Atomfall is something of a departure from Rebellion. The studio has made Sniper Elite its bread and butter for over a decade, and when exploring outside that franchise, the team generally sticks to third-person shooters and variations on a theme.
It’s easy to forget that Rebellion was responsible for the very good Alien vs Predator FPS series. Rebellion is no stranger to first-person shooters and has worked across a range of genres and games, but Sniper Elite looms large, so you’d be forgiven for misremembering the breadth of the studio’s accomplishments.
That’s why Atomfall seems like such an anomaly. And in some ways it is. But it largely fits nicely in with Rebellion’s established works. It’s bright, there are guns to shoot, and it’s very, very British.
Atomfall Review
To get it out of the way right off the (cricket) bat; no, Atomfall is not British Fallout. They share some superficial similarities, but the two could not be more different. Atomfall is not really an RPG. Sure, there are some skill trees to unlock and upgrades to complete, but Atomfall is a survival game with a healthy dose of action and investigations.
Set after the Windscale Fire in 1957, Atomfall puts you into the boots of an unknown and unnamed protagonist with a case of explosive amnesia. With no idea who or where you are, there’s only one thing for it: stiff upper lip and figure out what exactly is going on. The first few hours of Atomfall are tough, and set out to very quickly teach you the rules of this world and the game.
Atomfall is not a game about rushing headlong into battle, shooting a bunch of bad guys and playing Rambo. Trying to play that way is a surefire method to get yourself killed. Both you and enemy NPCs die at the drop of a hat in Atomfall. Usually, only one or two bullets will do the trick. Hell, I think my character probably died from stubbing their toe at one point. This fragile mortality teaches you to play carefully and to think about every encounter.
Is this fight worth the very limited ammo in my possession? Can I afford to use my only remaining bandage to recover my lost health if this fight goes sideways? Will these enemies be carrying anything worth my killing them for? These are the questions you’ll need to ask yourself in Atomfall, and the mechanics and systems of the game reinforce this in a big way.
First up are Atomfall’s survival mechanics. As you explore the quarantine zone, you’ll be obsessively collecting scrap, material, gunpowder, alcohol, oil and more, all to craft supplies to keep you alive. While there is plenty of stuff lying around, recipes tend to require a lot of each ingredient. So, even though you’re flush with alcohol and material, you may only be able to craft 2 or 3 bandages. What’s more, one bandage (at least initially) will only restore about half of your health bar.
You’ll constantly be weighing up what you can afford to use and what you need to save for a rainy day. It becomes especially difficult and important the further you get into Atomfall, as you’ll reach areas you can only safely access after ingesting tonics or using items that require lots of rare ingredients. Should you reach a point that you can’t access because you don’t have the goods, you’ll need to backtrack and go scavenging. In doing so, you put yourself in harm’s way and at risk of using even more precious resources.
To deal with the constant threat of enemies, though, Atomfall has a couple of tricks up its sleeves. Stealth is one option, and the least viable. Stealth in Atomfall is rubbish. Surprisingly, the team behind Sniper Elite hasn’t nailed stealth in this game, but perhaps that’s the point. Stealth gameplay in Atomfall consists of crouching, moving slowly, hiding in long(ish) grass and pressing R2 to perform a takedown. The problem is, enemies tend to see you very easily, and hiding doesn’t really seem to work, so even if you try your best to play stealthily, you’ll inevitably be forced into combat.
The other option is to play carefully, pick your battles and give baddies a wide berth. Areas in the game are separated into two: spaces where you won’t be attacked on sight and areas where you’re considered a trespasser. In the latter, you’ll need to do your best to try stealth and get good at taking down enemies with a swift headshot. In the former, though, enemies won’t outright attack you. Instead, they’ll give you a warning, tell you to back off and generally leave you be, unless you force the issue.
If you move away, that’s usually the end of things. But, if you raise your weapon or close the distance, that’s when shit kicks off. It’s a neat and interesting mechanic that works well to give the world a hostile feeling, but allows you to sidestep combat if you like. And you should like it, because even though combat is satisfying, you’re going to want to save your ammo and items. That being said, while the regular weirdos in Atomfall will give you the option to walk away, the strange, feral enemies won’t be so kind. Once you come across these freaks, you’d better be ready to fight.
Outside of combat, crafting, survival and exploration, Atomfall handles plot and storytelling in a rather unique fashion. You aren’t given quests or quest markers. There’s no minimap pinging you in the right direction or a magic line on the ground showing you where to go next. Instead, you’re given leads.
Throughout the world, you’ll find all manner of notes, recordings, and the like, and many of them include some information that seems important enough for you to follow up on. These leads are added to your journal for you to pick and choose as you like. To follow a lead, you’ll need to read the information and decipher where you need to go and who you need to speak to to progress. Sometimes you’ll be given coordinates and other times just a vague idea of the direction you need to head in.
As you progress, you’ll uncover more information for your leads and eventually complete them. It’s incredibly satisfying to follow a lead to its conclusion, but often I would inadvertently complete a lead before I even started it because Atomfall is so open and free-form. It gave me a strange kind of FOMO knowing I had finished a quest before actually starting it, and a small part of my lizard brain felt ripped off that I had missed out on doing the quest properly. However, thanks to the way you move through Atomfall’s narrative and its world, there is ample opportunity to replay the game multiple times and experience what you may have missed the first time around.
Atomfall does have a few odd quirks and bugs here and there. On occasion, I wouldn’t be able to interact with objects or NPCs. Sometimes my progress would be stuck until I reloaded a save, and once or twice the game crashed, but nothing so serious that it put me off playing. Visually, like all Rebellion games, Atomfall is a delight. The environments are bright, crisp and colourful, and the Quarantine Zone looks and feels very alive. Character models are decidedly AA, but it’s easily overlooked.
One of the biggest assets Atomfall has, though, is its unapologetic Britishness. It’s so great to hear a wide range of British accents and to heal yourself by having an Earl Grey and a slice of cake. The cricket bat is a brutally good melee weapon, and the weird, folk-horror surrealism is the cherry on top of a delicious radioactive cake.
With Atomfall, Rebellion has delivered an exciting survival game with brilliant story hooks and a world you never want to stop exploring.
Atomfall was reviewed on PS5 using code provided by Rebellion.
