Evaluating Fallout 4's DLC- Incompetence meets brilliance 

It actually boggles my mind that the same people who made Fallout 4 made Far Harbor. Just goes to show they are capable of making great things, they just choose not to most of the time.

I don't know if you'll see this but there is an alternate ending for Oswald in Nuka World. If you travel north to a town called Bradberton in Nuka World, you'll find the body of Oswald's girlfriend. On her body is a goodbye tape. If you present the tape to Oswald, he'll give up Kiddie Kingdom willingly after realizing he has no reason to stay.

I think the biggest "you have to be a raider" problem in Nuka World is that the only stuff to raid is *your own stuff*. If there had been fewer player settlements and some of the sites had been occupied by other factions like the Gunners then putting raider settlements near them to funnel their resources into your settlements would have been a fun option.

Fun fact, if you’re wearing the full Silver Shroud outfit when meeting the Mechanist, you get entirely unique dialogue options that allow you to respond to them as if you were the Shroud

Facing the Mechanist while dressed as the Silver Shroud is the most fun I had in that DLC

“You can spare her and she will become a merchant, or you can shoot her and she’ll become a part of the ground” I died.

I always thought it was funny how Sierra Petrovita managed to navigate Nuka World completely unscathed considering she hardly ever left her home in Fallout 3.

Taking Nick to Far Harbor makes the Acadia experience far more memorable

"Incompetence meets brilliance" should be Bethesda's official slogan

It is incomprehensible that the genuinely great writing of far harbor exists in the same game as Preston Garvey

The story with Dima creating a refuge to escape the grasp of the Institute, just for him to resort to their ways and become what he sought to be free of in the first place, I thought atleast, was really great story writing on bethesdas half

I legitimately love the Automatron DLC for the Robot customization alone. The fact that I can take Codsworth and turn him into a Sentry Bot with industrial construction equipment and Tesla coils for weapons is nothing short of spectacular.

Vault 88 is the biggest waste of potential in the franchise to date. Despite every Fallout fan since the beginning of the series wanting to roleplay as an Overseer in their own custom vault at some point in their lives, Fallout 4 gives us what is basically a big settlement with a few crappy missions attached.

It's too bad you didn't notice that the "Tourist Lady" Sierra, is a returning character from Fallout 3, where she had her own Nuka Cola related sidequest. Edit: You should give this game the New Vegas treatment, where you make a third video about sidequests and companion quests. It's a meaty part of the game, and you're really missing alot otherwise.

43:53 Cait actually had a really good quest line and her VA did a really good job, her whole thing was you helping her with her drug addiction

You can later inform the brotherhood or the institute about the synth colony on Acadia and then they’ll raid the colony with you joining the raid.

I think the story of Nukaworld is lacking, eapecially if you choose the “good” ending. But I absolutely LOVE the location and clearing out the different parks. Also the music is amazing

Something interesting about the Automatron DLC! If you enter the Mechanist's Lair dressed as the Silver Shround, she will begin addressing you as such. You'll have the option to speak as the Silver Shroud (similary to the original quest) and even get unique dialogue because "The Mechanist" was a villian from the original show (evidently the girl based her alter ego on the character). It's an interesting touch to an otherwise simple interaction, I just wish more of the game had moments like that.

Bradberton being reduced to head in jar in vault hidden under Nuka World is a reference to popular myth that Walt Disney had his head cryogenically frozen and hidded somewhere under Disneyland. Truth is, while Disney expressed interest in being cryopreserved after his death, he died before cryo facility was ready to accept "clients", and was cremated instead.

I always thought when DiMa asks you about being a synth that he was just trying to prove the point that the line between synthetic and organic is thinner than you think, rather than being a genuine plot point.

I like the “are YOU a synth” question in far harbor BECAUSE of how ridiculous it is when you actually think about it. It clues you in that Dima isn’t quite what he seems and is instead a charismatic manipulator who gets what he wants/needs out of people by whatever means necessary

Bethesda seems just so afraid that the player will miss out on something or anything at all. They don't really allow you to fail and as a result no playthrough is really unique.

I accidentally put 4 fusion cores in the UFO on my first playthrough and was very confused by what happened.

My favorite part of far harbor is finding that vault with all the robobrains that make you solve a murder mystery. And the unusual option to bang the robobrain girl was way funnier than it needed to be.

There's actually a mod for Nuka World where you can launch a minute man attack to take back Nuka World. It's pretty neat.

