Automatron is the first DLC for Fallout 4 and focuses on the robots of the Fallout universe. You will have to team up with robots, rebuild and upgrade your new companion. In order to defeat the new villain of the commonwealth called The Mechanist, you will have to construct an army of robots.
Automatron plays like a side quest and thus takes around 3 hours to finish, depending on how thorough you are. It all starts with the familiar radio message which triggers the new quest. However, you have to be level 15 to be able to start the game, which seems sensible if you consider the amount of enemies you’ll face in this DLC. As soon as you arrive at the given place, you are immediately attacked by the new enemies of the commonwealth. And I have to say, those are a refreshing take on the all-too-familiar mister handy, Protectron and Eyebot. The new Swarmbot, Servomech Junkbot and other, they all are a Frankenstein take on the usual robots. This all feels immediately very natural and matches the storyline of Automatron. There are robots with spikes, some with plate armor, other have skulls and blades as weapons. There are ones that fly, ones that sprint and some that have tracks to move. All this mixed with a huge variety of weaponry, making them all considerable enemies.
Frankenstein’s robot
Once you have defeated the robots, you meet ADA. ADA is a heavily modified Assaultron and will become your newest companion. It’s thanks to her that you get the blueprint for the new workbench: the Robot Workbench. A few quests (and some loot) later, and it is time to build the Robot Workbench. This workbench will allow you to change and upgrade existing robot. You can even build completely new ones from scratch. I had a lot of fun making my own variants of the Protectron (a flying Protectron with Sentry Bot arms), Assualtron (no head, just Sentry Bot legs and huge canons as arms) and other. It didn’t take long before I went looking for mods to increase the possibilities for the new workbench, which I will show you in this guide. Ooh, little side note: You can also upgrade your existing robots like Curie and Codsworth.
The missing robot
Besides the new workbench, the storyline of Automatron is also enjoyable. The quests in Automatron focuses around The Mechanist and the Robotbrains. The Robotbrain was an original robot from Fallout all the way to Fallout New Vegas, so it was sad that they were missing in Fallout 4. However, with Automatron, they are back, with full background information on how and where they were made, stories about the development, the assembly lines and all kinds of trivia. And I love it!
The quest involving the Mechanist are about taking down him and his robot army. You will travel through the previous mentioned assembly lines and research center for the Robotbrain. I like that they didn’t spread out all the different locations that you have to visit, but kept them somewhat together. Other publishers/developers tent to spread out those locations in order to artificially increase the playtime of their game/DLC, so big kudo’s to Bethesda for not doing that.
The Verdict
Bethesda has used the Automatron DLC to expand Fallout 4 in a familiar way. The customisation of robots, the new quest and the return of the Robotbrain with its background story gives an overall fulfilling experience. Automatron is definitely a pleasure to play.
