First impressions can be a hard thing to shake. Certainly I fell trap to the idea that Atomfall was simply going to be a British version of Fallout, something that could easily swing either way really. I’m sure the comparison helped sell the idea for a few people although it’s clear the developer didn’t want to set expectations that it’d be a similar kind of experience. Those who’ve played it will agree with them too, Atomfall is very much its own thing even if a few of the core ideas pay homage to games like Fallout and BioShock. For the most part I think it stands well on its own being a shorter, more focused experience but misses a key narrative component to really tie the whole thing together.
You awake in a nondescript bunker, concrete walls surrounding you and a wounded scientist in a hazmat suit begging you for help. They’ve been injured, somehow, and are in dire need of assistance. You have no idea who you are and how you got to be here though, something the scientist doesn’t seem able to help with. After getting him some aid he urges you to go to The Interchange, handing you a modified access card that will grant you entry to it. He doesn’t elaborate further before urging you to go out into the world, leaving you on your own to figure out what to do in this bizarre landscape you’ve found yourself in.
Atomfall is a fantastic looking game, the devastated post-apocalyptic scenery being realised in exceptional levels of detail. This applies to both the outside levels which have some impressive vistas to enjoy as well as the numerous underground environments which, despite being quite confined and linear, are still well realised with impressive levels of detail. This does work against the game for a few hours as it can be hard to discern between what you can interact with and what you can’t, where the invisible walls are likely to be and what’s an intended route vs something the developers missed in their QA process. You’ll develop a sense for all these things as the game goes on so it’s not a huge negative, but definitely something to be aware of.
The one place where the comparison to other FPS RPGs is accurate is in the core gameplay loop of Atomfall. You’ll spend most of your time wandering through large open spaces before tripping over someone/something where you’ll either be able to engage in some light stealth action or simply go full action hero on them. There are no special abilities to speak of but you do have a talent tree which allows you to unlock additional benefits like increased health, better stamina and so on. Crafting is a core mechanic too which is thankfully paired with a materials bag that’s separate to your core inventory, meaning your ingrained pack rat tendencies aren’t going to reduce you to micromanaging your inventory every 10 seconds. After a short tutorial section you’re basically set free into the world with the vague directive of escaping the quarantine you now find yourself under.
Combat is more tactical than action focused, given that ammo is relatively scarce and most enemies can be taken down in a single shot. Miss that shot though and trying to take them down with body blows is going to cost you a lot more, making that moments of panic can often see you reloading your last checkpoint. Initially it feels a little unfair as you’re facing mostly melee focused guys, which are easy enough to deal with, but it doesn’t take long for most of them to be sporting guns. That takes away the option of chasing them down and meleeing them to conserve ammo as whilst the AI is pretty dumb it’s got the aim of a well trained sniper.
Stealth is unfortunately one of those tacked on implementations, giving you some parts of the experience but lacking the tools or environment design to fully support it. You can absolutely sneak up on enemies and take them out, but without upgrades that takedown will alert everyone else close by. Even the upgraded version isn’t particularly effective as the AI seems to know that something is going down and will change it’s pathing to favour walking directly towards you. Silent weapons don’t seem to help much either as most of them don’t seem able to take out enemies in one hit like their louder counterparts can. So whilst you can engage in some stealth based gameplay I wouldn’t go into this thinking that you’ll have a fun time playing the entire game that way.
Furthering the point around the AI in the game it really is quite rudimentary in its implementation. It’s clear that the AI works on detecting you via a large hitbox around you as you’ll often hear enemies talking to you through walls at you. They’ll also easily lose sight of you when you hide for only a couple seconds, but will then continue to path towards your exact location afterwards even following you to places where they couldn’t have any knowledge of. There’s also some weird inconsistencies in how AI behaviours are persisted, like when you fighting say a robot, die to it and then reload the last checkpoint. You’ll find that the robot will likely retain some information between reloads that are done in that way vs when you load the save directly. This can lead to some wild behaviour like in one instance I had a robot that would instantly start its flamethrower at a random wall when I loaded a checkpoint after I died but would path normally when loading a save.
Progression starts off quite slow but ramps up significantly once you know where to look for things. Whilst there’s no traditional XP system to speak of you’ll start to pickup clues as to where you’ll be able to find training stimulants which are talent points to unlock abilities. Depending on your playstyle you’ll favour certain upgrades over others but you’ll likely end up with more points than you necessarily need long before the game enters its final chapter. That being said even I feel like most of the game is still very much accessible even without spending a single point, it’d just take a might bit longer than it would otherwise.
In terms of setting, character building and general overarching narrative I was onboard with most of what Atomfall was putting forward. However the fact that the main character is effectively a total blank slate that’s never really built upon really made it hard for me to care about anything that was going on. Even when you asked people about yourself, or where you could have potentially come from, you’ll get shrugged shoulders and blank stares. You are merely a vessel for all the other characters in the game to interact with each other. Whilst I can appreciate that from a narrative point of view, you’re just another schmuck caught up in all of this, the fact remains that the character’s motivations for doing anything in the story aren’t their own. It’s to the point where I’ve felt like a kill-everyone-you-see playthrough might be the most lore accurate one, given there’s no good reason not to do it.
Atomfall is a competent FPS RPG that’s marred by it’s handful of shortcomings. The world is beautifully realised, both from a visuals and story perspective. The survival-horror-light mechanics strike the right balance of challenge and reward, forcing you to be much more tactical in your engagements. The AI however is very basic in its implementation, something which usually isn’t an issue but it’s front and center in Atomfall. The game’s story is also let down by you as the blank slate protagonist, the one thing that could tie everything together with a core motivation instead just being a silent conduit for everyone else to work through. All this being said though I still enjoyed most of my time with Atomfall but it’s far from a must play in my mind.
Rating: 7.5/10
Atomfall is available on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S right now for $73.50. Total playtime was 10 hours with 44% of the achievements unlocked. Game is also available on Xbox Gamepass.
