If you were frustrated with Automatron’s lack of content, then Fallout 4’s latest addition, Wasteland Workshop, is going to fail to impress, consisting of new objects to place in settlements, the ability to capture creatures, and new arenas for NPCs to duel, and nothing else. Indeed Wasteland Workshop is more akin to minor add-on pack than an expansion.

Fortunately the new additions are ideal for those looking to better customise their settlements. A whole host of new objects have been added, such as the ability to build concrete walls and floors as well as significantly more options for lights and decorations. Potted plants have also made an appearance, which better suits the more arid settlements you may have founded. However, the most intriguing additions are certainly the NPC combat platforms and the cages to trap the many creatures that call the wasteland home.

By placing the new fight platforms in a settlement and assigning an NPC to them, they will then engage each other in a fight to the death. And of course, with the vast building options available in the settlement management side of things, it doesn’t take much imagination to foresee the elaborate Colosseums and trap filled death-houses you could build to entertain you and your fellow settlers. Furthermore, being able to capture and unleash or tame the wasteland’s many creatures adds another interesting facet to explore.

Fallout 4 Wasteland Workshop

You can now build cages to capture specific creatures, and even raiders, gunners and super mutants, which can then be unleashed within the aforementioned arenas, or in the case of the wildlife, tamed and used to protect your settlements. Either way it’s an entertaining aside to the quests and troubles of the wasteland, one that fits in wonderfully with the already compelling settlement building. However, we did encounter a few bugs, such as traps not opening once they’d captured something, and the taming beta-wave transmitter failing to turn creatures docile.

That is, however, all that Wasteland Workshop provides. There are a handful of new achievements related to the new building options but no new quests or content. Meanwhile, unlocking the perks you need to use the beta-wave transmitter can take some grinding if you haven’t got them already, and plenty of materials and bait are required as well, so further exploration of the wasteland is an almost inevitable side-effect. As such, these are good new options to the building aspect of Fallout 4, ones that can provide hours of fun for those already hooked on settlement building and customisation, but it otherwise doesn’t offer much.

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