Doctor Who: Series 12 (Season 38)

The Doctor continues her adventures through time and space with her new companions, Ryan, Graham and Yasmin. But the return of both an old enemy and an old friend sparks new question: who is the Timeless Child, and what is the threat posed by the Lone Cyberman?

The twelfth series of the revitalised Doctor Who aired in 2020, and saw showrunner Chris Chibnall taking stock after his debut season, which could be called the very definition of a mixed bag. On the one hand, Series 11 had shown that a woman playing the role of the Doctor could be successful, and had several solid stories. Unfortunately, it also had several very poor ones, and arguably the lowest consistent quality since the show had returned in 2005. The season was also the first since then not to have any kind of over-arcing story, with Chibnall instead focusing on mysteries and monsters of the week. The fan response to this approach had been muted, so for Series 12, he decided to return to featuring some kind of season-spanning mystery, as well as fully embracing the show's history by bringing back fan-favourite villains including the Master, the Daleks, the Cybermen and the Judoon. The result is a busy season, and a better one that its immediate forebear, but one that is overshadowed by the clunky and decidedly divisive finale which tries to do nothing less than retcon the entire history of the franchise in the most boring way possible.

Before we get there, the season gets off to an epic start with Spyfall, an elaborate two-part story in which the Doctor gets drawn into an alien incursion on Earth that starts off by targeting the planet's intelligence agencies. This is an interesting idea, buoyed by the enjoyable casting of Stephen Fry as the head of MI6 and by Lenny Henry as a corporate billionaire who, obviously, is in league with the bad guys. A promising opening part is subverted by the unexpected return of the Master, played here with charismatic relish by Sacha Dhawan (fresh from The Punisher), and who shifts the second part into a time-travelling thriller where the Doctor has to team up with Ada Lovelace (Sylvie Biggs) and Noor Inayat Khan (Shobna Gulati) to halt the Master's evil plans. To be honest, the main plot is gubbins and a potentially fascinating interdimensional alien threat in the form of the Kasaavins is under-utilised, but the two-parter succeeds thanks to its splendid guest cast. Fans may also bemoan a lack of any explanation for how the Master (last seen only in Series 10, apparently dying for good - twice!) has returned with no trace of the "goodness" the Doctor helped impart to them in that storyline. Still, as a statement of intent, this is a solid start.

Orphan 55 starts off as Doctor Who-by-the-numbers, with our heroes visiting an idyllic holiday resort which - shockingly! - becomes less idyllic as it comes under attack by aliens. Again, a solid supporting cast (including the always-splendid Laura Fraser) prop up a pedestrian script, but the story struggles with pacing (a perennial problem of the Chibnall era) and the ending is decided woeful, with a "twist" that you can spot coming a mile away.

Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror gets bonus points for a great title, and it's mildly surprising that this is the Doctor's first on-screen encounter with both Nikola Tesla (a charismatic and tragic Goran Višnjić) and Thomas Edison (a bumblingly malevolent Robert Glenister). It's a fine slice of sci-fi pulp, though perhaps the alien threat underwhelms. The Skithra feel like a redo of the Racnoss, to the point of pondering why they didn't just bring the Racnoss back. Still, a firmly enjoyable episode.

Things take an upwards turn with arguably the highlight of the entire Chibnall era. Fugitive of the Judoon sets up a straightforward-looking story, with a disguised alien who many not even know their own identity being hunted down by the Judoon whilst hiding in Cheltenham. The Doctor has to work out who the alien is and how to save them. What feels like a breezily solid mid-Russell T. Davies tier episode abruptly shifts tone and direction three-quarters of the way through and executes a mind-boggling twist that elevates the whole episode. The episode hinges on outstanding guest performances by Jo Martin and Ritu Arya, and a doom-laden cameo from Captain Jack (a returning John Barrowman after a near-decade's absence). I think this episode has been downgraded a bit because of how incredibly well it sets up a compelling mystery that the season finale totally fails to deliver on, but in isolation it's an outstanding slice of Doctor Who.

Unfortunately the season can't really sustain that level of interest. Praxeus starts off "big," with the Doctor and her companions splitting into multiple teams to deal with a threat to Earth that simultaneously unfolds in Peru, Hong Kong and Madagascar. The episode's huge scope and fun dialogue (Bradley Walsh is on fine form here) can are let down by a late-episode turn into a lecture on microplastics. A reasonable cause, but it feels like this saps the drama from the resolution of the story.

Can You Hear Me? has huge potential, featuring two ultra-powerful beings inadvertently unleashed from their prisons to rain terror on the universe. The epic scale of the story and compelling performances by Ian Gelder and Clare-Hope Ashitey, as well as Aruhan Galieva as Tahira, is very impressive, as well as featuring an intriguing setting with medieval Aleppo. Unfortunately, the episode feels a bit short-changed. The story is so epic that its resolution after just 50 minutes only feels perfunctory. This at least is the reverse of most Chibnall stories, which often feel like a great 30-minute idea stretched to almost an hour with filler. Unfortunately, the episode also features one of the most reviled scenes in the show's history, as Graham comes clean to the Doctor on his battle with cancer only for the Doctor to really not show much interest or empathy, which was certainly a choice.

The Haunting of Villa Diodati is another good one, with the Doctor and her companions stuck in the famous house where Mary Shelley was inspired to write Frankenstein. A haunted house tale turns into a surprisingly effective horror story as the house is invaded by the foretold Lone Cyberman (a formidable performance by Patrick O'Kane). This episode succeeds thanks to a very fine guest cast (Lili Miller as Mary Shelley, Jacob Collins-Levy as Byron, Nadia Parkes as Claire Clairmont and Maxim Baldry as Dr. Polidori) and a rich atmosphere.

Ascension of the Cyberman is effectively a modern remake of classic Doctor Who episode Earthshock, where the Cybermen, driven to the brink of extinction, recover an army of Cyber-warriors from a spaceship and prepare to conquer the universe. The episode does a lot with not too many resources, achieving a surprisingly epic scale at times, and a foreboding sense of the distant future where all hope is lost, reminiscent of Series 3's Utopia. A subplot in which we follow a young boy growing up in Ireland to become a policeman is well-made, but feels disconnected from the rest of the plot (at least until the following episode). The episode is great right up until the cliffhanger, when you can feel everything is about to go wrong.

