, you’ll probably notice that this is all pretty twisted and fits quite nicely into the more mature world of Fallout. Never once did I question  how each robobrain was created, and now the origins linger in the back of my mind each time I take one down. Without spoiling anything, just consider this: each and every one of those brains had to come from somewhere, right?

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“Aside from the quest being a tad short, there are some major positives and I think the Automatron DLC fits quite nicely with the rest of Fallout 4 in general.”

Aside from the quest being a tad short, there are some major positives and I think the Automatron DLC fits quite nicely with the rest of Fallout 4 in general. The robot creation is quite robust once you collect all of the schematics, and actually gives you pretty good reasons to place some perks in Robotics Expert. Fear not: even if you only have a few points in science and other perks like Armourer, you still have a good selection of parts to build from. You can also paint your robots however you like, choosing from quite a few options that I would love to see made available for power armour. All this customizability allows you to do one of the most amazing and fantastical things in gaming; build a sexy Codsworth. While I didn’t build him myself, it’s hilarious finding fan art and gifs of the worst companion ever turned sexiest companion ever. I mean, those legs… and that butt, it’s a wonder!

Easily my favorite part about all of this is the ability to work entire settlements with robots. Due to the customization, it’s easy to see who is working on what. Even without the colour coding, you could simply choose specific parts to indicate which crop they harvest or which post they’re stationed at, like thrusters for farmers and sentry bot legs for defensive units. The only thing robots can’t work are stores, and this is easily solved by simply placing a few human settlers as sort of overseers for your mechanical minions. It just feels great looking out over your settlement with your fancy new robot armour, commanding a robot army.

The new weapons on the other hand are rather hit or miss. Even when charging the assaultron head, I found it to be relatively weak. Same goes for the Mr. Handy buzzsaw arm and even the tesla rifle without specific mods. I made sure to choose one of my earlier characters for my Automatron playthrough so I couldn’t just steamroll through everything, and I found myself relying solely on the original gun setup I loaded into. The tesla rifle is super cool and looks incredible, but it just couldn’t cut it most of the time. You have to be especially careful to finish off certain robots quickly as some combinations are quite lethal, so be sure to pack a punch before heading off to the final dungeon.

If you did happen to buy the season pass, don’t be afraid to drop whatever you’re playing to check this out. Not only is the value great on its own – this is one of the smaller DLCs, Far Harbour is rumored to be even larger than Oblivion’s Shivering Isles – but I think that this is a fair set of content that incorporates itself nicely into the base game. Now, if you didn’t buy the season pass when it was cheap, then it’s a tough call. What you get is a lot of fun, especially building robots and filling your settlements with them. However, if what you’re really after is a nice long quest line to work you way through, I suggest you wait for Far Harbour. The story quality in the quest line is great, but the adventuring feels short and hastily constructed. If what you want is simply a solid addition to the base game, particularly if you’re on console and can’t play with mods yet, then Automatron will surely spark your interest.

***A PS4 season pass was provided to COG by Bethesda***