Fallout 4: Nuka-World on PlayStation 4

When Fallout 4 released to critical acclaim back in November of last year, many fans were already eagerly anticipating what lay in store as part of the game’s post-launch support. Automatron started things off, offering a short but sweet questline and robot companions. Wasteland Workshop followed shortly after and focused on fleshing out the ‘love it or hate it’ settlement building mechanic of the base game. Then Far Harbor came along, offering a huge new area to explore full of quests, exciting new weapons, and an intriguing story. While there’s been two DLCs since then, neither have offered an experience of similar scope. Nuka-World, however, adds in yet another new area, a pretty lengthy main questline, and a ton of weird and wonderful weapons and items you could only get in a Fallout game.

Your adventure begins just like many others: you pick up a strange radio signal and tune in. This time, you hear a commercial for the “happiest place on earth,” Nuka-World. Now, when you find out there’s a theme park nearby, you aren’t gonna turn it down, so off you head on your adventure to the West of the Commonwealth. Before you even reach the park, you meet resistance, suggesting that this may not be an easygoing adventure. The Raiders who await you can be tough depending on your level, so it’s best to make sure you’re well-equipped and are a high enough level before going much further.

Before you arrived, Nuka-World was ruled by an Overboss that didn’t listen to the wants of the three different gangs of Raiders now inhabiting the park. Each of these gangs – the Disciples, Operators, and the Pack – all want the lion’s share of the park for themselves. After becoming the new Overboss (which sees you kill the former one in a really enjoyable boss battle at the end of an arduous Gauntlet), it’s down to you to secure the different areas of the park and dole them out to the gangs as you see fit. It’s not quite as nuanced as the creepy goings on of Far Harbor, but as you wander around this fully-realized theme park, you can’t help but to get immersed in the world of Fallout 4 once again. 

The Gauntlet and your face-off against the Overboss tell you all you need to know about Nuka-World. Nothing is quite as it seems, and the odds are definitely stacked against you. You’ll need to have your wits about you, utilize your lockpicking skills, and have some badass weaponry. In order to level the playing field, just as Far Harbor did, the new adventure adds a bunch of unique and powerful weapons into the game to bolster your arsenal. Though some are certainly more devastating than others, each one feels distinctly unique. Are your shots not making a dent in your enemy’s health bar? The Acid Splasher can significantly lower their damage resistance, making them much easier to take down. Nuka’s new additions are welcomed with open arms.

The leaders of Nuka-World’s gangs aren’t going to take too kindly to you simply becoming the head honcho, and so your adviser, Porter Gage, tells you that you’ll have to play to specific preferences to sway your favor with each group. For example, the Disciples are obsessed with blood and death, so as long as you promise them a ton of violence, they’re happy. Operators, on the other hand, are all about making money, while the Pack is all about an ‘alpha-male’ attitude. While you’re told toward the beginning of your time in the park that these will be significant in your dealings with each gang, other than the opening conversation with each boss, I didn’t find myself once needing to remember these pointers. It’s a shame, as this gave a little more personality to each gang and made conversational choices a little more interesting. Unfortunately, it wasn’t implemented far enough to really play any significance.

With the introductions out of the way, you’re tasked with exploring five different areas of the park all branching out from the hub area of Nuka-Town, USA. Each area of the park feels distinct and manages to have that authentic theme park feel. Cardboard cutouts stand unnervingly, smiling in doorways, and the robot park assistants are suitably programmed into character. While the main objective in each of these areas is largely the same – clear any threats to the gang you choose to later inhabit it – they all have their own tale to tell, which makes completing the main bulk of Nuka-World a little less repetitive.

While much of the enjoyment comes from completing the main narrative of Nuka-World, there are plenty of distractions offered up in the form of side quests and the Nuka-Cade. A fan-favorite Fallout 3 NPC makes her return and asks you find all of the hidden Cappy clues around the park, you’ll do odd jobs for the gangs, and sometimes you’ll just play some arcade games. These all offer viable ways to soak up the atmosphere.

One crucial feature is the ability to create new flavors of the Wasteland’s favorite drink, Nuka-Cola. Dotted around the theme park are Nuka-Mixer machines, providing players the ability to mix existing flavors to create new ones complete with their own buffs. This gives a little more value to those standard flavors you’ve been carrying around, and your new creations will often become more common replacements for pricier and rarer medical equipment such as Stimpacks and RadAways.

Once you’ve successfully secured all of the areas of the park, found all of said Cappy clues, and won a ton of tickets in the Nuka-Cade, Gage will suggest it’s time to branch out. This shift away from Nuka-World itself is where the heart of my issues with the DLC lie. A section of the ending quests require some ethically questionable actions, and there’s no way out of this if you want to finish the Nuka-World questline, unfortunately.  While it was enjoyable to interact with the game from a darker perspective, it led to a conflict of interest inside me. I, like I’m sure many other players do, tend to play the good guy, and so being forced into completing objectives like this was kind of frustrating. On the other hand, I wanted to see what lay in store at the end of the DLC. It’s not enough to detract greatly from the enjoyment to be had here, but it may sour the experience somewhat for those wasteland saints like myself.

Back when Fallout 4 first released, the game suffered some serious framerate issues. Since then, Bethesda has worked hard to clear up these problems, though the game still chugs from time to time. When playing Nuka-World, the gameplay was largely stable on PS4, though I did get a couple of freezes when moving between the different areas of the park, and on one occasion the game completely crashed on me when exiting my Pip-Boy. These were by no means frequent enough to make the game unplayable, but it does pull you out of the experience, and can be more than a little worrying if you’ve not saved in a while.

As the final chapter of Fallout 4, Nuka-World does a stellar job in delivering an experience that fans are sure to enjoy, clocking in around 20 hours if you complete the side quests. Though it may not offer a story quite as captivating as that of Far Harbor, it’s enough of an impetus to push on for what happens next. Ultimately, everything within the park, including the gangs (despite their largely insignificant preferences), was immersive and entertaining. Side quests are full of character, the Nuka-Cade provides a decent enough distraction, the different areas of the park are fun to explore, and those Nuka-Colas finally feel like they have a purpose. That said, it’s the latter half of the experience that some may find conflicts with their character’s natural demeanor. If you can deal with being bad for a couple of hours, then I see no reason why you shouldn’t pick up a ticket for Nuka-World.

Score: 4/5- Great