That cliffhanger ending takes us into The Timeless Children, easily the most controversial episode since the show's return in 2005. This is also possibly the most awkwardly-structured and paced episode of the entire franchise, with the episode being part standard run-around-and-blow-things-up romp (complete with regenerating Cyber-Time Lords, a brilliant concept here mostly wasted) and part massive TED Talk about the Doctor's backstory. The running-around bit is mostly okay (livened up by a splendid guest turn by Game of Thrones' Ian McElhinney) but the scenes of the Master lecturing the Doctor on her hitherto unknown backstory drag on, as well as being somewhat eyebrow-raising in its connotations.

The Doctor being a super special Time Lord destined for greatness was always a hokey and cliched idea, her just being a rebel who ran away and got into hijinks after being bored was more entertaining (helping the idea that anybody can be a hero in the right circumstances). Not only does the retcon itself feel unconvincing, it's also portrayed in a redundant manner: the Master has - somehow - destroyed Gallifrey and wiped out the Time Lords again, making the entire Time Lord arc in the Steven Moffat period feel like a complete waste of time. The Doctor also already had one secret incarnation she didn't want anyone to know about, so giving her a bunch more here is just the same idea repeated. It also doesn't help that the Doctor here is written in an incredibly passive way, not asking questions or shouting out observations, just staring dumbly as the Master (hardly a trustworthy character) unloads the mother of all infodumps on her. I wouldn't mind so much if this massive backstory revelation actually leads anywhere but, over five years on, it hasn't, making the exercise feel pointless. Babylon 5's second season episode In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum shows how to make a massive backstory revelation story really work in a clever way, which Doctor Who (and Battlestar Galactica's No Exit, for that matter) fails to match here.

Still, watching Barristan Selmy fight Cybermen is undeniably a lot of fun, so it has that going for it.

After that confusing morass, the New Year's special Revolution of the Daleks throws subtlety out of the window and opts to have some laughs. Captain Jack returns (again) and teams up with the Doctor and the gang to fight a Dalek incursion on Earth. The entertaining bit here is that these are actually human-built Dalek drones that aren't too much of a problem until an overeager employee clones some of the surviving Dalek DNA from the previous year's Resolution, which is of course a Very Bad Idea. The episode improves further when the real Daleks show up, disgusted with these Dalek-human-robot hybrids, and set out to annihilate them (which is great) as a prelude to annihilating Earth (not so great). The escalating threat levels are well-handled, there's a lot of explosive action and the episode sets up the possibility of future troubles with amoral American businessman (and possible future President) Robertson. Any plans in that direction were thrown out by subsequent misconduct allegations levelled against actor Chris Noth. Still, the episode is a strong, if inconsequential, action piece with a surprisingly emotional ending.

Series 12 of Doctor Who (***½) is a significant improvement over the previous season in terms of general and individual episode quality. There is more action, more humour, some great guest stars, and some very solid ideas. Some of the hallmark problems of the Chibnall era remain: the TARDIS is too crowded with too many storylines for each episode for any to land extremely well (and by trying to further the characterisation of four regulars at once, it doesn't do a great job of any). It's notable the best episode of the season basically sidelines Yaz, Ryan and Graham for most of its going whilst the Doctor is confronted by a genuinely mind-blowing mystery with a great resolution. Otherwise pacing remains an issue, with Chibnall being given generally more time than either Davies or Moffat had (with several episodes clocking in at 60 minutes and most over 50, compared to the stricter 45-ish minutes of previous eras) and not knowing what to do with it.

The season also highlights what is Chibnall's key weakness: he seems to find it very difficult to write for Jodie Whittaker's Doctor. The Doctor is at her best when she storms into a situation, takes over and uses her natural authority and intelligence to investigate a problem and come up with a solution, overcoming rising complications along the way. When the script allows her to do that here (particularly against the Judoon and Cybermen, known threats she is confident of handling), the episode sings. When the script fails to do that, the episode turns into a leaden mess. This is particularly notable whenever Chibnall pairs Whittaker's Doctor with Dhawan's Master. Chibnall has a great handle on this Master's voice, his viciousness and evil really coming through in a chilling way. But the Doctor can't afford to let the Master run roughshod over her as happens in all four episodes of the season here where they face off. The Doctor standing mutely whilst the Master outlines her revised backstory is deeply bizarre, and leaves the audience losing respect for the character, which the show can never afford to happen.

But still, outside of those moments there is a feeling here that things are, if not back on track, at least sidling in that direction. Fugitive of the Judoon is a great episode, and The Haunting of Villa Diodati is almost as good, whilst Revolution of the Daleks, Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror and Ascension of the Cybermen are all very solid romps. But you'll probably never feel an urge to revisit Orphan 55 or Praxeus ever again. And The Timeless Children remains a deeply odd idea, strangely-executed and, so far, totally unresolved.

12.1: Spyfall, Part 1 (***½)

12.2: Spyfall, Part 2 (***½)

12.3: Orphan 55 (**½)

12.4: Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror (****)

12.5: Fugitive of the Judoon (*****)

12.6: Praxeus (***)

12.7: Can You Hear Me? (****)

12.8: The Haunting of Villa Diodati (****½)
12.9: Ascension of the Cybermen (****)

12.10: The Timeless Children (**½)

12X: Revolution of the Daleks (****)

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.

JV Jones to answer fan questions on Reddit tomorrow

Fantasy author J.V. Jones will be answering reader questions on Reddit, at the r/fantasy community, tomorrow. Jones is the author of The Book of Words trilogy, the standalone The Barbed Coil, and the excellent Sword of Shadows series. She recently completed the penultimate Sword of Shadows novel, Endlords, after a delay, and is about to start work on the final book in the series, A Sword Named Loss.

I expect Jones will be answering questions about worldbuilding, juggling a massive epic fantasy series with other obligations and why there was a significant mid-series gap in publication. Also expect her to get into the weeds of the engines of editing and publishing.

The AMA starts tomorrow at 7am PST and goes on until midday (2pm - 7pm GMT).

YELLOWJACKETS renewed for Season 4

Showtime have renewed their hit TV show Yellowjackets for a fourth and potentially penultimate season.

The renewal had not really been in doubt, with the show's third season debuting with significantly higher ratings on Showtime than the second and picking up a lot of streams via its international distribution on Paramount+ (including setting record viewership for its finale). However, the third season had been renewed ahead of the second, whilst this time around Showtime made fans wait until six weeks after the third season had wrapped up.

The show has a planned five-year story arc, but Showtime declined to renew the show for its final two seasons in one go, suggesting they still want to see how Season 4 does in viewership before ordering the finale.

