Note: like other DLC reviews, I will only be covering the Steel Dawn questline in this review – not the rest of the base game changes. This is going to be a shorter review than what I’ve done in the past, as it is a smaller DLC. In addition, this post does contain spoilers.

Intro

Steel Dawn is the first questline in a larger story arc centered around the Brotherhood of Steel’s return to Appalachia. (It is heavily implied that the story will be continued in 2021.) Impressively, it is Bethesda Game Studios’ (BGS) third and final major update for Fallout 76 this year; they’ve pushed more content, fixes, and improvement this year than in the rest of the game’s lifespan. In addition, the update ended up releasing a full week early; despite that, I experienced very few major issues during my time with it, save for a few server disconnects. (Blame the holiday weekend?) I was impressed.

While writing this review, I kept in mind that Steel Dawn is merely the introduction to what BGS has in mind for their entire Brotherhood of Steel story arc. I also inevitably compared it to previous Fallout 76 updates (namely, the Wastelanders patch introduced earlier this year), which may have tainted my opinion.

Review

Steel Dawn is short. There are nine main quests; over a third of those are spent being recruited into the Brotherhood, and the middle third sends players to interact with the Appalachian civilians. The rest is spent resolving inner-faction conflict and tying up loose ends, all while setting up the next story beats. On its own, this isn’t bad; when combined with how relatively easy the enemies were, it made for a pleasant casual experience.

However, that experience was tainted by simply being in the Brotherhood’s presence. Look, I’ll be upfront: I was already biased against them when I started the DLC. I never finished their questline in Fallout 4 simply because the members I interacted with were complete jerks; this was echoed in Steel Dawn. I was constantly being reprimanded for simply doing what I believed to be right. I was treated with contempt despite my previous work in restoring the wasteland. Heck, every time I walked past a generic Initiate NPC, they told me that I must cure my mutations. (No, redshirt, I will not give up my ability to jump higher than you!) Except for Scribe Valdez and Paladin Rahmani, everybody had a bone to pick with me.

The short storyline was further soured when I realized that none of my actions, past or present, mattered. I was treated as a civilian from the beginning, despite my efforts in the game’s previous story arcs. When the Brotherhood sent me to the Raider and Settler factions, my standing with each faction mattered little. And for the final major choice toward the end, it wasn’t a choice at all; the outcome was the same no matter what I chose. I understand the limitations that exist with Fallout 76 being an online multiplayer game, but it still felt lacking.

Conclusion

In short, the actually fun gameplay was mostly tainted by the story and the characters surrounding it. Steel Dawn wasn’t good. There were good moments, of course; for example, the penultimate quest took place in a creepy bunker that threw a wrench in what was happening. I enjoyed that. I’m hoping for more of these moments in the rest of the upcoming story arc. If future story updates are “more of the same” in this case, I can’t guarantee that I’ll even finish them.

Screenshot captured by me. You can find me in-game on the PC servers as joshfong. If you’d like to know about me, why not check out my song of the week posts?