Fallout 4: Far Harbor
Fallout 4: Far Harbor is an expansion pack for the 2015 video game Fallout 4, developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. Far Harbor was released on May 19, 2016 for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One as downloadable content. The game is set in the year 2287, in the aftermath of a nuclear war that destroys most of the United States. In the expansion, the player character is hired as a private investigator to search for a missing girl in the isolated seaside community of Far Harbor.
The game can be played in first-person or third-person perspective; in either case, the player controls the protagonist throughout their investigation on The Island, a landmass off the coast of Maine. Far Harbor main gameplay consists of quests and puzzle sections. Upon completing the quests in the game, the player is rewarded with bottle caps from Nuka-Cola bottles, and experience points. The puzzles feature a variety of different game mechanics; some require the player to hit targets with lasers, and others allow building using blocks.
Announced in February 2016, the expansion was influenced by player feedback regarding the base game's dialogue system, which was not considered to be as successful as the other game mechanics. The development team also noticed the players' interest in releases that added large amounts of explorable territory. The price of Fallout 4 season pass was increased because of the expansion's size.
Far Harbor received generally positive reviews from critics. The addition of new quests was praised, but there were mixed opinions on the expansion's atmosphere and its use of fog. The main criticisms were directed at the puzzles, which reviewers thought were a waste of time, unnecessary, or overly frustrating. In July 2016, Guillaume Veer accused Bethesda of copying his Fallout: New Vegas mod, named Autumn Leaves, though Veer said that he was not upset even if Bethesda had deliberately incorporated material from Autumn Leaves in Far Harbor.
Gameplay
Fallout 4: Far Harbor is an expansion pack for the action role-playing game, Fallout 4, the fourth installment in the Fallout series. It is set 210 years after "The Great War", which resulted in nuclear devastation across the United States. The expansion is similar to the base game in that the player character is tasked with investigating a character's disappearance. In the base game, the player is searching for their lost son, while in the base game, the player is recruited by the Valentine Detective Agency to investigate the disappearance of a young girl named Kasumi. Both the base game and the expansion pack offer the ability to swap between first-person and third-person perspectives. The expansion is set on a radioactive, fog-smothered island, and is located in Fallouts version of Bar Harbor, a town in Hancock County, Maine. Far Harbor features three factions which include both violent and peaceful non-player characters.File:Fallout_4_Far_Harbor_screenshot.jpg|thumb|left|Far Harbor is set on a foggy island. As in Fallout 4, the player character can use power armor, as indicated by the HUD.|alt=A screenshot of the gameplay in Fallout 4, with the player in a foggy environment with the Power Armor HUD.
The expansion contains quests and puzzles that the player must solve. There are different ways to complete quests, all with their own pitfalls. Peaceful resolutions can be made with characters and factions, though these can have ill effects, such as unveiling secrets or worsening relations with other factions. Violent completion of quests may be faster, though they can result in the weakening of alliances between the player and the factions. In some of the puzzle sections, the player directs lasers to hit designated targets; others require the player to build with blocks, as in Minecraft. Puzzle sections were not featured in the base game. Upon completion of quests, the assisted factions reward the protagonist with Nuka-Cola bottle caps, one of the fictional currencies found throughout the Fallout series. The player character also gains experience points. Some of the quests include investigating minor mysteries, retrieving missing items, solving disagreements, and clearing out monster-infested areas.
One of the gameplay mechanics which carried over from the previous iterations is V.A.T.S.. While using V.A.T.S., real-time combat is slowed, allowing the player to choose where to shoot the enemy: shooting enemies in the head will typically result in death while shooting their legs can slow them. Weapons can also be shot at to disarm the enemy. Using V.A.T.S. lowers the player's stamina. Some actions are unavailable to the player if their stamina is insufficient, in which case the player has to wait for their AP to regenerate. The use of power armor in combat increases the rate at which the player's AP are used. The Pip-Boy, a small computer strapped to the character's wrist, also plays a role in both Fallout 4 and Far Harbor. It contains a menu which the player can access to view maps, statistics, data, and items, and when the player is able to visit Far Harbor, the Pip-Boy will receive a signal from Valentine's Detective Agency.