The show tells a story divided into two time periods. In 1996 a high school soccer team are marooned in a remote part of Canada by a freak plane crash, and have to survive in the wilderness for almost two years before they are rescued. Twenty-five years later, the few now-adult survivors are trying to get on with their lives and forget the trauma they experienced, but the past has a nasty way of constantly coming back into their lives.

The show stars Melanie Lynskey, Christina Ricci, Tawny Cypress, Sophie Nélisse, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Sophie Thatcher, Samantha Hanratty, Courtney Eaton, Liv Hewson, Warren Kole, Sarah Desjardins, Elijah Wood and Hilary Swank. Season 4 is expected to go into production later this year for a potential late 2026 debut.

Updated version of original STALKER trilogy to be released next week

Fresh from the success of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, GSC Game World are re-releasing enhanced editions of the original three games in the series next week.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chornobyl (2007), S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky (2008) and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (2009) were seminal first-person shooter games with RPG elements. Each game is set in a different time period and explores a different part of the Zone, a mysterious area of nuclear and paranormal contamination surrounding the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone in northern Ukraine, after a second accident at the site in an alternate 2006. The player has to follow a mysterious story whilst recovering artifacts, building up an arsenal of weapons and deciding which factions to support.

The new versions of the game have revamped lighting, new skyboxes and upgraded graphics, as well as improved support for modern resolutions and hardware, and a revamped UI. The games have also been optimised for Steam Deck. Impressively, GSC Game World are giving away the updated editions free for owners of the original versions of the game, so even if you have a Steam version of Shadow of Chornobyl from eighteen years ago, you'll still get the new "enhanced edition" for no further outlay. If you don't own any of the games and purchase the new "enhanced edition" of any of the games, you'll also get the original version of the game as well.

If you don't own any of the games, you can purchase the S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone - Enhanced Edition bundle to get all three new versions of the game, and the originals.

The new versions of the games will be available on 20 May on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.

The Rose in Darkness by Danie Ware

Opal, a gleaming beacon of the civilisation of the Imperium of Man. A peaceful world deep within the Imperium, where vast crowds pay homage to the Emperor and his great hero, Saint Veres, in a glorious celebration held once every eight hundred years. The Skull of Saint Veres is a great relic, one which has been ordered to be moved to a shrine world, but the local leaders are reluctant to part with it. Sister Superior Augusta of the Order of the Bloody Rose arrives to expedite the process, only to find bubbling cauldrons of discontent and heresy waiting for her. She realises that Opal's opulence and tranquillity is a facade, one that is dangerously close to breaking.

My prior explorations of the Warhammer 40,000 universe have mostly been through the works of Dan Abnett and Sandy Mitchell, not to mention Paul Kearney's two books in the setting, which have meant reading a lot about Space Marines, Imperial Guard and Inquisitors. The Rose in Darkness was an appealing read as it meant switching focus to another one of the Imperium's orders, the Adepta Sororitas or the Sisters of Battle. The belligerent death-nuns of the Emperor, the Sisters step in to situations which local militias can't handle but sending in the Space Marines would be massive overkill, with the addition that their religious rites and devotion to the Emperor give them an insight that some of the other orders lack.

This book is a good exploration of what kind of situation requires the Sisters' attention, as they have to respect local traditions, honour the local Saint's day but also be firm in their objective of removing the planet's most holy relic, which the local leaders are understandably upset about. The negotiations are interrupted when it becomes clear that some outside force is stirring up trouble on Opal, and it's up to the Sisters to identify the threat. When it is identified, all hell breaks loose, resulting in lots of crunchy battle sequences of the kind that make up the backbone of most Warhammer 40,000 fiction.

Danie Ware paints Opal in all its Imperial splendor. Most 40K fiction takes place on the ragged frontier, where the Imperium is fighting some kind of conflict against an exterior threat, but here the trouble is much harder to pin down. Unleashing a storm of bolter fire to take care of an Ork invader is one thing, but when the threat is more insidious and you cannot tell friend from foe, it's a more nuanced challenge, something that Augusta and her troops struggle to initially engage with. The author is operating with a constrained page count here but deftly characterises figures so even briefly-appearing players (like the planet's governor and military commander) are given at least some depth and flavour.

The book's main success is this idea of a world deep inside Imperial space, blessed by the Emperor, relatively rich and opulent, but whose workers are poor and downtrodden, sometimes even starving when the rich nobility sits in comfort just a few miles away, creating a sense of natural anger and resentment even without strange cults or xenos interference. The feeling of tension ramping up through the book is remarkably successful. It also helps the book gives us POV characters both in the Sororitas and in the local population, so we get both an insider and outsider's perspectives as events on Opal reach breaking point.

It is worth saying that The Rose in Darkness is bleak as hell, even by 40K standards. Most other 40K fiction I've read takes the view that, sure, things are bad, people die, a lot of things blow up, but the most positive - or least-negative, anyway - outcome is infinitely preferable to the worst-case scenario. The Rose in Darkness instead evokes the idea of fighting against the dying of the light, of fighting a long defeat for the sake of fighting it, and true heroism is counted by people making a stand for the right reasons in the dark, where nobody will ever see or hear.

The Rose in Darkness (****) does what good 40K fiction does well - chunky action sequences, mixed in with moments of supernatural horror - but it does it with an air of melancholy and futility that I had not previously encountered in the setting (despite its reputation), which is interesting, but I suspect won't quite be for everybody.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.

GRAND THEFT AUTO VI delayed to May 2026, as was foretold in the ancient texts

Surprising exactly nobody, the most eagerly-awaited video game of the year (if not all time), Grand Theft Auto VI, has been delayed until 26 May 2026. Developers Rockstar Games and publisher Take Two Interactive confirmed the game needed more time in the oven to ensure a smooth release.

The Grand Theft Auto series is one of the most successful in all of video gaming. Since its launch in 1997, the series has sold just under half a billion copies, almost half of those coming from its previous instalment, Grand Theft Auto V, released in 2013, by itself. The series has been consistently praised for its sprawling, crime-fuelled narratives, action and player freedom. Its early years were blighted by controversies over its depiction of violence, drug use, prostitution and swearing, at a time when video games were believed to only played by children.

Grand Theft Auto V has sold over 210 million copies, making it the second-biggest-selling video game in history (behind only Minecraft). The game was packaged with Grand Theft Auto Online, and it's the latter mode which has helped propel the game's longevity (and immense revenues). However, Rockstar were criticised for not releasing further single-player story expansions to the game, as they had originally promised. The company was also fiercely criticised for not developing Grand Theft Auto VI with greater speed, instead focusing on Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018) first. RDR2's overwhelmingly impressive quality did alleviate some of those concerns, however.

