Far Harbor, Fallout 4’s largest and most substantial DLC, has intrigued fans since its announcement and has now arrived on Steam and our computers. I’d like to share my general first impressions of it and its new quests.
(Contains spoilers.)
You need Fallout update 1.5 installed to use the Far Harbor DLC. After updating, you can install the 2 GB expansion. Given how long the game has been out and the hours people have played, most Fallout fans probably have characters around level 80 or higher, so you can start its quests without hesitation. Far Harbor adds a Barn tab to the Workshop alongside Wood, Metal and Concrete. Marine Armour and a few new weapons are among the additions. We also gain a new map to explore: Far Harbor’s island. Although not enormous, it contains many discoveries. New enemies and creatures arrive too. The most alarming native creature will probably be the Gulper Devourer. Unless my eyes deceive me, it could dethrone the Deathclaw for sheer size. The enemies suit this small fishing island, with designs based on real marine life. Even the bear-derived Yao Guai looked larger here to me. Perhaps that’s just the island’s oppressive, frightening atmosphere.
You may remember Bethesda releasing a New Vegas DLC I didn’t enjoy at all: Dead Money, with its labyrinthine streets full of lethal gas and apparently undying creatures. Similarly, a poisonous fog covers Far Harbor. It restricts visibility, poisons you and contains intense radiation. Settlements are surrounded by machines called Fog Condensers, designed rather like streetlights, that absorb the harmful gases and radiation. They protect people from the fog’s lethal, mind-damaging effects and also help keep away the creatures that emerge with it.
Just as Automatron introduced the Rust Devils, Far Harbor introduces a group called the Trappers. They were islanders who lived by fishing before the fog took over. Driven mad by exposure to its poison, and facing harsh conditions and hunger, they turned to cannibalism. Eventually accustomed to life in the fog, they appear as the new map’s hostile gangs. Among the new weapons that first come to mind are the Harpoon Gun, once used for whaling, and a rifle resembling the Winchester carbine familiar from Westerns.
Far Harbor retains the Fallout tradition of decisions changing the course of quests. Multiple endings await, so prepare for missions and consequences shaped by your choices.
I also noticed additions to weapon effects. Fallout 4’s list of special effects has been expanded, and you can obtain the new ones from legendary enemies in Far Harbor. One example slows time after you fire the last round in a magazine.
Having briefly covered some additions and updates, let’s turn to the quests.
A call from Ellie, assistant to our synth detective Nick Valentine, brings us back to Diamond City’s lively yet dystopian streets. She asks for help investigating a missing or kidnapped girl. After catching up, we head towards the Nakano Residence, a little beyond the top-right corner of the map. It is a modest home beside the sea, almost part of the beach. Kasumi’s parents greet us. Talking to them reveals that her disappearance isn’t quite a kidnapping. We meet a father who hasn’t accepted that his daughter has grown up, who would wrap her in silk and lock her in a wardrobe to protect her from every danger, as if she were still a baby feeding and playing in the sand. Her mother has more calmly accepted her growing up and acts as a balancing force between them. We also learn that Kasumi is intelligent, hardworking and versatile. Alongside helping her family, she works on inventions and projects, constantly developing what she learned from her mechanically gifted grandfather.
After speaking to the parents, searching Kasumi’s room and the surrounding area, and listening to the holotapes we find, we realise she left willingly. She sailed away to join a synth community on an island called Far Harbor, having concluded that she herself may be synthetic. Her reasoning was: ‘I’m not the real me. I’m a synth who replaced my parents’ own child. I can’t tell them the truth or stay with them. I have to deal with this myself.’
(For more about synths, or synthetic life forms, see the Fallout 4 review.)
You board a boat and set off for Far Harbor after Kasumi.
As soon as you dock on the new map, Captain Avery, the coastal town’s leader, meets you. Initially suspicious, the residents say outsiders always bring trouble. But just as you arrive, a faulty Fog Condenser lets creatures attack the town, and Avery asks for help. You rush after her and pick off the attackers with the Deliverer. Avery and her people then accept you: ‘You’re different from other outsiders. Perhaps we can trust you.’ After that introductory burst of action, you’re in town. Nearly everyone you meet may have a quest, because the residents are desperate. The increasingly dangerous fog, cannibal Trapper attacks and shortages of food and supplies leave them trapped. Many new quests open up, one by one.
