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In Atomfall, you play as a complete unknown, risen from a bunker and confronted by a bleeding scientist begging for assist. Whether or not you help them or not is as much as you, however what’s vital to know is that you simply’re within the Windscale Atom Zone, you shouldn’t be right here, and ‘it’s all gone unsuitable’.
Another factor, really, is that the one means out is thru the ‘Interchange’… no matter that’s. Armed with a keycard and actually nothing else, you emerge from the dingy, dilapidated bunker into a stunning world flush with as many blooming flowers as there are gun-toting lunatics.
From this level on, the selection of the place you go is fully as much as you, the one impediment in your means being how lengthy you possibly can keep alive. Choices make up most of Atomfall, an intriguing role-playing game (RPG) that takes cues from Bethesda’s beloved Fallout sequence. It dances between enthralling and irritating, however all informed, Atomfall is a hilarious jaunt by way of rural Britain that begs the query – why aren’t extra survival games set within the north?
Evaluation data
Platform reviewed: PS5
Out there on: PS5, PS4, Xbox Collection X|S, Xbox One, PC
Launch date: March 24, 2025
On my journey out of the bunker, I opted for a conflict-averse route, trailing previous a ringing phone sales space and down towards the central plot level on the horizon: a dangerous-looking energy plant that includes a plume of swirling purple round it. Down the nation lane, I came across a ginger bearded straggler, Nat, who generously caught me up in town gossip.
Between bouts of endearing slang, Nat explains that the ‘boffins’ are all gone after an incident on the plant and that each one that is still are loons and outlaws. Earlier than taking my go away, Nat supplied me yet one more piece of data: there’s a dealer down the way in which who may assist me discover some survival items.
Chasing leads is a significant a part of Atomfall‘s semi-apocalyptic gameplay loop. Instead of particular missions or ranges, your job is to chinwag with as many prepared non-player characters (NPCs) as potential to search out clues about what is occurring and who you could possibly be.
The opposite half of your time is spent managing your coronary heart charge as you bludgeon strangers and loot as a lot ammunition, bandages, and cornish pasties as your stock will permit. It’s a easy set-up that’s surprisingly difficult, with important objects like material and gunpowder showing sparsely throughout the map, limiting your ammo and therapeutic provides.
Fortunately, in the event you did wish to make issues barely extra beginner-friendly, Atomfall’s comprehensively customizable problem choices assist you to tweak particular gameplay elements like merchandise drop charges and NPC aggro into a selected ‘playstyle’.
Knackered and afraid
There’s a sequence of central districts to discover as you wander throughout Atomfall’s approachably sized map, with pathways connecting every space. Some are clear to search out and seem as menacing metallic doorways, whereas others are obscured and hidden inside cave techniques, or behind enemy traces.
You possibly can crawl below damaged doorways, vault over fences and home windows, and squeeze between cracked cement blocks in the hunt for new spots, and I used to be impressed by how susceptible I felt whereas attempting to navigate the claustrophobic housing clusters, ruins, and mines. I actually didn’t discover each nook and cranny in my marketing campaign, however the shortcuts I earned quickly turned a blessing, aiding with the fatigue of sprinting between one district to get to a different.
On its really helpful problem setting, Atomfall’s map doesn’t add particular waypoints while you choose up results in observe and as a substitute requires you to discern your subsequent transfer with the data at hand. Some of us will enable you to orienteer, however for essentially the most half, it’s you and your sense of course.
At first, this fed into my determination anxiousness, and I wasn’t certain the place to show, although quickly sufficient, I let my instinct take the wheel, dashing by way of fields, flashing my sickle at anybody who checked out me the unsuitable means and moving into a couple of heavy-handed scraps. It’s a refreshing method to exploration that results in many thrilling encounters, removed from the standard hand-holding we’ve come to count on in up to date RPGs.
As you chart Atomfall’s main districts you’ll come face-to-face with the factions that finally come to outline your expertise on this morally-murky playground. There’s the brutish British infantry referred to as Protocol, the heretic-hating Druids, and cruel, Droog-like Outlaws. Within the wild, you may as well discover curious outliers like trapped scientists, rogue merchants, stately poshos and contaminated monsters who all have their very own prerogatives, the final one being your brains.
Sadly, Atomfall’s narrative isn’t practically as thorough as Fallout: New Vegas and the questions it lays up don’t all have satisfying solutions. However there are nonetheless robust — if not a bit of predictable – choices to be made in its endgame. Better of all, the lead ensemble of NPCs is a memorable bunch who method this imagination-stoking scenario with difficult views, coloured in with witty dialogue.
Greatest bit: Not elementary, my expensive Watson
Progressing in Atomfall isn’t nearly firepower. To maneuver ahead, you’ll additionally should mud off your finest deerstalker and examine the motivations behind the assorted factions that litter the damaged British panorama. Alongside conversing with the straight-faced locals, you possibly can pilfer their belongings and discover secret notes that allude to their true emotions, summoning campaign-changing leads which are value following up on. You too can shoot first and ask questions later, after all – simply make certain to not take every thing at face worth.
