At first glance, I wouldn’t blame you if you thought Atomfall was the British equivalent of Fallout, especially after seeing trailers showcasing its combat and retro-futuristic robots. That part is mostly true, but after playing one full story playthrough, I can say that the game does a couple of things exceptionally well while failing to reach greatness in several aspects that make so many other post-apocalyptic games appealing to most.
Atomfall is a survival first-person RPG set in 1960s Northern England. Players take on the role of a silent protagonist suffering from amnesia. Upon waking up in a mysterious bunker, an injured scientist comes crashing through the door. He gives you an override keycard to a place called the “Interchange”, seemingly out of desperation. From this point on, you are free to take the story in whatever direction you desire but with the caveat that all roads lead to one location.
Before we go on any further, let me make this extremely clear: Atomfall is not Fallout: England. The game is loosely based on the Windscale fire, a real-life incident and the worst nuclear accident in UK history. The game takes place roughly five years after the incident but the cause of the accident is greatly altered. Spoiler Alert: something leaked out of a secret government facility and a quarantine was established to keep it from spreading. I’ll leave it up to your imagination as to what was unleashed upon the countryside.
The game’s playable area consists of a small hamlet called Wyndham and its surrounding areas, namely the local quarry and the nearby forest. When combined, the maps are smaller than Boston from Fallout 4. The main difference is that Atomfall’s map is more condensed with more than a few secret areas one may stumble upon. Exploration and curiosity are highly encouraged in this game. And you are rewarded for your efforts, albeit with only resources and the occasion blueprint. You do, however, find bits and pieces of lore explaining events that led up to and after the quarantine was implemented. Those things are mostly concentrated in the Interchange, the central hub that connects all maps and eventually serves as a convenient shortcut for faraway locations.
As much as I love the exploration aspect of this game, I couldn’t help but feel that it was lacking on the environmental storytelling front. Sure, there are places where skeletons are sprinkled around to “sell” the story that something happened in that location. Here’s the thing: there’s a difference between scattering random bones around and placing them in positions where they tell a story. I’m not saying that Atomfall had to go above and beyond with the environment storytelling. But if you make exploration and discovery a huge part of your game, I’m going to expect more than just skeletons and the occasional dead body.
There was an obvious attempt to tell the stories of the game’s factions such as the plight of the townspeople living under the thumb of the Protocol and even the madness that’s taken hold of the Druid faction. Unfortunately, the game does not elaborate further past a couple of side missions and an incident that happened within the village involving a patrol robot. Sadly, I believe these missions are treated more like engines to push the plot forward than anything else.
The game’s combat is brutal, even the game’s recommended difficulty setting. The main reason for this is all movement and melee attacks being tied to a heart rate meter. The actions you do, the faster you tire yourself out. If you are tired, your melee attacks don’t do squat and movement goes down to a snail’s pace. In this vulnerable state, the enemies can make quick work of you with overwhelming numbers. Thankfully, the kick button allows you to create some space, allowing you to catch your breath for a second. This deliberate dance of death sounds great and all until I picked up the axe and every fight since then started with a swift kick to the stomach, followed by a charged overhead chop to the noggin. I never used another melee type for the rest of the game.
This feeling somewhat also extends to the guns as they are equally lethal at their preferred ranges. The gunplay reminded me of Hunt: Showdown with how pressured you feel when pulling the trigger and most weapons having a lengthy reload animation. You do eventually get access to automatic weapons but I often gravitate back to the shotgun and revolver since the ammo economy is a pain in the butt to deal with.
The thing that got me excited the most was when I discovered the Gunsmith perk that allowed me to craft better versions using spares I had lying around in my vault. I was actually thrilled to collect guns for more than just trading purposes. It’s like I unintentionally unlocked a minigame where I have to find more copies to upgrade my weapons. Why this isn’t a core skill? I will never know.
