After the slightly disappointing Automatron DLC, it was common knowledge that Fallout 4’s next chunk of extra content was unlikely to be pulling up trees either. The Wasteland Workshop pack is lightly-priced (£3.99/$4.99), and as such is rather light on content. This is more an item pack attached to a couple of mods than an expansion of either the playing area or the ongoing narrative of the post-apocalyptic wastes. The question that needs answering here? Is it any good for what it is?
Let’s get the relatively humdrum nonsense out of the way first shall we? The new stuff found in Wasteland Workshop is pretty much exclusively just for your settlements, which is just dandy, as they could do with a further shot in the arm, and as this isn’t the lawless outback of the PC world, you can’t just mod this stuff in yourself for nothing on PS4. New furniture, ornaments and the like can be found within the settlement menus alongside the vanilla content, and the highlights include neon signs, decontamination showers (which are nice and all, but I can’t remember the last time I ran out of RadAway), and extra-beefy generators that pump out 100 points of power. If that doesn’t sound particularly thrilling then that’s understandable. This is a workmanlike set of extras for the most part, that would be entirely questionable as paid DLC if offered up on their own, but there’s more to it thankfully in the shape of animal trapping and what one can only assume is the Fallout universe’s version of extreme bum fights; except instead of two vagrants kicking each other in the soft n’ friendlies for the last can of Special Brew, it’s a rippling green-skinned Behemoth cudgeling a Deathclaw because you said so.
Yes, Wasteland Workshop comes with the ability to capture the various monstrosities roaming the Commonwealth and make them fight to the death for your perverse pleasure. Okay, you can also use them as ‘pets’ too, because nothing says ‘welcome to the neighbourhood’ better than greeting would-be Raiders with your pack of radioactive feral dogs at the gate. Capturing these beasts in the first place in sadly quite unexciting, as you merely build the relevant cage with the correct bait, wait a while and viola! Captive nasty. From there, you can tame them with a beta emitter so they don’t immediately make your settlement into a buffet table of meaty settler flesh upon being released. Or you can just do what I said earlier and shove them in a death arena against other beasties and recreate Wrestlemania 32’s Undertaker vs Shane McMahon battle by pitting a Deathclaw against a feral ghoul or something.
Hell, if certain settlers are getting on your nerves because they keep refusing to tend to the crops you ordered them to tend to (that Johnny, he never bloody listens, the ignorant git), then you can even throw their sorry behinds into the Mystery Murder Pit against each other or indeed against the aforementioned beasts of wasteland. Yes, it’s sadistic, but no less gratifying. You need to be careful though, as other settlers don’t take too kindly to their pals being thrown to the wolves (or more likely Mirelurks in this case), thus depleting your settlement’s satisfaction rating. Screw ‘em—just threaten to send them into the Mystery Murder Pits too if they give you any gyp. Sure, you’ll end up with an empty settlement and an army of obedient Deathclaws picking the bones of settlers from their jagged teeth, but what’s not to like about that?
So is this actually fun? Yes, for an hour or so, but there are many drawbacks. Firstly, it’s the collecting. As with Automatron, much of the new additions feel like they’re designed to get you back out in the wastes to collect the necessary parts for your newfound instruments of destruction. That’s good right? A valid reason to keep exploring the numerous nooks and crannies of Boston et al? Sure, absolutely. That is of course if you haven’t already spent a metric ton of hours among the rubble of the Commonwealth to begin with. There’s no denying that even the most enthusiastic Fallout 4 fan (and I’m one of them) finds the junk collection a teensy bit tiresome when you’ve spent more time in this world than you ever have with living, breathing relatives. If you’ve clocked say, up to fifty or sixty hours in Fallout 4, then yes, it’s a more welcome motivation to keep you trekking, but for the enthusiast, it’s a bit of a tedious pain in the arse.
The fruits of your labor are, of course, found in the capture, retraining and battling of beasts, and while it’s initially amusing to set brutish monsters on Raiders, or make that irritating numpty who is always shirking his duties on the settlement fight for his life against a RadScorpion, the joy is short-lived. The limited animation set for most enemies makes for pretty dull fights to be honest; the capture is all too simple, and compared to the countless mod videos around that showcase insane numbers of baddies brawling to the death, this all feels a bit tame by comparison. Dull, predictable and tame do not a fun game mode make. It’s definitely in Wasteland Workshop’s favour that its price point reflects the content’s longevity somewhat. There’s no illusions from Bethesda that this is anything other than periodically-amusing filler for the season pass.
Still, in the grand scheme of things, Wasteland Workshop is a nice, if largely forgettable addition to Fallout 4 that serves only to appease the inner-room designer/gladiatorial sociopath in you to a relatively small degree. It does the job of bringing you back to the Commonwealth for a few more hours, keeping it fresh in the mind for another month, but next month’s supposedly colossal expansion, Far Harbor, is becoming a sorely-needed necessity if any more serious time is to be invested in (and fresh perspective added to) Fallout 4. Wasteland Workshop certainly adds to the base game, just not in a hugely meaningful, nor essential, way.