MadCap's Game Reviews - "Fallout 4: Far Harbor"

In the distance...far from the (lack of) relative safety of the Commonwealth...are the rocky shores of Maine and the settlement of Far Harbor. Here, the Harbormen of the titular town fight against the radioactive Fog and the creatures that it has spat out.  But also, a colony of Synths founded by a prototype in the hopes of finding peace for Synths, and a militant wing of the Children of Atom who may see all of go the way of the Pre-War world.  It's eerie...it's remote...it's isolated. It's Maine. And it's Far Harbor, the latest DLC for Fallout 4.

The plot is simple enough, the Sole Survivor gets a radio message from the Valentine Detective Agency - Nick has a new case to go and retrieve a missing girl.  All the clues point to her traveling far to the North from the Commonwealth, to the previously mentioned titular location.  Why? Because she believes she's a synth and has heard of Acadia, a refuge for synths led by the enigmatic DiMA. Traveling there, we definitely have a far different locale than the Commonwealth, full of rocky terrain and insidious, imposing swamps that are filled to the brim with a nasty assortment of creatures including Anglers, Fog Crawlers, and...wolves...

In a bizarre twist, radiation and evolution seem to have only spawned a few different species about.  I wasn't expecting a whole new bestiary, but it is a little strange to see only a few and the rest being filled out with the regular Fallout cast, including Super Mutants of all things.  But, at least, there's enough new stuff in the bestiary to say they have a unique set of wildlife.

Including the infamous RADCHICKEN!!!

And that's about all I can say for the designs and the beasties therein. It's definitely a welcome change from the Commonwealth and Far Harbor definitely is a very scary and foreboding place that will spell doom for the unwary and unwelcome. So, on that front, good job Bethesda.

The story, too, is actually a vast improvement over the vanilla.  There's thankfully less emphasis on the Settlements mechanic (even though there are a few settlements) save for a particularly annoying part of the plot that involves using a VR simulator to uncover a few hidden memories (as opposed to, say, forbidden ones) to help drive the plot along. While not wishing to go on a tirade about it (odd for me, I know) Bethesda...you're not making a puzzle game. Either put some more thought into it or don't do them at all, they end up just being tedious. Now back to concerns...

I highly recommend bringing Nick along as a follower as, fun fact, Far Harbor provides many opportunities to earn affinity with him as well as revealing major details about his backstory like the fact that he's got, that he was once the mayor of Diamond City, and he was once a little girl. One of those was a lie – can you guess which one? I guess you'll have to find out by playing the game.  Needless to say, it's definitely some good character building and has made me love the character of Nick Valentine even more.

And, of course, Far Harbor is plenty happy to further press the questions that the vanilla game did with synths. How close are they to humanity? Can they be considered sentient? If they're not sentient, how does one program things like fear, anger, or happiness? Can a Synth dream? How does a Synth know its a Synth? Ultimately, is there any real difference between Synths and Humans besides how they were made?

All facets of a debate sparked very well by Bethesda's work, bravo.

Of course, if you're not up for the semantics of moral debate, you can always join the Children of Atom and nuke everybody with a submarine.  Because "What Would Atom Do?", am I right?

Oh, and for the record: the harpoon gun sucks, the Marine Armor is pretty cool, and thank god no Ghoul Whale.

Fallout 4's Far Harbor DLC is now available from Bethesda Softworks for PC, Xbox One, and Playstation 4.

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