Pros
- Excellent realization of location and setting that will have you longing to visit the Lake District.
- Captures the British atmosphere very well, creating something that feels authentic and twisting it to create a mysterious intrigue.
- Lead system can be great when encouraging you to talk to people, explore, and investigate.
Cons
- It’s narrative, that clocks in relatively short even when doing everything, never really coalesces after early promise.
- The factions and characters of the world don’t feel reactive to your actions like they should.
- Combat is unremarkable.
Atomfall is a game in step with its developer. When it comes to British game devs, few exude the UK quite like Rebellion. It is a company with a unique backlog of games and other media properties that feel ingrained in the sense of British nostalgia. An Action Survival RPG set in the Lake District in the 1960s feels on the nose for Rebellion - and that’s great. If anyone is going to nail this concept, it is undoubtedly one of the chief voices who could do it.
Britain is a surprisingly underutilized setting in games. Forza Horizon 4 and Watch Dogs: Legion come to mind, but major games that use the UK as their backdrop are few and far between. That’s odd, considering how much game development is done in the country. Still, elaborate mods in juggernaut franchises like Fallout: London prove there is a hunger for the setting, especially in post or near-post-apocalyptic settings.
Atomfall’s recreation of Cumbria is pretty special.
That’s the niche Atomfall is trying to slot into. A title that lets you explore the culture, and use the setting as more than window dressing. Rebellion’s newest succeeds in this, giving you a chunk of land to explore, a mystery to investigate, and characters to befriend and betray, all while feeling “well British, innit?”.
Great British Wake Up
Out of the gate, Atomfall opts for an old classic, by having you wake up as a character with amnesia. It’s a tired starting motivation, but there’s an appreciable pragmatism here. Atomfall wants to place you into this setting and get you out discovering its world.
That world is an alternate history set five years after the Windscale Fire of 1957, which in our reality, remains one of the largest nuclear incidents in human history. You now find yourself in a walled-off section of Cumbria that has begun to seriously deteriorate with little aid or interference from the Government and an encroaching fungal growth that has begun to alter the environment, and, as you’ll find, even people.
After breaking out of a bunker, you’ll quickly find yourself in a local village that appears to show the ‘Great British Resolve’ that’s often bandied about when talking about the country’s spirit through trying times, most notably in World War II. The ol’ stiff upper lip and all that. However, like an overpriced mug emblazoned with the Union Jack bought from a gift store in Piccadilly Circus - it doesn’t take long for cracks to emerge. There are all sorts of nefarious goings-on and secrets for the player to pry into. Chiefly what’s going on with the glowing power plant, the zombie-like Thralls in underground bunkers, as well as a mysterious voice on the end of a phone that knows what you’re doing and is obsessed with having you kill something called Oberon.
If nothing else, exploration is where Atomfall truly shines.
…like an overpriced mug emblazoned with the Union Jack bought from a gift store in Piccadilly Circus - it doesn’t take long for cracks to emerge.
If something really works in Atomfall, it’s this setting, which is beautifully realized. The potent mixture of location and period is the star of the show, and if nothing else, Atomfall provides a feeling of longing for a stroll through the countryside.
Finding an Identity
With its nuclear themes, altered wildlife and people, as well as faction-based choices, Atomfall openly invites Fallout comparisons. However, it leans closer to a streamlined STALKER; that is if that notoriously obtuse series had its sharpest edges sanded down.
You’ll be scrounging resources and equipment while crafting necessities to survive, all while managing things like limited ammo. The middle ground between these influences is enough to feel like an identity on its own, but Atomfall never feels as unique in this area.
On the survival side of things, while there’s a big emphasis on finding ingredients to craft the resources you need, besides very early on, it’s rare to run out of things like health, or not have access to the resistances you might need. Ammo is relatively scarce though, at least for a good portion of a playthrough, which does have you questioning when to go loud, especially with tankier enemies. (I played on the recommended Survival difficulty.)
(1 of 2) Scavenging around is useful but resources aren’t too scarce.
Scavenging around is useful but resources aren’t too scarce. (left), Bows are genuinely useful even when guns are rare. (right)
However, I found a bow and arrow to be deadly for large portions of the game, and it was relatively easy to maintain a full quiver. There’s nothing too wrong with the combat here, but there’s also very little that excites. It’s melee combat struggles in the way a lot of first-person melee combat does. It doesn’t feel weighty, and with limited movement options and only a kick to distance enemies, it can just feel like you and your enemies are taking turns bonking each other on the head. Guns feel pretty good, but it mostly devolves into lining up headshots to get one-hit kills. The hitbox on shots is also massive, so it’s hard to miss if you’re even a little careful. There are however, other areas where Atomfall is more commendable - well, in idea at least.
Take the Lead
Rebellion has approached the way this story unfolds fascinatingly. The idea is, instead of you talking to someone, they give you a quest and then you fast travel to a quest marker and do the mission, you are instead supposed to be focused on investigation and conversation. This is the game’s ‘lead’ system.