The idea of having 46 INT on a 10 point scale made me die laughing for some reason

You KILLED me with "I do not accept this fucking phony". I genuinely laughed out loud, and since I'm hungover and miserable, that's a feat.

Best part about far harbor is real and consequential skill checks. It really makes the whole experience feel much more like classic fallout.

His girl died, if you find her corpse and holotape before encountering Oswald, you can give him the holotape and he will leave with his ghoul folk and live life rather than stay at Nuka World

My favorite thing about Far Harbor is that they allow a chaotic evil ending, where you convince Dima to go to Far Harbor, rally the residents into attacking Arcadia, detonate the nuclear submarine, and shut off the fog condensers. I haven't seen anyone talk about this intricacy of the DLC and it makes me wonder if anyone else has done the same thing. Besides that I also liked the option of informing the Institute or the Brotherhood about Arcadia and basically instigating an occupation on the island.

At the end when DIMA is executed by far harbor it leaves me with a quote, “Just because you do the right thing doesn’t mean you get to feel right in the end”

At least in Nuka World they actually let you kill most of the park, like wow! The bare minimum of “let players lock themselves away from several questlines” was achieved! ONCE 💀

I found the companions individual quests to actually be some of the best in the game so I'd say it's worth it, especially for Cait and Macreedy.

I’m kinda sad you didn’t do the RoboBrain vault side quest in Far harbour

The operator drug that only works on farmers DOES come into play. When you finish recapturing all the parks, you get to start capturing commonwealth settlements as a raider. You can get the drug from the operators that makes persuading settlers (instead of just killing them) to fork over supplies.

I love how in the vault Tec workshop they basically tell you the missions are bad by allowing u to just throw out the overseer

0 out of 10. Didn’t talk about the epic boss fight with the Red Death.

RIP dogmeat, seeing him on that poster reminded me he passed only recently.

A cool note on kazumi, if you are the leader of the institute there is a new npc you can meet and ask if she is a synth, to which he says it isn't one made by the institute but could have been reprogrammed. Also kazumi doesn't drop a synth component when killed, which like every single other synth does.

Just a note, you can say you'll spare the CEO and get the nuka cola jumpsuit, then just pull the plug and you'll also get the rewards for doing that, you can get both rather easily

I also remember being able to alert the Brotherhood of Steel of Acadia‘s existence and them coming in and fucking shit up

"Incompetence meets Brilliance." You have such a way with words. You've perfectly summed up Bethesda.

Far harbour is one of the best dlcs Bethesda have made. Its was incredibly well written and atmosphere was perfect. And i loved the children of atom, the nuclear sub base felt like a cathedral.

This game totally missed the “evil clone” opportunity, it would’ve made for some fun post-story content to go hunting after your evil doppelgänger. I remember installing a Terminator mod that sends your spouse, Preston Garvey, and your character model from the beginning after you as a Stalker type! It was so trippy fighting “myself” as well as actually exciting to run into them at random places. I remember they followed me to Nuka World, so before I could even fight the Overboss, I was flanked out of nowhere by murderbots. It was genuinely more memorable than most of the scripted scenarios that are few and far between.

Oh yeah, the whole "build your own vault" was appealing til I realized just how much of the vault space was, and would remain, empty space. On top of that, the experiments were extremely limited and uninspired, especially with all of the vaults that you got to explore across multiple games.

Aw, I'm disappointed you missed the rest of the Mariner's questline.

And there is a way to clear out Acadia via BoS or Institute. What a great DLC, nice side quests, tragic characters, extension of Nick's history... P.S.: Coarser couldn't teleport due to tech limitations - you'll need to build special teleport relay on island to bring in Institute force.

About Kiddie Kingdom, you can actually find his S/O. She's dead, but you can find her. Essentially, she wanted to go out on her own terms, as detailed in a holotape. You can then go to Oswald and play the tape. He then backs down and lets you have the park.

The first time I encountered the Hermit Crab I thought it was just a burnt out van in the parking lot. It scared the ever loving hell out of me. Far Harbour has probably the best Enviroment/Local Enemies in any Fallout Title

Todd’s siren song finally brought you back

My first time playing FO4 was with the Game of The Year edition, so it came with all this stuff. That was enjoyable. I'd imagine bolting it all on via buying them all individually would suck. But as included extras, I enjoyed them. Nuka World was ludicrous and silly, Far Harbor was solid story in a solid, and environment, Automation was a fun questline, and having access to everything in the workshop from the jump off was fun.

