Developer: Bethesda Game Studios
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Platform: PC, Xbox One, PS4
Tested on: Xbox One
Fallout 4: Wasteland Workshop DLC – Review
Approximately one month after the release of Automatron, Bethesda has blessed us with another DLC release: Wasteland Workshop. This time the focus is pointed towards building in your settlement and creating a Mad Max like Thunderdome. Warning! Better stack up on scrap to get the most out of this expansion.
Wasteland Workshop is aimed towards building an arena. This can be done at a settlement which you own, since it utilizes the settlement builder. A real story isn’t present in this DLC, while this could have been cool if some story value was added to the equation, it’s still pretty much self-explanatory what is going on. You’ll simply get the extra tools to create some carnage, simply to build further upon the already expansive ‘Sims’ elements Fallout 4 has.
Unlike most extra content, you won’t be getting a message that something new has been added. By opening up the workshop menu this will reveal a few extra tabs of items, including added newbies to the current inventory. Small, medium and large cages for capturing different sorts of entities, various decoration items, resource upgrades and even a well wanted trinket: the decontamination arch. The decontamination arch is like the name implies an arch that you can build with easy to find items to get rid of all your radiation damage. Making it a welcome addition to every new fallout player or high level veteran.
We all know that an arena isn’t a real arena without the battle zone. The battle zone can be built as you wish: put up a simple red vs blue fighting cage, or make it more like robot wars with various traps and pits. Pimp it up with some neon lights and we all feel like we are back in New Vegas.
As mentioned before there is a variety of different cages, which will trap different monsters, animals and even humans depending on the cage size and the size of who or what stumbles in them. As you may expect, not all the captured hostiles are tame out of the box. Some entities will be cooperative but don’t expect the same for creatures like gunners, super mutants or raiders. Those diehard hooligans can only be tamed with the beta wave emitter (be warned though, to build this you will need to have very high charisma).
Want to train the current settlers or do a little hunger games match for them? Attract new settlers, put them in a team, then release the captured beast and let them fight for their citizenship. Don’t expect the wasteland to be more safe when you capture these monster, en contraire: settlements equipped with these capture cages will have an increased attack rate. For example, our settlement in Starlight Drive is pretty much equipped with state of the art defense systems (granted the entire world has gone down the shitter) and originally it was never attacked, thanks to its protection. Since we set up several cages, streams of angry raiders keep on attacking the settlement. This adds in the realism of their friends trying to rescue them, and they can succeed if they damage the cage. Be sure to add enough defense before you attempt creating your own arena, as you’ll have a hard time coping when you find your protection lacking.
Cages work quite simple, in pretty much every situation. If you like to build up enough defense around the cages before you place them, this will not prevent you from actually capturing something. This means that the game will still throw in baddies in the cages, even if you’re not around or if there’s enough defense around the perimeter to keep even a new World War from happening.
There isn’t much more to say about this expansion, which makes it feel as if it’s a small intermissions before the Far Harbor DLC is released next month.
Conclusion
Wasteland Workshop is a neat little add-on which complements the much hyped settlement builder and gives us many new items to build and play with. Finally you can feel like you are the boss of Fallout’s 3 Pitt, or a Mad Max-like Thunderdome. Have Settlers face off to raiders, or let the Deathclaw take pot shots at a group of Super Mutants. Your fantasy is the only limit on this one. Plus the decontamination arch is a well wanted item for all these irradiated warzones on the map.
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