Grand Theft Auto VI will be the fourth game in the series to be set in the city of Vice City, Leonida, based on Miami, Florida. The player will control two characters in a Bonnie-and-Clyde-inspired tale of crime, revenge and mayhem. This will also be the first game in the series since the original to feature a female protagonist. Relatively little other information about the game has been provided. This will also be the first game in the series without long-time producer Leslie Benzies (who left before development began) and writer-producer Dan Houser (who left in 2020, early in development); his brother Sam Houser remains in charge of Rockstar and the game overall.

Philip Pullman's final BOOK OF DUST novel, THE ROSE FIELD, will be released this October

Philip Pullman has confirmed the final novel in his Book of Dust trilogy, the prequel/sequel series to His Dark Materials, will be called The Rose Field and will be published on 23 October.

Pullman published the three volumes of His Dark Materials - Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass - in 1995, 1997 and 2000. The trilogy won immense critical acclaim and was adapted for television as a three-season show by the BBC and HBO, as well as a failed movie adaptation in 2007.

Pullman mooted a prequel/sequel series (starting before the events of His Dark Materials and skipping to after) called The Book of Dust for many years before finally releasing the first two volumes, La Belle Sauvage and The Secret Commonwealth, in 2017 and 2019 respectively. The third book will apparently be the last one about the character of Lyra.

THE ELDER SCROLLS IV: OBLIVION REMASTERED announced and released

As was prophesised in the ancient texts (well, yesterday), Bethesda Game Studios have announced and released their remake of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on the same day. The game is available right now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.

French studio Virtuos created the remaster, working under the watchful eye of Bethesda. The game features a completely reworked graphics engine, with Unreal Engine 5 now handling rendering, though the original GameBryo Engine is apparently still working somewhere under the hood. Every graphical asset in the game was recreated from scratch and some areas have been given a serious glow-up. The game's infamously janky levelling system has been reworked, and combat is more responsive. The game has added new combat animations and physics reactions, and the voice cast has been hugely expanded with many new voice actors added. However, the original voice actors' performances (including Sir Patrick Stewart and Sean Bean) have also been preserved. As expected, the remaster includes both the Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles expansions.

The Skyblivion remake mod team can take some heart from the fact that Oblivion Remastered appears to not have thoroughly reworked area design or the game's infamously samey dungeons. Skyblivion has focused on expanding those areas of the game, which should be a major improvement. Skyblivion has committed to a 2025 release date as well.

The same leaks indicating the existence of Oblivion Remastered a few months ago also claimed that Bethesda are working on Fallout 3 Remastered, which is also a very interesting prospect.

The Last of Us: Part II

Four years have passed since Joel and Ellie's epic trip across North America. They have found a safe haven and new home in Jackson, Wyoming, which has been fortified against the threat of the infected, but have grown estranged. A chance encounter outside the town with a woman named Abby, a member of a group based in Seattle called the Wolves, sees Ellie making her way to that city in search of revenge. But both young women are being driven by circumstances to make harsh choices to survive.

The Last of Us: Part I is regarded as one of the best video games ever made, its combination of a strong narrative, some of the best voice acting in gaming history and survival-horror-combat mechanics being quite compelling. Inevitably, its massive commercial success and critical acclaim demanded a sequel, which Naughty Dog Studios finally delivered in 2020, with a remastered version for PlayStation 5 and PC now available. The question is if they could satisfy the orbit-high expectations for that sequel.

The answer is, sort of? The Last of Us: Part II is larger and longer than its forebear, with way more action setpieces, massive explosions and furious last-ditch battles than you can shake a stick of dynamite at. It also ramps up the emotional and storytelling stakes with shocking deaths, brutal injuries and hardcore moral questions which don't have pat answers. The Last of Us: Part II is a lot to take on board, and some of its ideas work incredibly well whilst others fall flat on their face. At its worst, Part II is bloated and messy, not always confident of what it's trying to do or trying to say. At its best, it's a compelling horror story where the horror doesn't come from its slightly expanded repertoire of fungoid-zombie monsters, but from humans and what we are capable of.

The game divides its 26-ish hour narrative into four distinct sections: an opening section in Jackson where we touch base with the characters from the first game (and some newcomers), followed by two sequences in Seattle and an epilogue taking place elsewhere. The core of the game takes place across three days, which we see from both Ellie and Abby's perspectives. From Ellie's view Abby is a monster who needs to be eliminated, whilst from Abby's her actions are fully justified in retaliation for some of the more questionable things Ellie and Joel did in the first game. The game switches perspectives to allow the player to experience both points of view. This is an interesting device as I can't remember too many games that allow you to play as the protagonist and antagonist; Grand Theft Auto V flirts with the idea through Michael and Trevor's opposing viewpoints but doesn't fully commit (both being frequently forced to team up against much more threatening, obviously outright villains).

Much more common are those games where the player commits heinous acts which they try to justify through self-defence or the ends justifying the means, but this doesn't stop the moral corruption of the soul from such heinous acts. Far Cry 2 and 3, Grand Theft Auto IV and, most notably, Spec Ops: The Line, all explore this moral murkiness in a full-on manner. The Last of Us: Part II isn't quite as alone in this space as it seems to like to think.

Graphically, the game is beautiful, with impressive character models (that extend to more than just the main protagonists this time around), outstanding scenery and very good lighting. It's not quite cutting edge (and some of the skybox city backgrounds feel distinctly archaic), but still impressive, with responsive controls. The game's PC port isn't the most technically stable, though, with my play-through blighted by a memory leak that caused it to crash every two hours or so without fail. It doesn't seem like a universal problem, though.

From a gameplay perspective, things are pretty similar to Part I. You move through an area looking for the way to progress forwards, whilst evading or defeating enemies and scrounging for supplies, ammunition, collectibles and new weapons. Areas can be large or small, sometimes relentlessly linear but sometimes a more open area consisting of multiple houses, shops or rooms. Part II encourages thorough exploration, although sometimes at the expense of logic: the narrative constantly urges you to get a move on, so it can feel weird to take ten minutes out to thoroughly explore a laundromat, sliding through a skylight to open a locked door and toing and froing between neighbouring buildings to solve a puzzle to open a safe filled with supplies. The game has a good stealth system, allowing you to distract and eliminate enemies silently, even the mushroom-fuelled undead, but this can be a bit hit and miss at times. The game continues to cheerfully (and stupidly) refuse to let you move bodies, meaning you have to either trick enemies into going where you want them or "steer" them there whilst holding them at knife-point.

