Atomfall preview: full of Northern soul

After a bit of time with Rebellion Development’s new survival game Atomfall, I came away feeling both intrigued and excited to play more, exactly what you’d want from a preview.

Admittedly, when the game was first revealed, I fell into the trap of comparing it to Fallout and Stalker, like many others did and are still doing, but I couldn’t be more wrong. While it’s easy to draw parallels between the games, the overall feel of Atomfall is very different; far more charming than many are giving it credit for.

See the gameplay trailer for Atomfall below.

Atomfall is not an open-world RPG, it has elements of one like skill-trees but at its core, it feels more like a detective game.

My time with the game dropped me into the gorgeous countryside of Cumbria in the Lake District, not long after the real-world event of the Windscale power plant fire. Atomfall twists the history a bit though and imagines a world where the events of Windscale weren’t as black and white, and potentially the result of foul play and conspiracy…

As someone who lives in the North West of England, I have to say, I felt right at home - and I possibly spent more time than I should have just taking in the sights and exploring the village of Windermere. One moment that really stood out to me was when two drunken gentlemen were standing outside the local pub, one of which was uttering some slurred words about how he could batter the patrolling military robot. His friend was telling him to pack it in but he just couldn’t let it go. He was adamant he could fist fight the 10 ft tall robot with machine guns and vice-hands, *sigh*, just like home.

Enough of that though, you can only look at country fields and people’s gardens for so long. How does the game play?

Rebellion Development

Like I said before, Atomfall is very much a detective game, and not just because your character is suffering from amnesia and doesn’t know who they are or why they’re in the countryside. As you play the game, you’ll find scraps of paper or speak with locals, and they’ll almost always point you in the direction of a quest. Will signing on with the local military presence help me regain my memories? What about helping the pub landlord deliver messages to a mini-resistance? Who knows, but there’s only one way to find out.

The clues point you in the direction of new locations and it’s a case of checking your map or nearby signposts to find your way around, but like a magpie you’ll likely spot something else along the way, giving you more avenues to go down. I only did a handful of quests during my limited time with the game but it felt like they gave me a good lay of the land and were just generally entertaining.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a survival game if there wasn’t something wanting to kill you, and for the most part, that’s a faction of crazy cultists living out in the woods, as well as radiated ghouls lurking in tunnels and underground areas. The military are also a faction you can fight, but I tried to keep on their good side as I didn’t have the liquid courage to fight one of the robots like that gentleman at the pub. Combat itself was pretty straight-forward, with a nice mix of melee and ranged weaponry, but a shortage of ammunition to keep you on your toes. In a bind, there’s almost always something you can craft if you’ve got the materials, and I found a couple of new recipes stuck to walls for things like molotovs which were good in a pinch.

Rebellion Developments

What I enjoyed most in my preview session though, and what I’m excited to see more of in the full game, is following the threads from the enormous spider web of mystery at the centre of Atomfall’s world. I was thoroughly invested in the struggles of the local village folk and I’m intrigued as to what actually happened in the game’s version of the Windscale event.

It also gave me the overwhelming urge to go to the Lake District, have a nice cold pint, and wait for all of the craziness in the world right now to blow over. How's that for a slice of fried gold?