Another great thing about the far harbor dlc that I dont think was mentioned is that you can also get 2 more endings in which u report to the brotherhood and institute about the synth base of acadia and they blow it up or reprogram everyone respectively. Also I think that if u did the railroad ending u may get another ending or at least some more dialogue with acadia. It really shows that Bethesda can make quality stuff if they actually want to.

Did he not do the quest "Brain Dead" at the Cliff's Edge Hotel? It's honestly one of the best and most unique side quests in all of Fallout 4.

As someone who was born and raised in Maine for 18 years, Far Harbor is the ONLY reason why I play the game, the atmosphere, the old ports, the story, man it was.. Nostalgic to come back in Fallout form.

I was a bit sad you haven't mentioned Grandchester Mansion in Nuka-World. This place was a really nice addition to this DLC and the whole story about it was interesting and creepy at the same time. It even kinda introduces a real ghost. On the side note: Whenever you said "Children of Atom" I kept hearing "Children of Adam" and it was sometimes confusing to me haha 😆

The vault tec workshop offers way more. If you spend more time building your vault, you can build a real nice vault. But maybe more interesting is that the tunnels rech into the basement of an old drug store, which is occupied by a few gouls and count as part of the vault. Meaning you can build a pretty neat house there where no-one but you can come, which shares the inventory with the vault. It can also house 40 citizens. Asssign them to farms and put a bunch of water purifiers in the space next to the entrance and you have yourself a great supply of water and food for all your other settlements. I like to unlock vault 88 as soon as possible in most of my playtroughs to make it my main base and the drug store my main house.

I do love how wandering the fog in far harbor you never feel comfortable or safe the atmosphere is great

1:08:31 I felt so bad for DiMA here, just the way he talks he sounds like he genuinely is having a sort of internal crisis and deep sorrow for what had happened without him being able to remember. Easily the most relatable character on an emotional level

There’s so many small details in this game I love. Kid in the fridge, the Salem death claw egg, random stories just from corpses. Plus easy modding is sweet. I get it’s far off from the earlier installments but I’ve really come to love 4.

I loved the potential of Vault 88, but always get frustrated by the limitations, not only of my own building skills, but the fact that I only get halfway through what I want to build before the walls in certain places start glitching.

Another aspect of the Automatron DLC involves the half questioned half liked mechanic of building settlements, if you put a robot as a supplier for each settlement their morale doesn't go down for some reason, that keeps you building robots and making the settlement with the robot station the main target of every raider, super mutant and synth on the Commonwealth.

"You can spare her and she becomes a merchant, or you can kill her and she becomes part of the ground" 😂 got me

Caits partner quest is cool, if you ask me. Mostly because her VA nailed the role and put actual effort into the character.

The reward for katsumi return is excellent , if you save just before opening the chest you can repeat until you get a top weapon

There's another end to far harbour, able to return to the commonwealth and relay news to the factions. Brotherhood invading Acadea was fantastic

Also you do know that there`s a vault full of robots in Far Harbor and you have to solve a murder mystery, right? RIGHT??? I know it`s just a side quest, but it`s an ACTUALLY GOOD side quest in Fallout 4. And for me it`s probably the only memorable vault in the game. Hope you haven`t missed it. Otherwise great video as always! Cheers!

That "lady" in nukaworld is THE Sierra Petrovita. President, secretary and treasurer to the Nuka Cola fan club.

What I love most about Far Harbor, and DiMA specifically, is that in the paranoia of who may or may not be a synth, Acadia finds itself (inadvertently or otherwise) gaslighting people into believing they are a synth. I think the purpose of the "player might be a synth" thing wasn't to plant actual suspicion in our minds, but to make us see that this IS gaslighting. Obviously we know our character remembers more beyond the bombs falling, it's not meant to FOOL us, but to make us realize that THIS is the kind of questioning DiMA puts people through, people who are much more affected by the synth paranoia in the Commonwealth than our unfrozen Salisbury Steak character. This is why, no matter who I side with, whether roleplaying or doing what I genuinely feel is right, I always end FH with DiMA facing judgement because he perpetuated the fear and loss the Institute has been responsible for. Not only has he actually been killing and replacing people (and the excuse that he was so traumatized by the actions that he wiped his memory don't hold up, since he's PERFECTLY WILLING to do the same to High Confessor Whoeverthefuck), but he is gaslighting others into believing they are synths, and getting them to abandon their lives to be part of Acadia. Pure intentions or no, DiMA is a monster through and through.