Direct combat is more satisfying this time around, with a more robust shooting model and a better selection of weapons, including silenced SMGs, pistols, revolvers, crossbows, shotguns and longbows. You can also create tripwire-bombs and shrapnel grenades as well as molotovs. If anything, the game gives you so many options for direct combat that it's often faster and more efficient to simply cause some noise and obliterate the enemy as they converge on your location, especially since looting enemy troops is also the best way of acquiring ammo.

This combat-heavy focus is a bit bewildering after the first game, which emphasised stealth and made most encounters with both human and myconoid enemies tense affairs throughout the game. Part II by contrast turns both Ellie and Abby into action heroes, each fully capable of storming a camp of a dozen or more highly-trained enemies and eliminating all of them in short, bloody order. It's hard to invoke terror in your horror game if your characters can fairly casually blow that horror away with a shotgun firing napalm shells like something out of The A-Team. However this does result in the very fun roguelike optional challenge mode, where you guide a character through several maps in succession before fighting a boss, unlocking new characters and weapons as you go.

Whilst the gameplay is solid, this is a story-focused game and it's fair to say that the game has been divisive. The game is not particularly interested in giving us too many likeable characters or sympathetic factions: the Wolves and Seraphites have very different motivations but ultimately are two sides of the same coin, and the late-emerging Rattlers are just cliches. The characters are also put through the ringer so much that some scenes start to feel like torture porn. The Last of Us: Part I was a story driven by hope, but Part II is fuelled by rage and vengeance instead. It's a darker game that flirts with outright nihilism, like writer Neil Druckmann wants to be the Cormac McCarthy of video games but doesn't have the chops for it, and sometimes risks being the "late-stage Walking Dead showrunner of video games" instead. Similarities between the two franchises are inevitable and sometimes possibly intentional, but I'm not sure that's what he had in mind. It largely falls to our protagonists' sidekicks, Dina and Lev, to keep some kind of beacon of light shining for them, but it's a mighty thin light at times.

The game's length (half again that of the first game) and structure is also a bit questionable. When we switch perspectives, we rewind three days and play through those days again from Abby's point of view, but it takes a good seven or eight hours of gameplay for her storyline to synch back up with Ellie's, which is a long time to leave a cliffhanger dangling. Abby's storyline is pretty good, and paced better than Ellie's (though you might feel like you could go a while before visiting an aquarium ever again), but it doesn't feel like the structure entirely works. Maybe intercutting between the two would have been better, though that may have impacted the mystery that Ellie is investigating in Seattle.

Ultimately, The Last of Us: Part II (***½) is a game that doesn't make life easy for itself. Turning in a cookie-cutter sequel of "moar adventures with Joel and Ellie" would have been safe and easy. Instead, embarking on this Heart of Darkness trip of duelling demands for revenge and "whose righteousness is more righteous anyway?" was a riskier path, and easily more interesting. Games don't take enough risks, and taking this kind of risk with a major AAA franchise is impressive. Structurally and in terms of pacing the game can be a bit of a mess, but its action is far more satisfying than the first game. Whether players are prepared to put up with 26 hours of bleakness and moral murkiness is another question, one that five years of (at times, combative) discourse has failed to fully answer.

The Last of Us: Part II is available now on PlayStation 4 and 5, and PC. The Last of Us TV series is currently airing its second season, based on the first half of this game, right now.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.

Bethesda to announce THE ELDER SCROLLS IV: OBLIVION REMASTERED tomorrow

Bethesda have confirmed they will be making a big announcement about The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered tomorrow, April 22nd 2025, at 11am EST, 8am PST and 4pm BST. This follows weeks of speculation and leaks about the game, and widespread rumours the game would be "shadow-dropped" (released with absolutely no preamble or warning) today.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was originally released in 2006 as, obviously, the fourth game in that venerable series, following on from Arena (1994), Daggerfall (1996) and Morrowind (2002). Only one additional game in the mainline series has been released since then, the infamous Skyrim (2011), although The Elder Scrolls Online (2014) has kept some attention on the franchise. Bethesda have confirmed that The Elder Scrolls VI (no subtitle confirmed) is their next project but no release date has been mooted.

Oblivion was noteworthy for its very impressive graphics (for the time), its status as a unit-shifter for the Xbox 360 console (the game was later also released on PlayStation 3), its huge open-world environment, outstanding and quirky side-quests and its employment of top vocal talent, including Patrick Stewart and Sean Bean. The game eventually saw some criticism for its weird levelling mechanics, the tiny pool of voice actors (often leading to two NPCs with identical voices talking to one another) and the irritating Oblivion Gates, which had a tendency to crop up and interfere with whatever side-quest the player was trying to do at the time. The game was also seen as too much of a standard fantasy, after the extremely weird Morrowind; Skyrim was seen as a more halfway house between Oblivion's conservatism and Morrowind's bizarre experimentation. Finally, Oblivion was the first high-profile game to feature paid DLC, in the form of the infamous "horse armour" upgrade, which some players despise to this very day. Still, Oblivion was well-regarded for its atmosphere, rich assortment of weaponry, interesting bestiary of enemies and its extremely epic conclusion.

Given the number of times that Skyrim has been upgraded, remastered and re-released, fans had been speculating for years about the same attention being given to Oblivion, giving it broadly shares similar technology and a graphics style to the later game (Skyrim's Creation Engine being only a moderate development of Oblivion's GameBryo Engine). Bethesda themselves always seemed cool on the idea, saying they'd rather spend time working on a new game and pointing to numerous fan projects doing similar things. Oblivion has had mods available for many years to improve its mechanics and graphics, to a point.

However, Bethesda may have been slightly disingenuous, having outsourced development of the remaster to Virtuous Studios whilst maintaining oversight from afar.

News broke in 2023 that Bethesda were planning remakes of both Oblivion and Fallout 3 as far back as 2020, as well as considering a Dishonored 3 from their subsidiary studio Arkane. Dishonored 3 never happened - Arkane instead released Deathloop and Redfall, and are now making a video game based on the Marvel character Blade - leading to scepticism about the other claims. These were emphasised by the impressive and sterling work done on the unofficial fan remaster Skyblivion, which was of a very high quality and had committed to a 2025 release, leading to speculation that Bethesda might consider that project for an official release.

