Atomfall Preview
What causes an apocalypse? Let me count the ways. There is a depressingly large number of scenarios in which humanity and the world can crumble. Infectious diseases, asteroids from space, and climate change top the list along with the granddaddy of them all: nuclear holocaust. Atomfall, a new first-person action survival game from Rebellion, narrows its apocalyptic vision a bit. It’s based on the golden age of British speculative fiction and the Windscale nuclear incident of 1957. If you’ve ever read, seen, or heard of Day of the Triffids you know what I mean.
You play as an amnesiac survivor in an exclusion zone of sorts. The landscape isn’t the dreary world of STALKER but the lush and bucolic English countryside. Atomfall is an entree cooked from some familiar ingredients. A bit of Fallout, a dash of Rebellion’s own Sniper Elite, a sprinkle of BioShock and maybe a glance at Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture. There are no zombies but there are plenty of anomalies to watch out for. It’s not an irradiated world where you need to brandish a Geiger counter to check levels every two seconds, however.
Survival Lite
I spent three or so hours puttering around Atomfall’s world, reading scraps of left-behind books and notes, trying to understand my world. I tried to figure out whom I could befriend — almost nobody — and who wanted me dead — almost everyone. Gathering bits and bobs, plants and scraps of cloth allowed me to craft some basics like bandages and explosives. Atomfall’s survival and crafting systems are central to the game, but they’re also pretty streamlined. You’re not worrying about hunger, thirst, or fatigue. Blood loss is a different matter.
Figuring out where to go, what to do, and why you’re doing it is a little more ambiguous and open-ended than in some similar games. Leads — Atomfall’s term for quests — give you a mixture of specific directions and tantalizing mysteries that lead to more questions. The quaint old vendor lady with a need for specific herbs might not be so benign. The cult of druids she sends you to most certainly aren’t your friends. In my short time with the game, I figured out very little of the overarching narrative. Mostly I just spent my time poking at the game’s systems and world.
No Big Guns to Bring Out
Atomfall takes place sometime in the early 1960s. Ranged weapons are basic, mostly bows, pistols, and rifles. Ammo for any gun is very scarce, which made using them an exercise in discipline and saving them for specific scenarios. Generally, most combat will be melee-focused with the kinds of tools-turned-weapons you’d find in rural England, like scythes and axes. Sneaking and stealth are often options, with tall grass making you invisible to enemies.
In my time playing Atomfall I spent a lot of time in combat with different types of human enemies and some very deadly mutants. My experience was a little mixed. At the challenging difficulty, enemies were able to detect me from ridiculously far distances and from the slightest movement on my part. It felt very much like Sniper Elite and its Nazis with super-human awareness. Just like Sniper Elite, taking out lone enemies with a headshot from the bow was very satisfying. Melee combat, on the other hand, sometimes felt imprecise and hard to control.
The section of the game I played was a few hours in, which means my character had some basics like rifles, a pistol, and some explosives. I am curious to see the wider range of weapons and approaches to combat in the full game.
Meandering Through the Countryside
Atomfall takes place in a fictionalized version of England’s verdant Lake District, and the environment is the star of the show. It’s not a world destroyed by a nuclear holocaust (well, not exactly), so towns aren’t piles of rubble and radiation. There are pockets of survivors, some extreme factions and military enclaves but a lot of the map is just a pretty landscape filled with often unexpected danger and the occasional mech-like robot. Like Sniper Elite, the game is semi-open-world, except when leads push you into a more linear series of corridors or underground passages.
Overall, Atomfall’s world-building is engaging. The music is extremely understated, as is the environmental audio. One sound quibble I had was that the spatial placement of enemy voices was very confusing and didn’t help much in avoiding danger or locating my foes. Considering I was playing the game remotely, there were a few technical hiccups and it seems polished and well-optimized.
Fun is in Your Future
It’s hard not to play spot-the-influences in Atomfall, but then again the developers have been pretty explicit about their inspirations. I quite enjoyed the setting, characters, and fiction. Exploring the world was engaging, even if the combat felt slightly unpolished some of the time. Very minor doubts aside, I’m looking forward to diving much deeper into Atomfall’s mysteries when it releases later this month.
Thank you for keeping it locked on COGconnected.
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