Andy goes on a musical adventure.
A musical mod for Fallout4 with a twisted sense of humor.
One of my biggest problems with Fallout 4 is how most of the quests boil down to walking through some dilapidated corridors, killing a load of ghouls or Gunners or whoever, then returning for your reward. Which is why Echo, a quest created by modder Kilosandwich, is so refreshing. This one-to-two hour long quest features a load of custom voice acting and music, multiple endings, a few secrets, and it uses mostly vanilla assets, meaning you will be able to play through it without installing a mountain of other mods.
Once installed through the in-game mod manager (search for ‘employment’, it’s the only result) you can start the quest either by discovering the Dartmouth Professional Building, which lies southeast of the Boston Public Library, or by grabbing the ‘All Aboard’ notice on the board to the left of Swatters in Diamond City. Enter the elevator in the Dartmouth building, and you’ll find yourself standing in front of a table with a bottle of wine on it.
Hover over the wine, and you’ll notice that the HUD describes it as ‘Definitely Not Drugged Wine’, which will give you an idea of Echo’s humor. This is a tongue-in-cheek quest. Its design and self-aware tone clearly echo The Stanley Parable. After drinking the wine I black out and wake up aboard a ship in the middle of the ocean with a voice blaring at me over a speaker from some unknown source.
This is Captain, who welcomes me aboard his ship and tells me that I’m being considered for employment—if I can pass his tests. I’m not exactly sure what the job I’m up for is, but seeing as I’m surrounded by ocean, I don’t have much choice but to play along. It’s worth noting that the voice acting is fantastic, and as good as anything in the actual game—particularly when Captain, voiced by the mod’s creator Kilosandwich, starts singing along to the various pieces of catchy, chirpy vintage music included in the mod.
PUZZLE QUEST
Echo is a series of simple but cleverly designed puzzles. Captain has rigged the ship with traps, bombs, and other unpleasantness, and your ‘job interview’ involves bypassing them by carefully listening to his instructions. But there’s room to rebel, and I’m impressed by how many lines of dialogue have been
recorded for when I decide not to follow his instructions and try to make my own way through the ship. This is where that Stanley Parable influence is most evident, but it’s unique enough not to feel like a straight copy.
A lot of Captain’s trials involve patience: Waiting for him to finish crooning along to a Bing Crosby song, or standing completely still until he reveals which of a selection of doors isn’t booby-trapped with a rocket launcher. I’ve never really enjoyed Fallout’s goofy sense of humor, but Echo is, for the most part, genuinely funny. You can almost picture Kilosandwich smiling mischievously as the mod forces you to jump through these surreal, ridiculous hoops.
But it’s not all laughs, because some of Captain’s later trials are disarmingly difficult. One involves shutting down a nuclear reactor in the ship’s engine room by accessing a series of terminals in a particular order, all while being attacked by laser turrets and assaultrons. Another sees you navigating a gauntlet of mines, turrets, and grenades hung up on strings in a maze of shipping containers. And as you’re struggling through these challenges, Captain’s voice goads and jabs at you, doubting whether you have what it takes to receive the dubious honor of becoming his next employee.
EXPLOSIVE FINALE
The quest ends with a particularly devilish puzzle involving a nuclear warhead and a ticking clock, but I’ll leave you to discover that for yourself. It’s a wonderfully frantic moment that forces you to really pay attention to the environment around you. Echo is made with such skill and confidence that I wouldn’t be surprised if someone from Bethesda came knocking on Kilosandwich’s door with a job opportunity of their own—hopefully not involving mines and killer mazes. You can download Echo in Fallout 4’ s own mod manager or via Nexus Mods, and I recommend that you do. You will need the Far Harbor DLC for it to work, though.
Fallout 4 is an incredibly moddable game, and it’s remarkable that people can make stuff as creative and unusual as Echo with Bethesda’s tools. But what I love most about this quest is how, an encounter with some mirelurks aside, absolutely no shooting is involved. You can think your way out of pretty much every predicament: a design philosophy Fallout 4 sidelined to focus on its fairly dull and unsatisfying combat. Hopefully future entries in the series take a leaf out of Kilosandwich’s book, realizing that using your brain to solve a problem is always more enjoyable than squeezing a trigger.
THE VOICE ACTING IS FANTASTIC, AND AS GOOD AS ANYTHING IN THE ACTUAL GAME