The coolest thing about building your own robots, is when you mass produce them to serve as Provisioners between your settlements - basically connecting the entire Commonwealth with robot supply lines that also happen to clear the roads of any hostiles that spawn nearby. This is particularly useful in survival mode.

I actually liked operation anchorage it gave you a glimpse into pre war lore that was important to the events of the entire franchise and the winterised power armour is one of best in the whole game.

5 years later when I think of Fallout 4 I only remember 3 quests: - The Cabot House quest (F4's alien quest) - Cait's companion quest - That one murder-mystery vault in Far Harbor I'd say that there are some good quests in this game, but they are submerged in a sea of radiant quests and busybody work. Unless I had a list of notable quests to actively seek out I'd rather save the time if I were you.

Not gonna lie my first run of Far Harbor I was so pissed when DIMA got killed and they marched on Acadia, I went back and joined the Children of Atom to wipe out Far Harbor off the map. I changed my entire mindset into solely 'Fuck that town theyre getting fogged out'

The children of atom in FH are only good for the recon armor customization, the two legendary radium rifles, the inquisitors cowl, and atoms judgement as weapons, with ward's brew being a really good aid item that can replace radaway, and be crafted.

Thank you for making this video you explained a few things I had missed through my playthrough.

But what about Cliff’s Edge Hotel? It is a decent quest to mention. In Far Harbor.

I always felt like you could've found a holdout of traders in the galactic zone (cause of the insane defence possibilities) giving you a different faction than just the raiders and fleshing out the non-raider option

Did you not pick up on the Sierra throw back? She is a character from Fallout 3 who owns the Nuka cola museum in Girdershade. That is why she is in Nuka world looking for the Formula. She actually references wanting the secret formula in Fallout 3. If you explore around the outskirts of nuka world before the parks, you can find the body of Oswald's partner and give him a voice note from her that will bring him peace, its a bit more of a satisfying and logical ending. What I personally dislike about Nuka world's story is not that Preston comes to hate you - from a story and character perspective it makes sense, so its a stupid complaint really for a review. It is more that if you chose to play the bad guy, you lose ownership of your already built settlements; Which makes no sense to me at all - I built the place, I am the owner, now I'm a raider boss with gangs at my disposal and suddenly settlers can take my towns off of me? That I spent hours crafting? Shouldn't they be terrified of my gangs? The way nuka world interacts with the wasteland is awfully portrayed and makes zero sense. For the best possible results of the Nuka world DLC, you play as a bad guy all the way up until they want you to start taking over the commonwealth, so you have gotten all of the xp, rewards and explored everything - then kill them all off for their gear, make shit tons of caps - continue to turn the power on afterwards etc. The only thing you really miss are a shit perk or two. One of the best melee weapons in the game is in the children of atoms base and its also best for the story to get in with the children as quickly as possible, access to shops, services, side quests for xp. You can also unlock a type of homemade radaway recipe for your use from them which in survival, is a god send. 200 hours? I have 1271.5 hours at the moment. That is multiple playthroughs though.

I really enjoy your videos. I pinned the DLC pack on my steam wishlist. I think I got it for under $7 on sale, totally worth it as someone who’s casual and really enjoying Fallout 4. Sometimes I don’t have time or energy to play with hectic life, and watch your retrospect/reviews.

Fun Fact: he's uncreditted but the announcer/radio show host in Nuka World, Redeye, is voiced by Andrew WK Also the whole thing with the Operators' chemical experiment is actually a thing there you can get chemical grenades that make intimidating settlements easier. It's small but still kinda neat. Also also if you have Robotics Expert you can actually use it in unique speech checks to bypass the mini quests in Dry Rock Gulch. You can also bypass these if you go there dressed as the Silver Shroud with even more unique dialogue. Nuka world has some actually good additions, but too bad it's so otherwise kinda meh overall and these changes were only added in the game's final DLC.

NGL, having a deathclaw farm as a settlement was great. Just like 4 chameleon deathclaws wandering around, non-hostile, but not protecting anything.

