Bethesda Explains Fallout 4: Vault-Tec Workshop DLC

After showcasing it via a livestream, the folks at Bethesda have penned a write-up on the Vault-Tec Workshop DLC for Fallout 4 on their official website. The short version: the DLC can be started at any level but is only recommended to characters who are at least level 20. It includes quests, unlike the other Workshop DLC, though they are not critical to its additions to the settlement systems, which will apparently be substantial.

Considering our readership, I'm going to quote a bit on the quests:

If you’re above level 20, you’ll hear a distress beacon no matter where you are in the world, alerting you to an emergency situation at Vault 88. Once you arrive and take care of some Raiders who are trying to force their way in, you’ll meet the Vault’s rather strange Overseer. The only surviving resident of Vault 88, she’s been trapped down here alone and has turned into a ghoul. In fact, the bombs went off before her Vault could be completed and she has spent the last 200 years waiting to build it. But that hasn’t discouraged her loyalty to Vault-Tec – and she can’t wait to run some experiments on unsuspecting dwellers.

That’s where the Vault-Tec Workshop quest really kicks in. You’ll start off by interviewing some potential new settlers, searching for the perfect subject for all your nefarious tests. From there you will be tasked with running a series of experiments, each with different outcomes, depending on the choices you make. Will you be a benevolent leader? Or a cruel tyrant? Or maybe somewhere in the middle?

Your choice of test parameters will affect the final version of each experimental object, so think carefully. Whatever you end up crafting for your experiment will be permanently added to the Workshop, allowing you to build it whenever you want.

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But you don’t have to complete the quests at all if you don’t want to. If you just want the pure Workshop experience and don’t care about the narrative overlay, you can choose to kill the poor ghoul Overseer, or just tell her to leave when you arrive. If you do choose to kill her or force her out, you’ll still be able to build a basic version of each experiment item.