There are three major factions to meet and take quests from: the Children of Atom, who worship the atom and radiation; Far Harbor’s townspeople; and Acadia, a community of refugee synths led by an artificial intelligence named DiMA. Briefly:
Acadia (DiMA)
Acadia is a refugee synth community in the island’s interior, led by an old prototype called DiMA, who also knows detective Nick Valentine. Built as a prototype and later discarded, DiMA can expand his artificial intelligence without limit as new information is added. With this continually developing mind, he has made Acadia a protected refuge and safe home for synths. He also offered the townspeople peace by designing the Fog Condensers that reduce the fog’s harmful effects.
Far Harbor (The Harbormen)
Far Harbor is the coastal town where you first land. Unlike people elsewhere on the island, its residents have largely protected themselves from the poisonous fog. Yet the fog and creatures leave them isolated from the rest of the island, struggling with limited resources.
Children of Atom
Although not as old as the Brotherhood of Steel, the Children of Atom are one of Fallout’s longstanding groups. When I first entered Megaton in Fallout 3, I saw an unexploded nuclear bomb in the middle of town. A man beside it was praying with his hands raised, and I couldn’t help laughing. He was worshipping an unexploded bomb. Then I couldn’t stand it any longer, activated the bomb and wiped Megaton off the map. The successors of that man’s followers appear in Far Harbor so we can get to know them more closely than in the Commonwealth, where they seemed merely a few miserable lunatics with radiation-fried brains. Here, we can join them. Why do they worship Atom? What do they want? Are they friends or enemies? The quests let you find out. The developers go further, seasoning things with mysticism so effectively that at one point you may even think, ‘Why not?’ The Children have made their home at the Nucleus, a military base containing a submarine. Led by High Confessor Tektus, they worship its nuclear core and weapons, and you will get to know them well.
Some of Far Harbor’s new enemies:
Trappers
Trappers are Far Harbor’s raiders. Former island residents who once lived by fishing and hunting, they became deranged cannibals through shortages and the fog’s damage to their minds. I encountered a few quests allowing conversation rather than combat. While looking for a missing synth, I met three who had eaten it and handed me the component removed from its head. Another was the surviving former resident of an abandoned town I had cleared of creatures. He wanted me to tell people in Far Harbor looking for a new home that it was safe, so they would come happily skipping over and he could catch and eat them. Of course I refused. He became angry and shuffled away grumbling.
Fog Crawler
The Fog Crawler is an enormous shrimp-like insect introduced in Far Harbor. Resembling a praying mantis, with thick armour that even a Gatling Laser barely affects, it will be one of your toughest enemies.
Hermit Crab
The Hermit Crab is an enormous mutated crab. Unable to find a shell large enough, it has made an old passenger bus its home. Be careful when walking among vehicles.
Angler
You’ve surely seen the terrifying anglerfish, found at depths of 3,000 metres and beyond, online or in the media. The Angler appears as a mutated version. Fast-moving and common around Far Harbor, it can also attack at range, so watch out for its poisonous spit.
Fallout 4’s subliminal ‘God Save the Queen’ message continues in Far Harbor. Sometimes I can’t help imagining a character like Walt Kowalski, played by Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino, at the head of the design team. While we’re chasing bets on Periscope and liking women’s photos on Instagram, they are subtly working narratives of American imperialism into world-famous computer games. As the games industry globalises and becomes monopolised, stories and messages no longer contain the diversity of voices they once did. I suspect the actual workers have little say. Fallout continues its ‘communism is the bogeyman’ message here, with a quest involving two communist state agents planning to kill people with a nuclear bomb, and anti-communist posters scattered across the walls. What a fear, my friend. What sort of fear keeps them feeding this message to young minds, even through games, in a world where communism has supposedly been erased and turned to dust?
One day the world may become every bit as bad as Fallout’s—tomorrow or hundreds of years from now, who knows? But it will be men like Walt Kowalski and women like Margaret Thatcher who are responsible. Just so you know, Master Bethesda.