Atomfall Review: A union jack of all trades

On paper, Atomfall sounds a lot like the Fallout games. You wake up after a nuclear attack, emerge from a bunker, and are forced to fend for yourself in a world you aren’t too familiar with. Those similarities seemingly end there the moment you play Rebellion’s survival RPG that feels more like an amalgamation of a few genres than a direct Fallout-inspired game. And while at times you will wish it was more fleshed out like Bethesda’s games, you can inevitably appreciate its unique and very British identity.

What’s more, Atomfall is a game that respects your time and doesn’t bog you down with a laundry list of tasks to complete. Because it gives you the choice to play it how you like, the game will feel unique to each player depending on how much they are willing to invest in exploration. Fortunately, Atomfall is one of those games that rewards you for utilizing your intellect and curiosity.

A Pretty Post-Apocalyptic World

Atomfall takes place five years after the real-life Windscale nuclear disaster that occurred in northwest England in 1957. Since then, several zones around the site have been quarantined from the outside world, and as such, a few factions have formed by the people trapped inside. It also turns out this disaster was much more devastating in this alternate reality so you are bound to see an eerie glow from the reactor site in the distance and eventually run into mutated creatures that lurk in the underground caves and bunkers you’ll later explore.

Despite this, the world your character wakes up in is quite beautiful, despite how deadly some of these roaming factions can be. You’ll never see a cloud in the sky as the weather is always clear and your surroundings are picturesque. Forests, waterfalls, scenic brooks and various cottages and stone fences give the game a very English setting. Sure, some of these structures may be a little rundown at times, but even the heavily populated Wyndham Village, one of these friendlier and more stable zones, feels less apocalyptic and more ordinary if you ignore all the British soldiers roaming about.

Make Your Own Path

Instead of through appearances, Atomfall sets the mood through its sci-fi-inspired narrative. All you know is that you need to get out of the quarantine zone and stay alive in the process. One of the clever ways the game keeps you on your toes right from the beginning is that you don’t really know where you need to go but only receive a lead that give you some sort of idea of where to go next. These leads can be picked up by reading notes you discover, retrieved from downed enemies, or mentioned by characters you’ll interact with. Once you get a lead, you can decide if you want to delve more into it by tracking its whereabouts.

One of the first leads you’ll get is finding the entrance to this huge underground facility called the Interchange, which is central to uncovering the truth behind the Windscale disaster. You may get its coordinates for you to manually look up in your map from a note, or someone may tell you its general area, but you’ll have to figure out where the entrance actually is all on your own.

Some of these leads are central to completing the game’s story, while some lead you to upgrades or loot that can be hit or miss. This system makes for a game that encourages you to explore every nook and cranny, but it can also cause you some frustration if you can’t seem to figure out where to go next. You can always adjust the game’s difficulty to follow a more standard tracking system that shows you where to go next, but keeping the game’s lead system intact really makes you feel like a detective trying to stay alive when venturing into unknown territory.

Survival and Combat Take a Back Seat

Now, while Atomfall may be described as a survival game, you really don’t have to worry too much about staying alive besides focusing on your usual health and stamina bars. This is a bit disappointing when you realize how much more realistic the game could have felt if you had a few extra things to worry about. Sure, ammo is pretty scarce, but if you are hurt, all you have to do is eat a Cornish pastry or craft a bandage and you’ll be fine. Other status effects come into play too like burns and poison, but these go away over time and aren’t anything to worry about.

Combat does force you to be strategic in your approach, however, as you don’t always want to run in guns blazing when your character is pretty weak to begin with. Instead, you’ll have to rely on stealth to sneak up on your enemies. And if you can’t, you can simply run into an enemy, hide inside a room somewhere, and close the door behind you, and within a few seconds, the enemies will stop chasing you. Or, what I did was hide behind a door and smack every enemy that came in with my trusty cricket bat until all of them were dead. Even on the game’s default settings, enemy AI wasn’t very smart, and I could easily outrun certain foes whenever I needed to. However, later on, you may run into giant robots that aren’t easy to take down and simply require you to avoid their gaze and memorize their patrol routes. Still, combat never felt really challenging.

Sci-Fi Magic Lurks Underground

A lot of these fights happen when you explore underground bunkers, where a lot of these mysteries come alive. For example, you will spend a lot of time in the Interstate and eventually power up enough of its areas to fully explore it all and discover why it’s so important. It definitely sets the mood of a post-apocalyptic game when you realize how massive the Interstate and how secretive and dangerous certain sections of it can be—think poison gas, mutated fungi, and evil turrets.

Like most of the game, the Interstate is quite disorienting, despite it also acting like a bridge to all the other areas in the game. Because you can’t fast travel to wherever you want, you will spend a lot of time in it simply navigating from one quarantine zone to the next. But, what’s impressive and also dangerous, is that these areas will change the more you progress through the story. An area may be empty and safe the first time you visit it, but come back to it later, and soldiers will be down there investigating what you just unlocked for them.

The same applies to the various zones and the NPCs you can interact with. Visit them later, and you will get other dialogue options to explore. Treat them nicely, and they may give you some insight knowledge onto a lead you are looking to explore. Armed enemies can be intimidating at first, but as long as you aren’t tresing or bothering them first, most fights can be prevented by just backing away. Your choices in how you interact with most people and the factions you choose to side with will ultimately influence the game’s ending, offering you with various possible outcomes you can discover.

Final Thoughts

Atomfall is a fun game to explore because it’s pretty, compact, and mixes several genres to keep you entertained. It’s not one of those open-world games that will take you hours to finish and uncover all of its landmarks and locations. Because you don’t know what each area has in store for you, its map will unfurl along your exploration. It doesn’t feel like a survival game that will mercilessly have you juggling various resources, but you can still craft tools and need to be careful with all of your ammo. It also doesn’t act like a stealth game either, as you can’t distract enemies while you’re sneaking around—a basic element in the genre—but you can sneak behind someone and break their neck.

All things considered, Atomfall feels like a jack of all trades, offering plenty to enjoy while not fully delivering in certain areas. Whether or not it offers a masterful experience in each genre it tries to be is really up to you and how much you want to get out of it, but don’t expect it to be a knock your socks off. Combat, stealth, and even exploration could have been handled better, sure, but its themes, atmosphere, and story make for a solid game that lets you forgive some of these issues if you let it.