Atomfall hides a inventive post-currency buying and selling system between its advanced ethical figureheads. As a substitute of trawling the dales for kilos and pennies, the objects you accumulate accrue a ‘weight’ that may be counterbalanced with one other dealer’s items.
Bread isn’t as invaluable as a gun, and also you’ll want fairly a couple of baker’s dozens to earn one. Whereas personally, I believe bread is extra invaluable than a weapon, the method helped to push me into the wilds in the hunt for higher fine details — and inevitably into mysterious, illuminating outposts, I might have by no means discovered in any other case.
Alas, if bartering doesn’t tickle your fancy, there’s additionally a crafting system the place you possibly can flip the objects you discover into purposeful components and subsist that means. With loads of techniques at play and a small-but-handy ability tree, I quickly felt as if I used to be tailoring my playthrough as I went, and would discover it arduous to duplicate in one other playthrough. Finally, Atomfall’s best energy is the way it makes following your nostril so persistently alluring.
Preventing phrases
But regardless of all of the participating interactions with leaders and residents, Atomfall’s extra restricted gameplay suite can shatter among the immersion. For instance, I may go into the pub and chat with the proprietor about buying and selling. Then, stroll behind him, steal his stuff, and promote it again to him, no questions requested.
Sure areas are restricted, signified by a ‘Trespassing’ graphic on the high of the display screen. Nevertheless, the excellence felt at odds with my actions—Why was I extra prone to get punished for robbing an empty home than a city corridor in entrance of a army captain?
At one level, I examined the boundaries by killing a soldier within the mild of day. With no comrades round, I silently took him out and fled the scene briefly. Upon my return, it appeared nothing had modified, with troopers spouting the identical few traces as if certainly one of them hadn’t been murdered.
The captain didn’t appear bothered, both. Past the key and often-material impression of main choices (in addition to a couple of tannoy bulletins), I didn’t get the moment-to-moment sense that anybody was all that conscious of my plots and schemes, or who I used to be planning to betray for the narrative I wished.
And whereas Atomfall’s fight is appropriately determined, it’s additionally a bit janky and torpid, missing a couple of standard coats of polish. Notably, the enemy AI is aberrant, and can typically react in an uncommon method that may shut down your goals of a rewarding stealthy infiltration. Lacklustre platforming additionally takes the wind out of the sport’s sails, with what might really feel like easy maneuvers typically taking a couple of tries.
Regardless of these limitations, Atomfall does properly to maintain you in your toes with enemy-shaped speedbumps (learn: huge robots) and a few slick facet quests. There have been additionally loads of cases the place I felt pissed off sufficient to wish to put down the controller earlier than I spotted the answer could possibly be a lot less complicated if I approached it from a special angle.
At its finest, there are shades of a deeper RPG right here, however it doesn’t fairly have the mechanical backing to satisfy this proposal. Even so, whereas the systemic scope of Atomfall isn’t huge, the small world it conjures feels wealthy and full all the way in which to its atmospheric finale – or not less than the atmospheric finale I selected.
Must you play Atomfall?
Play it if…
Do not play it if…
Accessibility
You possibly can alter your accessibility settings from the pause menu anytime whereas taking part in Atomfall. There are a number of choices to tweak your playstyle together with fight, survival, and exploration. Every choice might be toggled between Assisted, Informal, Difficult, and Intense. Fight impacts the enemy aggression and spawn numbers, Survival impacts how often loot drops and the way beneficiant buying and selling is, and Exploration impacts your map and traversal choices.
You possibly can toggle how often you desire to the sport to autosave, in addition to manually save at any level from the pause menu. From the Gameplay submenu in settings, you may as well toggle on Pause Recreation in Menus to make sure you received’t get into hassle when taking a look at your stock or the map.
The place fight is anxious, gamers can toggle on Melee and Purpose Help, Snap Aiming, and Computerized Hearth and Reload. There are additionally sliders to regulate Purpose, Look, and Hip Hearth sensitivity from the Management submenu of the setting. From right here you may as well change the controller vibration and adaptive triggers on or off.
For audio, there are a number of sliders to regulate particular streams of audio resembling background SFX and Music. Plus for subtitles, you possibly can change the subtitle coloration, speaker coloration, and subtitle field opacity to fit your preferences.
How I reviewed Atomfall
I accomplished Atomfall’s foremost story on PlayStation 5 in roughly sixteen hours and skilled two of its a number of endings. I teamed my PS5 console with an AOC 27-inch QHD VA 144Hz gaming monitor, an everyday DualSense controller, and exterior Inventive Pebble V2 computer speakers.
First reviewed March 2025