Fallout 4: Far Harbor: Review

Advertising Fallout 4: Far Harbor, Bethesda placed special emphasis on the fact that, they say, this is the largest addition in the history of the company. And it seems to me that she placed the accents somewhat incorrectly. The Elder Scrolls III: Bloodmoon And TESIV: Shivering Isles seem no less solid and large-scale. It would be more correct to say that Far Harbor — perhaps the most non-linear and diverse addon in history in terms of progression Bethesda.

Far Harbor Island was once a national park, and now its main attraction is the toxic radioactive fog that obscures everything around it. We come here at the request of parents, whose daughter fled to the island, to a colony of synths, and we immediately feel the Lovecraftian atmosphere. On the shore there are corpses of huge fish and gloomy, embittered people who can use a harpoon and a hook as a weapon, and a crab trap as a helmet.

They say that fog gives birth to monsters, and, indeed, further, in the depths of the island, you will meet unprecedented monsters – some kind of gullet, fogfish, angler fish (such local water creatures), you will come across the skeletons of monsters the size of a house and even fight with a giant crab, which uses a rusty van on wheels as its shell.

It seems that here, among the water and fog, something even crazier is hiding, some kind of cult with its Cthulhu. There will be both cult and madness – the community of Children of Atom, who believe in Holy Radiation, is responsible for them. It’s just that the fog itself acts as Cthulhu – it is he who is worshiped, it is he who gives birth to monsters not only in the local swamps, but also in the minds of those around..

Figaro there, Figaro here!

Indeed, the main monsters and main enemies of the people living on this island are the fog-born fear, suspicion and hatred experienced by three local groups – people from a coastal settlement, synths from Acadia and the Children of Atom, who have settled in the belly of a huge nuclear submarine. Someone has a fragile peace with someone, someone has an open war. But each group is ready to destroy the rest. And even those who want to tell everyone: “Let’s live together!", are ready to commit murder for the sake of peace – and more than one!

It is clear that https://non-uk-casinos.co.uk/review/winstler-casino/ a player in such a situation has a lot of work to do. And connected not only with battles. And this is the main achievement of the add-on and its main difference from the original, bringing it closer Far Harbor to the best moments from New Vegas and additions to it. In the original, the story takes a long time to accelerate and only towards the end it begins to present us with a more or less significant choice between the interests of different factions, then the scriptwriters immediately take the player into account.

Within ten minutes of arrival we are directly asked if we are ready to destroy one of the three communities. Ten minutes later another dilemma: shoot the bald missionary of the Children of the Atom or agree to join her cult? And if you follow the plot, and not be distracted by side tasks (there are many of them, but mostly they involve shooting, clearing rooms and searching for objects), then the concentration of such decisions will pleasantly surprise those who like this Bethesda I haven’t been waiting for a long time, that is, veterans of the first units Fallout.

Vague choice

Moreover, this choice is not always obvious. There is a tear of an old cultist or a gray-haired woman of peace on earth? The person who committed the murder, as expected, can be turned over or convinced to confess everything himself, but this will lead to the death of dozens of innocent people. And the woman who learns from you that she is actually a synth will now, of course, know the truth – but how can she continue to live with this truth??

And most importantly, this choice is rich and does not at all imply that you have come to save the world. You can destroy each of the three communities or save them all. Or destroy some, but save others. You can let the fog enslave your mind and join the cult of the Children of the Atom to hunt down and execute apostates, knock on the supreme psycho and generally feel like a scoundrel. But you can only pretend, lie to the priest and help the same apostates escape.

Yes, but everything doesn’t always look logical. Your new companion, a gray-haired, drinking Irishman with a shotgun and a bottle of whiskey in his bosom, hates the Children of the Atom, but if you go to their base, join their ranks and start playing the role of a nuclear scoundrel, he will go with you and will help you in everything, only sometimes dryly telling you whether he likes it or not. Although in real life I would have hit him with that same bottle of whiskey long ago and walked away, humming something from the work of U2. But, given the overall quality of the script, I don’t want to grumble too much about it.

Plot Far Harbor is also important because one of its motives logically develops the main story. Here the question that hung in the air during conversations with members of the Underground and the Institute is finally voiced: do androids dream of electric sheep?? When the old synth asks us: “Are you sure that man? And why don’t you remember anything about your childhood??", immediately brings to mind "Blade Runner" and the old debate about whether Rick Deckard was a replicant.

The harpoon and I go as a pair..

From the point of view of the gameplay itself Far Harbor represents classic content for high-level players. The new enemies are strong and capable of showing how much a pound of razorweed is worth, even to bored owners of level forty and “pumped up” power armor. Especially if they didn’t take paladin Dan with them on the road. Moreover, this applies not only to monsters generated by the fog, but also to local raiders (they are called trappers here) and super mutants – one of them blew me away, despite level forty, a full tank of health and brand new power armor, in literally two bursts.

The expansion introduced new types of weapons and armor (and booze, of course) – for example, a helmet similar to a diving helmet increases your intelligence as your radiation level increases. But perhaps the most useful of the new “toys” is the harpoon launcher. In terms of damage, it’s about the same as a launcher, but the harpoon flies faster and in a straight line, which makes it possible to use the gun very effectively against single targets.

However, not by shooting and talking alone! This addition will also be remembered for its unusual task, in which we need, while in virtual reality, to gain access to fragments of the memory of the main synth on the island. These are five levels reminiscent of puzzle games, where we jump on cubes in a futuristic environment, drag them somewhere, redirect the rays and wonder how to turn off that thing and get to the goal. In general, very fresh and in some places quite difficult!

Fallout 4: Far Harbor – one of the most interesting, unusual and non-linear additions in history Bethesda. A game with such a rich, original plot and precisely built atmosphere gives hope that in the future Bethesda will also please us with real Fallout.

Pros: non-linear plot; heavy atmosphere; plenty of action from the first minutes; unusual situations and charismatic characters; a large area where you can find a lot of interesting things; new equipment and strong, truly frightening enemies.
Cons: side quests are still monotonous.