You do not level up in this game like you would do Fallout. Actually, you don’t level up at all. The game has done away with experience points in favor of caches of “training stimulants”. Think of them as skill points, if you may. The more you have in your possession, the more skills you can unlock. Let me tell you, without the skills, you feel subpar in any action you do. It’s only after unlocking the skill did I feel like I was at least competent. This speaks more of the game wanting to hold the player back artificially for no reason other than to spend skill points.
The AI in this game is pretty weird. Most enemies won’t become immediately hostile. In fact, if you lower your weapon and walk away, they will certainly let you go. That’s nice if you want to run along to the next objective as quickly as possible but that’s not how I do things. Killing all the enemies in the area for safety and resources has always been my preferred playstyle. Though I greatly prefer stealth takedowns and one-shot kills because the A.I. is buggy at best.
Like most things in this game, the A.I. doesn’t fully commit to anything. Most enemies don’t know when to attack, just that they want to attack. I remember running into a group of bandits early on in my playthrough. There were five of them and one of me. The shotgun I had kept them from going all-out melee. It only had a couple of shots left. That’s when one enemy pulled out a Molotov Cocktail. I instantly took a shot at him and made him drop the bottle and burn himself to death. I was relieved to have one enemy off the board. Then to my surprise, all four enemies ran into the fire left behind by the Molotov. I left the area dumbfounded. This perfectly sums up the A.I. to a fault.
The highest praise I have for the game, other than the visuals, is the fact that the game doesn’t hold your hand. You are pretty much left to follow whatever lead with no cursed line telling you where to go. The game gives out hints by marking things on the map and giving you a set of coordinates to input on your map. It’s so refreshing to do something like actual legit investigations instead of going to point A while killing a room of enemies at point B. Believe me, you will be putting your deduction skills to use here. You will need to do a good bit of it to uncover the game’s biggest mysteries.
I mentioned earlier that all roads lead to one place, that place is called Oberon. And it lies at the heart of the game’s mystery. Essentially, our character is looking for a way out of his situation. You will eventually meet more than a few characters willing to offer their assistance in exchange for some favors. The trick is knowing who to trust. This is where the investigation part comes into play. By digging up secrets, you can figure out who is on the up and up. But really, everyone is looking out for their self-interest. At least I have reason to play the game multiple times for different outcomes.
In terms of visuals, the locale is bright and colorful. The forests are vibrant and the deep, dark places are creepy and foreboding. The sound design has more in common with horror games it feels like. The loud burst when a Feral gets loose is a perfect jumpscare moment. The de-contamination spray in the central control facility never fails to get a reaction from me. I don’t know, the constant specter of death lurking around every corner has made me jumpy.
If there’s one thing I really disliked about the game it is how the end reel showed barely anything of what I accomplished in that run. It’s every bit of the slide show we got from New Vegas, yet it barely spoke of my accomplishments. Worse still, they do not divulge the fates of your other contacts or the people who got left behind. This is on top of a disappointing final encounter that makes the battle for Hoover Dam look like a massive military operation. If I had known it was going to be this bad, I might not have put in the effort for other possible endings.
Atomfall tries to incorporate a mix of genre staples but ultimately fails to go in-depth into any one aspect save for its investigations. It is trying hard to punch above its weight class. But like every underdog at the beginning of a boxer movie, it is brought back down to reality by its superiors, in this case, the games it takes inspiration from. The game has potential, to be sure, but in its current state, it leaves a lot to be desired. I recommend you wait for a sale before adding this game to your library. Hopefully, Atomfall can mount a comeback with its upcoming DLC story expansion.
This review is based on a PC review code provided by the developer/publisher.
Atomfall (PC)
Atomfall tries to incorporate a mix of genre staples but ultimately fails to go in depth into any one aspect save for its investigations.
The Good
- No hand-holding
- Heavy on the investigation aspect
- Satisfying melee combat
- Picturesque setting
The Bad
- Questionable AI
- Unsatisfying final encounter/ending(s)
- Weak faction system
- Shallow mechanics
