It’s always great to see a developer spread their wings. Rebellion, who’ve been making video games for almost three decades, had found their groove with the Sniper Elite games. They’ve branched out with other games, like Zombie Army Trilogy and the more unexpected Strange Brigade. But Atomfall is a brave new step for Rebellion, taking everything they’ve learnt from those games and upping the ambition to 11. While it’s primarily a strong pivot in a new direction, it does feel like the game has an identity crisis at time, stuck between wanting to be a simpler action game and a fully-fledged RPG.
Atomfall takes place five years, in the 60s, after the real-life Windscale nuclear disaster within the Lakes district of North England. You wake up, trying to make sense of the world you’ve woken up in. You’re in a quarantine zone sealed off from the outside world since the incident, and multiple factions are offering help to get you out of there. It sounds a bit Fallout-y, and it is at first, but beyond that, the story of Atomfall is much more intriguing. Upon exiting your bunker, you’re contacted by a mysterious voice via a still-standing public telephone. But who can you trust? That’s the central question underpinning most of Atomfall, and it’s a genuinely tough call to make to developer Rebellion’s credit.
And while it takes a bit to get going and feels incredibly cliché, there’s something just so intriguing about Atomfall’s premise. It’s obvious that everyone who extends a helping hand to assist you has an ulterior motive, but you know you’ve got to play the game (both literally and figuratively) to make it out of the zone. But what really helps sell Atomfall is its story and its world. It’s not your typical arid wasteland seen oft too much in many post-apocalyptic dramas. It’s a lush yet unforgiving countryside filled with lush vegetation and verdant hills to explore. And it’s filled with some colourful types too.
While there are many comparisons to be drawn to Fallout, Atomfall does a lot of its own thing to deserve attention outside of the games it so liberally borrows from. You’ll eventually encounter a few different factions in your opening hours, from the Brotherhood-like Protocol military group to the paganistic group that calls themselves the Druids. Each faction occupies a specific area of the map, and you can play the game in favour of any of them.
It has to be said how much of a change Atomfall is for Rebellion. Building upon their well-established work on the Zombie Army Trilogy and Sniper Elite games, Atomfall feels entirely different. It’s a largely open-world game but splits the world into six distinct areas. Exploring each is a joy, and it’s up to you, as the player, to decide how to get out of the quarantine zone and discover who you are.
And in the early hours of the game, it does feel harsh. With barely anything in your hands, you’ll have to find a way to overcome the large groups of enemies that the game throws at you. It is a bit tough at first, but as you start to amass a bunch of weapons, whether melee or projectile, things become a breeze. The combat itself is simple and yet effective, though a lot of the weapons, especially the melee ones, all feel rather similar.
Atomfall doesn’t tell you much about what to do from the get-go. Depending on your preferences as a player, this will be a hit-or-miss decision for you. But Atomfall feels like a perfect storm; it’s just the right size, not too big nor too small, to let players explore it and get lost before quickly getting them back on track with one of many leads. Even though I had a map, I rarely used it in the later hours of Atomfall. You learn the world and come to know how to use your knowledge of The Lakes to get around.
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I mentioned Leads before. As you might have guessed, Leads are Atomfall’s take on the typical quest log in any other RPG. Rather than being given an objective and told exactly where to go, you will discover leads by reading certain documents scattered around the world or speaking to certain characters. Leads gesture you towards a certain direction (though some have real coordinates, if appropriate) and require you to fill in the gaps. For the most part, it’s a great little system, facilitating genuine and organic exploration of Atomfall’s dense world. I can’t tell you how many times I’d follow a lead before coming across two or three more, some taking me in a wildly different direction and significantly altering how a quest plays out.
Though I like the freedom to do objectives however you want, Atomfall does, at times, feel unwilling to completely commit to hitting players with the consequences of their actions. Sometimes, I’d blind rob somebody, and nothing would change in the game world. I once completely betrayed somebody on a quest, only to return and talk my way out of the situation in a completely unbelievable way. There are no charisma checks in Atomfall – every time you bring something up, people will agree with you, and it can make things feel too easy.
Here lies the biggest strength and weakness of Atomfall – it’s not an RPG. There are no stats to pore over, nor are there any experience points to earn or charisma checks to complete. This is an action game through and through. When you land a headshot with a strong weapon, your target will die, with no stats getting in the way. It flows arguably better, but it also means that there is an awkward disconnect between how the quests play out and how I behaved.
That being said, while the artifice of this world was laid bare before me fairly regularly, Atomfall reminded me of one game in particular. The freedom you’re given to complete your investigations is incredibly reminiscent of Fallout: New Vegas. That’s no doubt music to the ears of New Vegas fans, but be warned that despite such a strong commitment to openness of objectives, other aspects feel underbaked.
But other little things help to make Atomfall feel unique to varying successes. For one, traders are that – traders. There is no currency to horde; instead, you’ll have to trade your item(s) for an item that a trader wants to bulk up your inventory. It’s a cool system made especially cooler when you consider each merchant has different tastes for certain items. Other unique aspects don’t land quite as well, like the need to monitor your character’s heartbeat. It increases when damaged or sprinting, and affects your aim if it’s too high, though it feels like a stamina bar but in reverse.
Exploration and investigation are the focus here. While combat was fun, if not slightly simplistic, the game is clearly tooled for you to avoid It. Your enemy and you will die fairly quickly, so it’s best to avoid combat where possible, especially given that ammo is sparse. However, how the world tells its story through scattered logs and its environment is incredibly reminiscent of games like Prey and BioShock.
From a presentation perspective, you already know what to expect from Atomfall if you’ve played any of Rebellion’s previous games. Their custom engine does great work here, bringing a lush yet unnerving apocalyptic world to life. The performance is great, too – though I had some audio bugs – the game runs at a rock-solid 60fps without sacrificing the crisp image quality that other games do. And while the game is fully voiced, repeated ambient dialogue and some flat performances bring things down.
Despite its shortcomings, I really enjoyed Atomfall. It managed to blend all the things I loved about the objective and quest design of the older Fallout games with the atmospheric worldbuilding of games like Prey and BioShock. While it fumbles under the weight of its own ambition, it’s an incredibly strong action game that kept me hooked from beginning to end, even though it is comprised of elements we’ve seen before.