Based on the (mostly credible) leaks, Oblivion Remastered will include expansions Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles (and, yes, the horse armour) and will release on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC, and will be available on Game Pass on both PC and Xbox. The game's graphics have been reworked from the ground up, possibly in Unreal Engine 5, with significant visual upgrades. The UI, combat and levelling also appear to have been reworked for a more modern feel. To what degree other elements have been upgraded is unclear; Skyblivion has redesigned every fort, cave and dungeon in the game to be larger, more expansive and more unique, but it's unclear if Remastered has gone that far.

It's also unclear if tomorrow will be an announcement about the remaster or just the actual straight-up release of the game. We will need to see how that unfolds.

STAR WARS: ZERO COMPANY announced

Lucasfilm, Respawn and BitReactor have confirmed development of Star Wars: Zero Company, a turn-based tactics game set during the Clone Wars. The game is currently targeting a 2026 release window.

The game is basically "XCOM, but in Star Wars." The game sees players taking control of a Republic special forces group fighting the Separatists. Your initial squad of named characters (who will drive story decisions and appear in cutscenes) can be augmented by fresh recruits, who can level up as they do missions. The game will feature an ironman mode and also permadeath, which on the highest difficulty can be applied even to your named characters. On the named characters is a Jedi, one is a droid and there are at least two Clone Troopers. You lead character, Hawks, can be customised in appearance and ability.

The game is being developed by new studio BitReactor (who have veterans of the XCOM, Civilization, Gears of War and Elder Scrolls series on board) but are receiving support from Respawn, who made the recent Jedi Fallen Order and Jedi Survivor games. The game will be published by Electronic Arts.

RIP Jean Marsh

News has sadly broken that the British actress and producer Jean Marsh has passed away at the age of 90. She is best-known as the creator and star of the classic British TV series Upstairs, Downstairs (a rare UK show which was a big hit in the USA), and for playing the role of Doctor Who companion Sara Kingdom.

Marsh was born in Stoke Newington, London in 1934. Growing up during World War II, she showed an aptitude for acting, singing and dance, especially ballet. She attended theatre school and trained hard for an acting career, with her parents' blessing. She made her screen debut at 18 in the British TV movie The Infinite Shoeblack (1952). She made numerous appearances on British screens and stages through the 1950s before going to the United States in 1959 to star in a John Gielgud play on Broadway, a fresh take on Much Ado About Nothing. Whilst in the States she appeared in some American TV episodes, including an episode of The Twilight Zone. In 1963 she played Octavia in the Elizabeth Taylor version of Cleopatra.

In 1965 she was cast in the role of Princess Joanna, the sister of King Richard the Lionheart, in the Doctor Who serial The Crusade. She impressed the production team with her performance so much they invited her back later that year to play Sara Kingdom. Although she only appears in one story, The Daleks' Masterplan, that story (made up of twelve episodes) is the single longest Doctor Who story ever made (the 1986 season was made up of a single fourteen-episode serial, but in reality that was four separate stories presented under a single title with a linking device). Her nine-episode run was longer than that of previous companion Katarina. Sara Kingdom was an unusual companion, being a futuristic, 41st Century special forces operative introduced by killing the Doctor's ally Brett Vyon (Nicholas Courtney), having been tricked into thinking he's a traitor. The Doctor convinces Sara of his good intentions and recruits her into helping in his battle against the Daleks. In a shocking move, Sara is brutally killed in the final episode when the Daleks' "Time Destructor" is activated and ages her to death (the Doctor is caught in the blast but survives due to his much greater lifespan, though fanon would later suggest it contributed to his first regeneration the following season).

As one of only three companions in the show's history to be definitively killed off, Sara would occasionally be mentioned in later stories, even in the comeback era, as an example of when the Doctor gets things wrong.

In 1989 she returned to Doctor Who to play the role of the evil "sorceress" Morgaine; she was reunited with Nicholas Courtney, now playing his traditional Doctor Who role of Brigadier Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart of UNIT. Courtney greeted her by saying, "We've both been in Doctor Who before and you killed me!" Marsh later had a cameo on the show's 50th anniversary special An Adventure in Space and Time about the real-life genesis of the show.

In 1970-71 Marsh worked with fellow actress Eileen Atkins on creating a new TV project, with the idea of focusing on the lives of a posh family in a period drama and their lower-class servants. Upstairs, Downstairs launched in 1971 and was an immediate, huge hit. The show ran for five seasons and 68 episodes. It aired in the USA as part of the PBS Masterpiece Theatre slot and became a critical and commercial success, a huge rarity for a UK show. The show won eight Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe, as well as two BAFTAs and a Peabody. Marsh created and produced the show, and also starred as Rose Buck, the head maid of the house.

In 2010 the show was relaunched as a sequel and ran for two seasons and nine episodes, with Marsh reprising her role. However, the show was overshadowed by the launch of Downton Abbey on an opposing channel, which went on to be a much bigger success with a very similar premise. Marsh reflected on the situation: "It might be a coincidence, and I might be the Queen of Belgium!" Marsh had previously worked with Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellows on Julian Fellows Investigates: A Most Mysterious Murder.

In 1991 she co-created the television series The House of Eliott, about fashion designers in the 1920s. It was a big success for the BBC, running for three seasons and 34 episodes, though it is probably more fondly remembered for the long-running French & Saunders comedy skit mocking the show, House of Idiot (in the final instalment, the entire cast turns up and berate the pair for their irreverence). Marsh created the show and contributed ideas, but declined to appear.

Marsh had numerous other roles of interest; her other primary genre contribution was probably playing Queen Bavmorda, the main villain of the 1988 movie Willow. She briefly reprised her role in the 2022 TV sequel series. She also played the role of Mombi in Return to Oz (1985), as well appearing in Jane Eyre (1970) and The Eagle Has Landed (1976). Her TV roles were vastly more numerous, appearing in both British and American shows including Danger Man, The Saint, I Spy, Adam Adamant Lives!, Department S, UFO, The Persuaders!, The Waltons, Hawaii Five-O, The Love Boat, Murder She Wrote, The Tomorrow People, Holby City and Sense & Sensibility.

Jean Marsh had a minor stroke in 2011, which she recovered quickly from but did limit the roles she chose to take on. Towards the end of her life she was diagnosed with dementia. She passed away at her home in London.

Jean Marsh was an extremely-respected British actress and producer. Her performances were always memorable and powerful, and co-creating two hit TV shows is a very impressive achievement, not to mention "blatantly inspiring" one of the biggest TV shows of all time. She will be missed.

Mighty board game series COMMAND & COLORS licences STAR WARS

The mighty Command & Colors board game series has licensed Star Wars for a themed game from Days of Wonder. Remarkably, this will only be the second time the series has licensed a property for a tie-in game, after the superb 2010 Song of Ice and Fire-themed variant Battles of Westeros.

