It’s been a couple of weeks since the Fallout 4 Automatron DLc dropped on all platforms and I’ve been feverishly adding automatrons to all my settlements since then.

“The mysterious Mechanist has unleashed a horde of evil robots into the Commonwealth, including the devious Robobrain. Hunt them down and harvest their parts to build and mod your own custom robot companions. Choose from hundreds of mods; mixing limbs, armor, abilities, and weapons like the all-new lightning chain gun. Even customize their paint schemes and choose their voices!”

Automatron is a four mission DLC that kicks off at level 15 for the sole survivor. Now only four missions seems rather small and I thought so too, until I played it on stream the night it released and realised I had been playing for over 7 hours and the sun was coming up. You can see my live stream below, and no worries, I didn’t finish the final fight on stream, not only for spoilers, but also cos I was half asleep at the time.

What I will say about the ending though is that it gives a really interesting moral decision, one that I’m glad I chose the decision I went with and has not only left me with a fun set of armour for my companions, but also a new settlement and a new set of random radio quests for that added experience and looting opportunity.

One thing I would reccomend to anyone just starting Automatron though, if you don’t have the robotics perk, max it out! The Hack ability for robots works on ALL enemy automatrons in the DLC and adds for some hilarious outcomes when attacked by the new raider gang that use the robots!

Speaking of them, this new raider group is called the Rust Devils. They use robot parts to make weapons and armour, and the armour is comparable with good tier Synth armour, only being out done by Legendary Synth pieces later on, so unless you have a full set of heavy combat armour like I did when i started the DLC, it’s a great way to get some extra protection from the bots you have to face.

Of course, everyone knows by now what the biggest draw of Automatron is and thats the ability to build and upgrade your own automatrons and put them to work in your settlements! You kick off getting this workstation when you finish the first mission of the DLC and also gain Ada as a companion. you can use the workstation to upgrade Ada with any of the items available to you based on your perks, Science, Armoury, etc just like other workbenches, but you can also find parts from dead automatrons you find in random encounters. The other fun thing is that you can also upgrade Codsworth and Curie if she’s still in her Miss Nanny body (not her synth body, oh sorry, SPOILERS!)

The new settlement, without giving away spoiles, is both amusing, but also a pain in the ass to use properly, of course, this weeks new DLC, Wastelander (out Tuesday 12th April) will cure some of those annoyances with the new settlement build options, but right now, it is pretty useless beyond giving some minuteman style radio quests. It does however make a good hiding spot for the sole survivor, especially when the new survival update comes along aswell.

I have utterly love playing Fallout 4 since the beginning (surprising, since I never got into Fallout 4 and I was never a fan of Skyrim), but something about it has just grabbed me and won’t let go and Automatron has just added tot he experience in spades. I love updating my provisioners to using sentrybots instead of humans (they are far more valuable than being pack Brahman anyway)

One gripe I would give though is the other new settlement item you can use, the Eyebot Pod, which, in functionality sounds really useful, however, is pretty useless. It works by giving the eyebot the command to search for crafting materials or ammo, however, especially when it comes tot he junk for crafting, the amount you find fromt eh two part mission it gives you are miniscule compared to the power (6) that the pod needs. Of course, some will say that it’s also useful for getting you back to places you previously cleared out for other loot aswell, plus it can be useful for finding rare ammo like Railway Spikes and Cannonballs. But even those really aren’t worth it to be honest, so frankly, after testing, I scrapped the one I built.

All in all this is a great DLC, certainly worth the season price cost (I’ve played full price games with shorter storylines than this…) but even after the DLC price increase,
looking at the other DLC’s and free updates that are on the way? totally worth it! A Solid 9 out of 10!

~Lone