After the thoroughly enjoyable main game, Atomfall’s first DLC, Wicked Isle, was a bit of a letdown. Its story, despite some added monk mysteries, was far too similar to the main game’s story to keep my attention, not to mention the slightly awkward way in which it was presented. Then some of the missions required backtracking to areas from the base game for the fetchiest of all fetch quests, which really didn’t help things. The Red Strain is the second expansion for the game, taking players to another new area with its own storyline and sprinkling in some new weapons and perks as well. It’s certainly a bit of an improvement of its predecessor, but the title of the DLC might give a hint as to why it’s still a bit disappointing.
Forgoing any story spoilers, The Red Strain refers to a mysterious and, yes, red plague that is corrupting the environment and people in the new area, Scafell Crag. It turns the foliage red and dangerous, with exploding red things in it, and there are red ferals now. You know, instead of them being blue. Herein lies the disappointment: this new red strain doesn’t really behave very differently to the blue version in the main game.
The only real difference is that this strain has also been corrupting humans, driving them to be aggressive and attacking you on sight, which is like pretty much everyone else you bump into in the wilderness in Atomfall. It’s a shame there isn’t much new here really, especially since even the enemies are barely changed – they’re just red now.
My initial foray into Scafell Crag was absolutely miserable. First I backtracked to the very beginning area of the game to access the lift that would take me there, not too bad but a bit inconvenient, but once I took that lift and ventured into the new area I was beset by enemies. Even my stockpile of ammo that I have had since lowering the difficulty in the previous DLC started to dwindle. Suffice to say that the initial area is incredibly hostile and the second area is quarantined behind a big, impassable wall.
So after I have seemingly wiped out half the population of Cumbria, I set about finding a way through this wall. After a minor quest issue that has recently been patched that led to a major misunderstanding caused me to waste half an hour sprinting all the way to Skethermoore for no reason, I opened this gate and started having fun again. This is why the Red Strain is a shame, the actual titular aspect – the Red Strain itself – is almost a reskin mechanically speaking, but the stuff in the background to explain it is quite interesting. There’s talking brains in jars here – another classic Fallout staple and a decent mystery with some suitably eccentric science-types. Sure some of the details are predictable – I’m sure you already know the source of the red strain based entirely on its name and how I’ve described it – but so were some of the details of the main game. That moreish feeling I had when playing through the main story returned for a good while during this DLC.
Along with these brain jars comes some new robots and enemies, including some flying, manhack-style things that are cool, if annoying because they behave like the rats and other swarms in the main game. There’s some new perks that can be very useful, and whilst there are some new legendary weapons, my favourite new gun is an actual silenced pistol, which has revolutionised stealth in the game, unsurprisingly. Melee combat is still poor, though that recent patch improves AI reactions whilst fighting at least, specifically ensuring they flinch when you kick them, which you’d think would be a given.
This free update that’s arrived alongside the ‘complete edition’ release has also added a fast travel system to the game that, while I mostly played this DLC before that update was released, should be a major blessing to get past some of the more tedious backtracking. The inventory is still a pain, however, especially since you often need to carry quest items around that take up precious space.
