Atomfall is probably going to surprise a lot of people- it’s much better than you think. Personally, going in, I fully expected a solid game, not only because of Sniper Elite and Zombie Army developer Rebellion’s admirably consistent track record over the last several years, but because Atomfall itself has also looked promisingly unique and intriguing in all the right ways in the lead-up to its release. The game quickly surpassed even my expectations, however. Atomfall is better designed, more polished, more wonderfully bizarre, more narratively engrossing, and more mechanically compelling than it has any right to be.
The alternate history dystopian title is set in 1960s Northern England. Inspired by the 1957 Windscale fire, one of the worst major nuclear disasters in world history, Atomfall finds you, an amnesiac and silent protagonist, in the middle of a quarantine zone in rural Cumbria. Set five years after the nuclear disaster, however, the zone isn’t exactly the picture of a typical post-nuclear environment. It’s vibrant, lush, gorgeously colourful, and wonderfully vivid. Thick vegetation, varied forestry, stunning landscapes and abundant fauna define every inch of the zone, and it all oozes atmosphere. In more ways than one, Atomfall wears its S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Fallout influences on its sleeve, but in its setting, it manages to create something that feels incredibly unique and original.
“Atomfall is better designed, more polished, more wonderfully bizarre, more narratively engrossing, and more mechanically compelling than it has any right to be.”
That setting also plays host to a surprisingly captivating story. From the very first second, Atomfall succeeds in convincing fashion not only in creating a distinct identity for itself and its world, but also in building an engrossing central mystery surrounding the nuclear disaster at the atom plant that lies at the heart of the zone, what it was that caused the disaster, and what effects the incident has had on the quarantine zone in the years since then- and boy have there been effects.
No, the zone isn’t exactly a nuclear wasteland, but it’s still far from safe, and far from normal. Trapped in isolation for years, the people within its walls have split into different factions – regular survivors, fascistic soldiers, bloodthirsty outlaws, zealot druids – each of whom are different kinds of nuts. Every character you meet in Atomfall is a personality, to say the very least, with everything from the writing to the voice acting coming together to bleed life and character into every NPC you meet, no matter how important (or unimportant). Beyond the people, there are also plenty of other inexplicable dangers- mutated humanoid monsters, weird fungal growths, auditory hallucinations, and more. Peeling back the layers of Atomfall’s many mysteries and slowly putting the puzzle pieces together makes for an engrossing experience. That’s thanks in large part to the manner in which the game doles out tantalizing bits of the story, cryptically revealing only morsels at a time and striking the perfect balance between keeping you hooked and making you feel like there’s something just out of reach.
Just as impressive is Atomfall’s knack for making you feel like the author of your own journey, which it does in different ways. It sprinkles in elements of player choice, with dialogue choices and the ability to kill as many (or as few) people as you want, whether that’s a pure pacifist run or one where you murder every single character you meet. Much more important, however, is how unguided and hands-off the game’s overarching structure is. Quests take the form of leads, which are little more than vague hints referring people or locations to merely nudge you in a direction, after which it’s entirely up to you whether you want to pull on that thread. You never quite know how important any lead could be, since even some rather unassuming ones can turn out to tie into the main story in surprising ways. Atomfall does an excellent job at encouraging you to simply follow your curiosity rather than gamifying anything with “quests”, to the extent that the very concept of “side quests” ends up losing meaning.
“Peeling back the layers of Atomfall’s many mysteries and slowly putting the puzzle pieces together makes for an engrossing experience. That’s thanks in large part to the manner in which the game doles out tantalizing bits of the story, cryptically revealing only morsels at a time and striking the perfect balance between keeping you hooked and making you feel like there’s something just out of reach.”
It also helps that its world is a constant joy to explore. The Cumbria quarantine zone is a fully open world map, but split into several zones separated by load screens (while indoor environments and dungeons are also usually separately instanced). In terms of size, it’s significantly smaller than the likes of, say, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. or Fallout, but it does still feel sufficiently large- and more importantly, it uses all of its real estate quite effectively. Atomfall’s map boasts impressive variety, from prison camps and castle ruins to charming hamlets (under terrifying martial law), mysterious cave networks, abandoned bunkers and facilities, and of course, plenty of bright-red phone boxes.
Exploring it all is also never not enjoyable or rewarding. This is another area where Atomfall adopts a hands-off approach, especially if you play it on default difficulty (or higher), where navigation grounds you firmly in the world and demands you to actually pay attention to your surroundings as you try and make your way around. The things that you discover are also almost always worth it, to varying degrees- eccentric characters, intriguing new locations, bits and pieces of lore and backstory, or rewarding loot, ranging from weapons and ammo to crafting resources, recipes, and more.
Much of that can be quite important, given how dangerous Atomfall’s world can be quite often. Like the games it is most heavily inspired by, the game features survival mechanics- but certainly not to the degree of something like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. You have to manage your health, status conditions such as bleeding, and your heart rate, and if you’re not paying attention or play too recklessly, you’ll likely die a quick death (or at least feel the adverse effects clear enough to receive the message). That means things such as health items, crafting resources, and weapons and ammo are crucial- not to mention rare, which in turn means exploration is always encouraged, because chances are you’ll find something useful.
If there’s one area where Atomfall feels a little rough, it’s the combat. Part of me almost likes how cumbersome and clunky it can feel at times, because that fits quite well with the constant dangers of its dystopian setting and its promise of a survival experience that won’t baby you. In the moment, however, combat can often feel frustratingly rough, especially when you’re getting up close and personal with enemies, which you’ll be doing often, given the general scarcity of ammo. Progression in Atomfall is also rather restrained and straightforward, which means that combat experience doesn’t evolve a great deal over time. I do, however, appreciate the variety of ranged and melee weapons on offer and how different they feel to use from each other.
“Atomfall’s world is vibrant, lush, gorgeously colourful, and wonderfully vivid. Thick vegetation, varied forestry, stunning landscapes and abundant fauna define every inch of the zone, and it all oozes atmosphere. In more ways than one, Atomfall wears its S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Fallout influences on its sleeve, but in its setting, it manages to create something that feels incredibly unique and original.”
There’s also the fact that combat is very rarely (if ever) forced upon you. Atomfall lets you be as stealthy or as murderous as you want. Avoiding enemies is always a viable option, especially given the fact that environments are always designed in a way where there are usually multiple ways to get around, which is not surprising for a game coming from the Sniper Elite team. What is surprising that the stealth – an area where Rebellion usually has expertise, to say the least – can feel a tad clunky at times. Don’t get me wrong, it’s far from broken, and at the best of times it can be legitimately fun and tense- but AI is often either too forgetful or too keen-eyed, which means you may often find yourself cheesing the game (at least if you play the way I do). That can be fun in its own ways, of course, but it also does lend a feeling of lack of polish to the moment-to-moment stealth and combat gameplay.
Ultimately, though, I personally find Atomfall’s faults quite easy to forgive, because there’s far more to love here than there is to find issue with. In pretty much everything that it does, the game swings for the fences, and with the vast majority of those swings, it knocks the ball out of the park. Boasting a fascinating setting, engrossing story, oodles of charm and personality, an emphasis on player agency that elevates every part of the experience, and incredible world design that encourages exploration every step of the way, Atomfall is a captivating experience, even with a few issues, and probably one of the biggest and most pleasant surprises in recent memory.
This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.