Command & Colors is a board game/wargame hybrid. Players command two factions that engage in battle. The board is divided into three sectors and, after a deployment phase, order their armies using a randomly-drawn hand of cards, with instructions like "all units on the right flank to advance," or "one unit in each sector advances." The players' armies have different weapons and vehicles with different capabilities.

The most well-known and biggest-selling game in the series is Memoir 44, a World War II variant, followed by BattleLore, a high fantasy version of the concept. Other variants include Command & Colors: Ancients and Command & Colors: Napoleonics, covering the ancient world (Romans, Greeks etc) and the Napoleonic Wars respectively; Samurai Battles, featuring warfare in Japan; Tricorne, about the American Revolution; Battle Cry, about the American Civil War; and The Great War, which covers World War I. The most recent game in the system I played was Red Alert: Space Fleet Warfare, which was superb but extremely demanding in the amount of table space it required.

Days of Wonder have recently announced a revamp of Memoir 44, although sadly this does not appear to be an in-depth second edition that fans have been requesting for years, but a mild revision with new artwork and tokens. The new focus for the game appears to be the Star Wars tie-in game. Days of Wonder's official screenshots indicate this will be a land-based game, with the base game focusing on the Battle of Hoth, with Imperial and Rebel forces fighting for control of the planet, presumably with snowtroopers, rebel troops, snowspeeders, scout walkers and AT-ATs. I imagine if it's a hit, expansions will follow and maybe a space-based variant.

Days of Wonder are promising to release new information, such as a release window, soon.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.

Iconic fantasy cartographer Karen Wynn Fonstad's maps are looking for a new home.

In interesting news, the map collection of fantasy cartographer Karen Wynn Fonstad is being digitised and is looking for an academic home.

Karen Wynn Fonstad was one of fantasy cartography's biggest names, best-known for her two editions of The Atlas of Middle-earth (1981, 1992). This was an attempt to create an atlas spanning the entire history of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy legendarium, including detailed maps of the lands explored in The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. The revised edition drew on Unfinished Tales and the twelve-volume History of Middle-earth series to flesh out the map collection. The Atlas had a lot of fans, with Christopher Tolkien writing warmly about its accuracy and Tolkien artist Alan Lee talking about how it was used as a reference for the making of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.

Mrs. Fonstad herself paid tribute to earlier pioneers of Middle-earth cartography, including Pauline Baynes' A Map of Middle-earth (1970), which had the advantage of enjoying feedback from Professor Tolkien himself, and Barbara Strachey's more contemporary Journeys Frodo: An Atlas of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (1981).

Mrs. Fonstad also created other fantasy atlases, notably The Atlas of Pern (1984) based on Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series, and The Atlas of the Land (1985), based on Stephen Donaldson's The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever sequence. She then collaborated with TSR, Inc. on the Dungeons & Dragons projects The Atlas of the Dragonlance World (1987) and The Forgotten Realms Atlas (1990). The Forgotten Realms Atlas remains, as far the creator of the Forgotten Realms world Ed Greenwood is concerned, definitive. Many of these maps, or portions thereof, were reused in later projects like video games and novels.

Mrs. Fonstad resumed work on real-world geographical projects and did not create any more fantasy maps, but she did write a proposal for a project called The Atlas of Narnia, based on C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia sequence, including creating some sample maps. The Lewis Estate regrettably passed on the project.

Karen Wynn Fonstad passed away, far too young, in 2005 due to cancer. It was always a supreme regret of mine that she never got a chance to work on maps for more recent fantasy series such as The Wheel of Time, A Song of Ice and Fire or The Malazan Book of the Fallen. My own Atlas of Ice and Fire website project was directly inspired by her work.

Mrs. Fonstad's son Mark, now an associate professor of geography at the University of Oregon, has spent recent weeks at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Robinson Map Library, digitising the hundreds of maps from his mother's collection for legacy purposes. The work is incomplete and it will take several trips to complete the project. Once it's done, Mark will be looking for an academic institution to house both the physical and digital maps for future generations to enjoy. It looks like the never-before-seen maps from The Atlas of Narnia proposal will be included.

Splendid stuff, and it would be amazing if the digital collection was available somewhere for everyone to enjoy.

NO LIFE FORSAKEN, the new MALAZAN novel from Steven Erikson, gets cover and release date

No Life Forsaken, the second book in the Witness quartet, has had its cover art and release date unveiled. The book will be released on 23 October this year.

The book picks up after the events of The God is Not Willing (2021) and sees the action switch to the Seven Cities subcontinent where, unsurprisingly, things are getting complicated for the local Malazan forces.

The official plot summary is as follows:

A goddess awakens to a new world, only to find that some things never change.

Amidst the ashes of a failed rebellion in Seven Cities, new embers are flaring to life.

There are furrowed brows at the beleaguered Malazan Legion headquarters in G’danisban for it would appear that yet another bloody clash with the revived cult of the Apocalyptic is coming to a head.

Seeking to crush the uprising before it ignites the entire subcontinent, Fist Arenfall has only a few dozen squads of marines at his disposal, and many of those are already dispersed - endeavouring to stamp out multiple brush-fires of dissent. But his soldiers are exhausted, worn down by the grind of a simmering insurrection and the last thing Arenfall needs is the arrival of the new Adjunct, fresh from the capital and the Emperor's side.

The man's mission may be to lend support to Arenfall’s efforts . . . or stick a knife in his back. 'Twas ever thus, of course. That a popular commander should inevitably be seen as a threat to the Emperor - such is the fatal nature of imperial Malazan politics.

And what of the gods? Well, as recent history has proved, their solution to any mortal mess is to make it even messier. In other words, it's just another tumultuous day in the chequered history of the Malazan Empire.

The good news is that Book 3, Legacies of Betrayal, is already complete and hopefully should be published in 2026.

Erikson is currently writing Walk in Shadow, the long, long delayed finale to his earlier Kharkanas Trilogy.

First trailer for MURDERBOT adaptation released

Apple TV+ has released the first trailer for Murderbot, their adaptation of Martha Wells' Murderbot Diaries novel/novella series. The show will launch on 16 May 2025 and will consist of ten episodes.

The TV show follows the story of the books, with an android SecUnit breaking its programming to "go rogue," though in this case that means doing jobs for hapless groups of humans between bingeing TV shows.

