Building A Robot Army In Fallout 4: The Automatron

Given that Bethesda was the progenitor of the Horse Armour DLC for The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion a decade ago, some may feel that Fallout 4’s Automatron DLC is similarly superficial. After all, it’s being billed as giving the player to build robots, but as I soon discovered, there is a narrative reason behind all of this.

The first foray into the DLC’s story has you answering a distress signal. Upon the Vault Dweller’s arrival, it’s clear that the caravan is being assaulted by robots that have been tinkered with. As the dust settles, only Ada – a robot that was serving the caravan – who remains. She enlists the Vault Dweller to get vengeance for her fallen cohorts.

As you follow the trail of destruction to try and find the source of the rogue robots, you get the ability to create and upgrade robots using the various pieces of scrap found in the Commonwealth, as well as loot from the various rogue robots. The amount that you can modify increases as you gain not only skills in the Robotics Expert perk, but as you progress through the quest as well.

You’re not limited to just creating androids though, as you can also create modified versions of Mr. Handy, the Sentries, and even the newly reintroduced Robobrains. These things certainly pack a punch, mostly because of their brains and the pulse that they generate, but this is the most unique of the new cast of rogues.

As for how they act, it’s pretty much the same as your standard companions. The only real difference is that the ones you build from scratch don’t have an opinion of you and instead of Stimpacks to heal them from “death” you use Robot Repair Kits instead. In the DLC missions at least, these are plentiful, so you won’t need to purchase a load more. Your mileage does depend on what modifications you give them, such as tracks to make them move faster. You can even have a giant death machine with rocket launchers and sentry legs, though you may find that they find it taxing to fit through small gaps.

When you do eventually find the cause of the robots and stop them, you get a bunch more options when customising robots. Robots will appear throughout the Commonwealth, usually comprising of random quests not too different to the infamous endless Minutemen quests. As such, it does feel a little bit underwhelming that the main quest only takes a couple of hours to complete.

Other than robot building, a plethora of new items, and one relatively longish quest string, there isn’t really too much else to the Automatron DLC. That’s rather fitting, as it is essentially a budget piece of DLC where we weren’t expecting much outside of making robots, but some fans may feel this is not worth the trouble. You do get the ability to make many robots though, expanding the number of companions with near limitless potential. If all of this sounds like it appeals to you, or if you already bought the Season Pass while it was at the lower rate, Fallout 4: The Automatron is a neat little extra.