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.