In a hypothetical situation, you might be talking to a shopkeeper, and through your conversation, you might mention something about the Interchange, a very important story location. They might then mention they’d heard rumors of the Outlaws smuggling goods near one of the entrances in a rough area. You then have to go there, find said Outlaws, and through notes you find, you piece together what’s going on, and potentially more about the broader mystery.
It’s a novel idea that feels great when it’s at its best. Having a story system that pushes you to talk to NPCs, read letters, and investigate areas all to learn secrets, is a very active form of storytelling. It also means you can stumble into these leads while just out and about, which is an excellent way to make the world feel authentic. Atomfall doesn’t feature fast travel, but the promise of stumbling into something that might expand your understanding of what’s going on makes it a fun game for strolling around.
The leads system is a novel concept but doesn’t quite fulfill its potential.
However, in practice, this doesn’t always come off as well as you’d hope. Specifically, as you begin to fill in the map, a lot of that mystery begins to fade away. You might go back to Wyndham Village, and an NPC you’re talking to might say they heard rumors of a mysterious castle - except you’ve already been, killed some people, and already have it marked on a map. In this instance, the system sadly just reverts back to a generic quest giver giving you a point on the map to go to.
The idea of leads driving you through this location and its many, many secrets through conversation and investigation is excellent. And for a time, it’s executed well.
The idea of leads driving you through this location and its many, many secrets through conversation and investigation is excellent. And for a time, it’s executed well. While you’re still trying to figure out what’s going on, and you’re discovering new locations, Atomfall is at its best, and I’d love to see Rebellion expand on it in the future. However, as time goes on, unfortunately, it never truly coalesces.
It Never Comes Together
Central to Atomfall, are its factions. From the Protocol army to the outlaws to a cult of druids - as well as the mysterious voice on the phone and a couple of other characters along the way, a lot is vying for your attention. Many will make grandiose promises about escaping, and you will ultimately decide which characters you want to throw your lot in with. It’s a nice idea, but in execution, these characters and factions end up falling flat.
A large part of that is little feels consequential. How you interact with factions doesn’t affect your broader relationship with them for the most part, creating this disconnect between the world and your actions. There are moments where events will affect characters, but there are pretty obvious signposts that something is going to happen if you take a course of action.
An example is in one area, the Protocol army holds a strong and aggressive presence. While they are cordial when you first meet them in the local village, in this new area, they shoot first and ask questions later. For a while, I snuck around trying not to kill anyone so as to not mess up my relationships with people in the village. However, after some frustrating time stealthing around minefields, it became evident that what happened in this area had no bearing on my relationship with the faction.
(1 of 2) Factions unfortunately don’t react to your actions much.
Factions unfortunately don’t react to your actions much. (left), You can kill everyone in a village and your standing in the community doesn’t change much. (right)
After killing hoards of these men, I strolled back into town, my relationship with the faction seemingly unchanged. This was true of other NPCs and factions too. It didn’t matter how many tens of their friends, family, and colleagues I killed, none of it mattered. It’s long been advertised as ‘you can kill anyone in Atomfall’, but none of it seems to matter, especially as enemies will respawn soon after you leave an area. Of course, you could kill a story-relevant NPC, but it doesn’t feel there’d be any meaningful story consequence, outside of just ending a lead. There’s a sense of relationship impermanence that creates a disconnect between the player and this world, breaking the game’s spell around choices and its broader story.
There’s a sense of relationship impermanence that creates a disconnect between the player and this world, breaking the game’s spell around choices and its broader story.
It’s also worth noting, the campaign is not particularly long. You can fairly easily wrap things up in less than 15 hours, though obviously, if you want to explore every lead in the game, you can likely expect something past 20-25 hours. Even so, that still makes this feel a little rushed, especially in the game’s hurried final act. Without going into the ending, this only compounds as the game hurtles towards its latter parts, never really paying off its earlier promise, even with multiple outcomes.
Atom-fell?
Atomfall is mostly fine. That’s not damning with faint praise. There is definite value to be had, and for some, it may hit just right. It’s recreation of the quintessential British vibe is very well realized, with a lot of work going into making it feel authentic. Rebellion nails this, and while it can be a dangerous landscape full of things out to kill you, there is a pleasantness to the game that makes it a joy to stroll around in this slice of the Lake District. It also has great intrigue and execution early in the game, which suggests a lot of potential that can be built upon in the future.
However, Atomfall suffers by squandering some of its more interesting ideas, like the lead system, with less inspiring, even rudimentary execution. Its combat feels merely adequate, its mission design feels simple, and the world and its characters don’t feel like they react to your actions for the majority of your playthrough. None of this is egregious, nor is any of it enough that raises it towards the heights of the franchises that inspired it.
Potential Unrealized
If you’re looking for something to get lost in for a little bit, Rebellion has offered up a mostly pleasant jaunt. Especially as something to pick up and play on Game Pass, it’s easy to recommend trying. That’s good too, Atomfall works better as a cheap, last-minute package weekend to Cumbria, rather than a two-week vacation. While it’s charming for a short stay, you’re sharing a single-sized bed with your partner, and the B&B owner’s eyes just started to glow blue.
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