In regards to your question about companion quests, I really enjoyed Curie and Cait's quests. Curie especially because she was a Mrs. Nanny who becomes Human by transferring her consciousness into a synths body. As a result she begins to feel emotions because she's broken past her base programming. She's easily one of the best companions in the game. You find her trapped in an abandoned part of Vault 81 so she's completely innocent to the horrors of the wasteland

20:30 this does come into play later, when you are talking settlers into joining or supplying you. The operators will give you a grenade of makes it easier to pass the persuasion check. This grenade is filled with the chemical that is mentioned on that terminal.

The Bill Nye gag had me in stitches

There was something just so iconic and heartfelt about all of the NV dlc, even the worst of the dlc where still amazing and worth the prices. They all added new concepts, new dynamic looking maps and loads of content. They were all elaborate and connected to each other and the game too.

Can confirm. After playing Far Harbor and going "damn this is Broken Steel good", and then getting the "bad guy simulator" that was Nuka World.....yeah.....bad feels.

Spent a lot of time building my own Vault (though i had to pause a few times for my own sanity's sake), even tried making it somewhat authentic by making excessive dorms, attriums and a security checkpoint in front of the power room and armory. Then to just discover that some stairs just don't work, the railings don't fit half of the time and the AI struggles to find paths to their posts.

20:40 it actually does, in the raider settlement part. If ya go to the operators and talk to them they give ya a new chem and gas grenade, and if ya talk the settlers off their land/giving their supplies those two items reduce the difficulty of the speech checks.

"I made my slot machines force my dwellers to lose all their money." And thus Salt Factory became the enemy they swore to destroy: EA.

Do you remember the fallen angel boss "Trias the Betrayer" in Planescape Torment? Where if you had high enough stats (wisdom and/or charisma I think) then instead of getting a boss fight you could remind him that his home plane was a place of love and forgiveness and convince him to go home and apologise? That's how you do a speech check against a boss.

I actually enjoyed searching for all the star cores and how satisfying it was to find them all and get the MK01 power armor. There is also a really cool set of MK01 Nuka World themed Power Armor to be found in the world of refreshment theme Park area.

Remember when explosive collars on necks was taken seriously and entailed an entire DLC questline? Obsidian remembers.

An interesting fact is that the “mind control” drug does kinda come back later, but it involves a few speech checks. It also needs you to be doing the settlement raids

Just finished far harbor yesterday, I had no idea it was good I went in blind and did the brotherhood of steel ending, i was so surprised with the freedom I had during the quest, great dlc mane

Automatron adding in the ability to bypass the big battle was a nice touch. You have to collect all the holotapes from the department heads and hack a master terminal in the room near the laser trip hallway (way back at the beginning). I do this with my egghead builds (did a Tony Stark power armor build and a Walter White drug kingpin build that were both brainy enough to bypass the final battle).

The thing with DiMA is that his story is about him becoming the Institute (in practice); becoming what he hates most. What he did with Avery (and Tektus if you choose that route) is *exactly* what the Institute did with Diamond City’s Mayor. They replaced a public leader with a synth to pacify the rest of their people.

56:00 Knowing his designation code says you're working with Chase, if you were there for him at the Institutes orders then you'd be using a shutdown code instead.

I mean if you want interesting companion quests, there’s Cait in the Combat Zone who has a serious Chem addiction, and eventually asks to be taken to a Vault that was built to test that would happen after Chem addicts were cured and reintroduced to Chema after several years, where there’s a special chair that can heal her Then there’s MacCready in the Third Rail who used to be one of the kids from Little Lamplight, and you can eventually help him find an experimental cure for his son’s weird illness which he caused blue boils to sprout across his face And my personal favorite is Curie, a Companion you can find after finishing the secret section of Vault 81 who will eventually request to be put into a Synth body because she realizes she can’t make any scientific progress on their own without some kind of Human element to her experiments, and then it can go on to you potentially starting a relationship with her

far harbor really was a high point, the way I went about it is to make the villagers kill the synths, kill the windmill power to far harbor, get the inquisitor armor from the high priest then activate the nuke on the submarine, complete chaos and I loved it. it has so many options to conclude the DLC, if only the base game was this but on a larger scale.

Fun note: Red Eye (the Raider announcer from Nuka-World) is voiced by Andrew WK. And of course there's Elias Toufexis as Grand Zealot Brian Richter.

Raider boss: Runs a dodgem car’s worth of electric current through his power armor to somehow become literally invincible to all firearms and explosives. Pre-war US military: Fuck, wish we’d thought of that… Yeah, there’s the whole water thing but hey, insulation exists.