The show stars Alexander Skarsgard as the titular Murderbot, with David Dastmalchian, Norma Dumezweni, Sabrina Wu, Tattiawna Jones, Akshay Khanna and Tamara Podemski as the humans it has to constantly bail out of trouble. In an amusing device, the series will also feature show-within-a-show The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, with its own cast including Clarg Gregg, John Cho, DeWanda Wise, Jack McBrayer and Anna Konkle (interesting to see how big a thing this is, given that cast can't be cheap).

Murderbot confirms Apple TV's impressive commitment to the science fiction genre. The streamer is also hosting For All Mankind, Silo, Foundation, the genre-adjacent Mythic Quest and current hit-of-the-moment Severance.

The Murderbot Diaries consists so far of seven books: All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy, Network Effect, Fugitive Telemetry and System Collapse. These were recently reissued in omnibus editions.

Atomfall

Cumbria, 1962. An amnesiac awakens with no memory of their past or purpose. They are, somehow, in the security zone surrounding the Windscale atomic plant. In 1957, the plant suffered a partial nuclear meltdown. Thousands were evacuated, but hundreds decided to remain, with the military sent in to secure the area. But some of the locals have adopted strange beliefs, becoming raiders or "druids", conducting pagan rites in the forest. The memory-addled stranger may be a key to unlocking the mysteries of "the Interchange" and helping one of the numerous factions in the zone achieve victory and escape.

Atomfall is a survival action game from Rebellion, the team behind the Sniper Elite series and, way back in the day, the likes of Alien vs. Predator 2, as well as the owners of the 2000AD comic book and its numerous spin-offs (including Judge Dredd). The game is something of a change of pace from them, drawing influences from a huge number of pop media sources to create something that's interesting, though perhaps a little under-explored.

Played from a first-person perspective, you guide your character - about whom you know exactly nothing, not even their gender (since the character is unvoiced) - through the four districts of the Windscale Exclusion Zone. The game makes a very bold and interesting choice by eschewing the normal quest system of such games, instead giving you "leads," bits of information relating to the situation at hand. These lands may tie into the main story, or various side-quests or faction missions (or some mixture thereof). You can follow a single lead to progress the story, but sometimes continuing your exploration may find other leads related to the same event or character, revealing more information. Someone who first appears to be a trustworthy ally may turn out to be ruthless and amoral monster if you compare notes from different sources. This is a very interesting idea which kind of works, though the game's diligence in tracking leads in your journal does sometimes start to resemble a standard quest log.

Although the game has been compared a lot to the Fallout franchise from the name and the retrofuturistic vibe, the game is not really an RPG. There are skill trees you can advance along but these are fairly limited. There are dialogue choices but often there's nothing stopping you from asking every single choice, without it blocking off progression (that only happens through your actions, not words). The vibe is a lot closer to the STALKER franchise, which recently celebrated a big hit with the splendid STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl. You have a very limited inventory, can only carry a small number of weapons and supplies, and you rely on crafting skills to create new items in the field. There are merchants in the game (at least one per zone), although there is no currency. Instead you have to barter items you have for items they have, which is a very interesting spin on things. 

Combat is serviceable, with a reasonable variety of weapons: you have the standard submachine guns, rifles, shotguns, grenades and pistols, as well melee weapons such as knives and, very appropriately, cricket bats. There is also a bow for stealth. Ammo is extremely scarce, meaning that you quickly have to master the art of melee combat unless you want to blow all of the ammo you've spent an hour scavenging in two minutes. Stealth is, unfortunately, not very good. The enemy can spot you easily in long grass from quite a distance (making the value of long grass questionable) and, at absolute best, you'll only take down one enemy from a group from stealth before the rest of their comrades are alerted. Given that Rebellion have a very robust stealth system in their Sniper Elite series, it's a bit baffling at how poor Atomfall's is. Still, at least stealth is not an overpowered insta-win button, which is the opposing end of the problem. Enemy AI is generally good though, as is usual, the human enemies are far more interesting to fight than the various mutated creatures. The game also technically allows you to pursue a nonlethal playthrough, although that is tough, or kill every single character in the game (tougher due to respawning areas). In both cases you can still finish the game.

An important part of the game is exploration. Leads don't take you to every corner of every map, and important side-quests can only be picked up by spotting an interesting building on the horizon and heading over to take a look. Curiosity is well-rewarded, with optional bunkers, cellars and ruins often yielding fresh supplies, though sometimes at the cost of more combat. Quests can determine the hostility of factions, and aligning with a faction leader can see their forces stand down and allow you to pass, or even help you against other enemies or mutants. The four districts are not huge, but each is very well-designed and dense with points of interest. The four maps are also linked by a central structure, the Interchange, a base of operations which sprawls with sub-levels and areas sealed off. Getting the Interchange up and running, and opening all the areas and wings, is very satisfying, reminiscent of the space station in Prey, though rather faster to accomplish.

The tone of the game is fairly serious, though there is a thin vein of black humour running through things. British cultural references abound: multiple nods to Doctor Who (including those terrifying gas mask enemies from the Empty Child two-parter), Judge Dredd, Quatermass, Dan Dare, When the Wind Blows and even Last of the Summer Wine can be detected. One moment the game is making you think of the utterly terrifying nuclear war TV movie Threads, and the next the bucolic cottages and winding country lanes are instead making you think of Postman Pat. Tonal variation is something the game does very well.

The game entertains and amuses, but only relatively briefly. I put the game away at just under 16 hours, including unlocking three of the apparent six endings (the others require replaying the last few missions again). Normally I'm the first to applaud a game which resists the temptation to be a 150-hour bloatathon, but Atomfall risks falling on the other side of the coins. A lot of characters, factions and backstory are decidedly under-developed, and the central mystery of who you are and what you are doing in Cumbria never really gets addressed. The identity of the mysterious "Voice on the Telephone" is only alluded to, and you only get a partial explanation for what happened during the original Windscale disaster. Atomfall often feels too much like an extended demo or proof-of-concept for a larger game which has more room to breathe. Still, the game's size does mean its focus and pacing is pretty good.

Atomfall (***½) has a lot to recommend it, with an interesting atmosphere, solid story, fun exploration, great art design and a lot of player freedom. But the combat is only ever serviceable, stealth is pretty borked and other game systems (crafting, upgrades, skills) are just okay at best. The short length of the game is refreshing in some respects, but asks a lot of the player in terms of things being left unexplained. Atomfall is solid but feels like it needs an expansion or sequel to start achieving more of its potential.

The game is available now on PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, and XBox One and XBox Series X.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.