Synopsis
Setting and characters
The expansion is set on a post-apocalyptic version of Mount Desert Island, known in-game as simply the Island and located north-east of the Commonwealth, Fallout post-apocalyptic version of the Boston, Massachusetts metropolitan area. The starting point is the former town of Bar Harbor, now called Far Harbor. The Island, where many unique creatures reside, is blanketed by radioactive fog. Because the creatures that live inside the fog are unwilling to go anywhere without it, the town uses devices called fog condensers to turn the fog into liquid in order to protect its inhabitants.There are three major conflicting factions present in the expansion, all residing in separate areas: the Harbormen of Far Harbor; the synth colony of Acadia; and the Church of the Children of Atom. The Harbormen of Far Harbor are led by the town leader, Captain Avery, and seek to reclaim the Island from the fog that has gradually driven them out of their homes. The Children of Atom live in an old nuclear submarine base called the Nucleus and are led by High Confessor Tektus. Tektus is a fanatical follower of the Church of Atom who seeks to disable or destroy the fog condensers. The synth colony of Acadia is within an abandoned observatory; the group are led by a mysterious prototype synth called DiMA. DiMA is friendly to both the Harbormen and the Children so long as Acadia remains autonomous and isolated from the rest of the world.
Plot
Valentine's Detective Agency receives a request for help from Kenji and Rei Nakano, a husband and wife living in a remote corner of the Commonwealth; their daughter, Kasumi, has vanished without a trace or explanation. The Sole Survivor is sent to investigate, discovers Kasumi had been in contact with Acadia and borrows Kenji's boat to follow her.Arriving in the town of Far Harbor, the Sole Survivor finds the Island locked in a tense stalemate between the local residents and the Children of Atom. With the aid of a local hunter and one of the Harbormen named Old Longfellow, the Sole Survivor finds Kasumi living in Acadia. Kasumi has come to believe that she is a synth, and has sought refuge there, even though she has started to doubt the intentions of DiMA. At Kasumi's behest, the Sole Survivor switches focus to investigating DiMA, and gradually learns he has consciously chosen to store some of his memories on hard drives outside of his body. He has hidden them inside a computer simulation in the Children of Atom's base, the Nucleus, but has grown increasingly concerned that if the Children access the memories, they will have the means to destroy Far Harbor.
The Sole Survivor approaches the Children of Atom to recover DiMA's memories and learns that he put in place a series of fail-safes to protect Acadia, and to preserve the balance of power between Far Harbor and the Children of Atom. These are the access codes to a nuclear warhead, stored within the Nucleus, and the means to sabotage the fog condensers protecting Far Harbor. The Sole Survivor also discovers that DiMA murdered Captain Avery and replaced her with a synth to maintain peace between Far Harbor and Acadia.
Endings
There are eight possible endings. The Sole Survivor is faced with a choice: to destroy Far Harbor, to destroy the Children of Atom, or to inform the people of Far Harbor of DiMA's crime and trigger a feud between the Harbormen and Acadia.Should the player choose to detonate the warhead, the Harbormen will take control of the Island, while if the player destroys the fog condensers, the Children will become dominant. In both scenarios Acadia will be spared, though DiMA will disapprove of the player's actions. Alternatively, if the player confronts DiMA over Avery's murder, Acadia may become hostile.
The Sole Survivor is able to establish a more permanent peace between all parties by assassinating or chasing away High Confessor Tektus, and allowing DiMA to replace him with a synth who will adopt a more moderate stance towards the Harbormen.
Additionally, the Sole Survivor can choose to make the main game's factions aware of Acadia's existence. The Institute, a scientific organization that made the synths, will send agents to reclaim them, while the Brotherhood of Steel, a quasi-religious organization rooted in the United States Armed Forces, will launch an expedition to exterminate them. The Railroad, a group dedicated towards freeing the Institute's sentient synths, will send an operative to make contact with Acadia, though the latter will reject their help.
In the aftermath, the Sole Survivor returns to the Nakano family back in the Commonwealth. Kasumi, depending on the player's choices, may return with the player character or stay in Acadia.