TheFalloutseries has been around for over 15 years, releasing post-apocalyptic dystopian games that have found their way into their fans' irradiated hearts. With its strange-real setting, and even stranger characters, you’ll find yourself revisiting the series over and over. While the Fallout setting has had soaring highs, and deep lows, it remains one of the most beloved worlds in gaming.
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Ever sinceFallout 3, the games have been expanded by downloadable content. Some DLCs build on their base game’s stories, while others take a step outside of them to show more about the world. Some offer small tweaks, and others are the highlights of their games. Here are the best Fallout DLCs you should play.
10Nuka-World (Fallout 4)
Nuka-World is the third story DLC released forFallout 4, adding a new theme-park zone to explore. It was also the last DLC the game would receive aside from updated textures. For being a final piece of extra content, Nuka-World could have used another writing pass.
The premise is you have arrived at Nuka-World and slain the leader of three raider gangs. In their single collective brain cell of wisdom, they decide to make you the new leader. From there, the raiders expect you to take control over all of Nuka-World and manage their politics. Or you can annihilate them. This DLC is either playing a story as a gang leader, or it’s all of two quests.
9Operation Anchorage (Fallout 3)
Operation Anchorage provides a unique look into Fallout’s setting, as it’s the only DLC that lets you see some pre-war events first hand. Thanks to your Pipboy, you’re one of the few people who can access a combat simulation showing the battle of Anchorage. The DLC has you recreate the battle of the operation, fighting enemy soldiers while commanding your own.
The DLC is combat focused; there aren’t any characters in the simulation that have meaningful interactions, and the brotherhood outcasts outside of it don’t have much to add. The draw of this DLC is the completion reward. After leaving vault 101 in Fallout 3, you can head over to complete this DLC right away and gain access to a powerful armory.
8Automatron (Fallout 4)
Automatron is the first DLC for Fallout 4, adding more story content and the ability to create your own mechanical companions. The story of this DLC involves a new faction of machines being unleashed on the wasteland, killing everyone they come across. With a new robotic companion at your side, you set out to shut them down.
The story itself is straightforward; there aren’t any moral decisions you have to make as you hunt down haywire machines with parts you need. The DLC’s antagonist, The Mechanist, adds a fun twist as you find out their reasoning and how it went wrong. There’s also extra dialogue if you wear the silver shroud costume for added fun. The best part of the DLC is the ability to make automatrons that can join you as companions. If you ever wanted to have a customized sentry bot back you up, this is the DLC for it.
7The Pitt (Fallout 3)
Taking place in the destroyed ruins of Pittsburg, the Pitt has the player infiltrate while masquerading as a slave. ThisFallout 3DLC requires that you part with your gear temporarily, but unlike a DLC inNew Vegasthat does the same as a cheap trick, the Pitt prepares you for it. Being depowered actually helps the story of the Pitt, as you’re able to see the horrors the lowest rung of its society endure.
The Pitt even delves into some horror gameplay with the troglodyte Contagion, a dangerous mutation that turns people into feral monsters. While the Pitt is a great DLC, Its big karmic choices are not as ambiguous as they’d like to seem. You either side with the slaves and free them, or you side with the slavers and become one of them.
6Mothership Zeta (Fallout 3)
Mothership Zeta takes you up into space in a self-contained sci-fi experience. Early after Fallout 3’s release, players found a crashed UFO, a dead alien, and one of the most powerful weapons in the game all in one crater. When Mothership Zeta released, this crash site became the site for your abduction.
The whole DLC takes place on the alien mothership, far above the capital wasteland. After being subjected to alien experiments, you work with fellow abductees to organize your escape and subsequent takeover of the ship. While the story is pretty straightforward, the gameplay has you fight unique enemies with interesting weapons, and it’s an all around fun questline.
5Far Harbor (Fallout 4)
As the second story DLC of Fallout 4, Far Harbor offers the best experience of the three. While searching for a missing person, you set out by sea and arrive at the islands where Far Harbor takes place. The area is wrapped in radioactive fog, and the monsters are as deadly as they are plentiful.
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Far Harbor has the best writing of all Fallout 4 content, as you attempt reason or violence between three opposed factions. DiMa is a great character; a synth running things behind the scenes without even knowing he was. The DLC raises points of justice and identity, making you question what the right decision truly is when doing what is right makes conflict unavoidable.
4Broken Steel (Fallout 3)
Broken Steel is the epilogue chapter to Fallout 3. It gives you what you want most after completing a good game: more to experience. It raises your level cap by 10 and adds in new enemies to match it. You play the pivotal role between Fallout 3’stwo warring factions.
Broken Steel expands the game by having your character survive the events of the climax and lead the fight against the enclave. It’s the final chapter to Fallout 3, with some of the best missions and stakes in the series. Fallout 3 feels incomplete without it.
3Old World Blues (Fallout: New Vegas)
Old World Blues is one of the wackiest DLCs in Fallout: New Vegas. It takes place in the Big Empty, a large pre-war research facility filled with enemy robots, monsters, and people with their brains removed. You are not spared that last problem, as you have had your brain, spine, and heart removed and replaced with cybernetics.
To find your missing bits, you work with the think tank, five 200-year-old brains in jars gone insane after the passage of time and drug use, against their rogue member: Doctor Mobius. The questline feels in the best way like you’re a passenger heading for a horrible trainwreck, and you can’t get off. You also get to have a chat with your brain and its concerns about your behavior in one of the funniest dialogue trees in the series.
2Honest Hearts (Fallout: New Vegas)
Honest Hearts is a perfect example of having a DLC be a standalone experience, while revealing the history of the main game. It takes place in Zion Canyon during a war between the indigenous factions and invading minions of Caesar’s empire. Your courier plays a central role in the conflict, eventually deciding its outcome.
The DLC also introduces fan-favorite character, Joshua Graham, formerly Caesar’s right-hand man. Graham reveals a lot of the history of Caesar’s empire to you and how it was established. The story of this DLC does bring into questions of justice vs vengeance and how people of the wasteland will follow your example — for good or ill.
The Lonesome Road tells a personal story of a rivalry between your courier and another. This Story is told through logs and history hinted at in all the other Fallout New Vegas DLCs, culminating in one final confrontation. You face Ulysses, the Courier that walked the west side of the wasteland as yours walked the east.
Ulysses has you trek through the divide, an area totally destroyed by explosions and earthquakes with an eternal radioactive haze in the sky. Over this journey, you learn about Ulysses' background through logs and yournew robot companion. The final showdown is a true finale. You meet in an ICBM bunker for the fight of your life, but it doesn’t have to be. Even if your speech stat is low, the game rewards you for your exploration, opening new dialog if you’ve found all the logs.
