Review - Atomfall
"Oberon... Oberon Must Die... (line goes dead)"
Atomfall
March 27, 2025 - Rebellion Developments
Action Survival - Chinmay Zende, Jonathan L. Howard
PS4, PS5, XBO, Xbox Series Consoles, PC
You wake up with amnesiac symptoms and must explore a quarantine zone five years after the United Kingdom’s Windscale nuclear disaster and find a way out while dealing with mutated animals, military agents, cults, and more.
Characters, World, and Presentation
The world of Atomfall does live up to the pre-release talk calling it “British Fallout,” even if it doesn’t play that way. You can see the care and research that went into the game, even getting the right accents and speech from the characters you’ll meet. The characters aren’t as memorable as some from the Fallout series, but they get the job done and fill out the story and world well. It’s all presented with atmospheric music and what I found to be a pretty damn good-looking game. I liked the art direction and how things looked, so big props to the in-house Asura engine. However, I wasn’t as crazy about the performance.
As a history nerd, I really liked going around and seeing some of the small details they had here. You can collect comics with that classic 50s pulp look and all the furniture, cars, and all that looked like I was in the early 1960s. Couple that with references to World War II and recent events, and I felt like I was in that period. The underground areas also had a sort of Resident Evil feel to them despite the game being action instead of horror. It’s a well-done world they put you in.
There are various types of factions and animals you run into that have some well-thought-out concepts. The Protocol rogue military acts as a questionable group trying to bring order to the zone. You also have a doomsday cult that I really liked the writing with, and various characters with their own goals and motivations. Again, I wouldn’t say they’re Fallout memorable, but still well done. The ending is unique in that there are multiple ways to get there, and you sort of just meet certain characters and moments to get there. I wouldn’t say there’s a best ending, but I would ask you to do research to determine which one you like if you’re okay with spoilers. Depending on what actions you take, you can even finish the game pretty quickly.
Gameplay, Design, and Sound
The gameplay for Atomfall did take me aback. Before the game was released, many people thought it would be similar to Fallout. Instead, it is an action survival game. Now, that doesn’t mean I didn’t like it; it was just not what I had expected. There are many similarities to the recent and remade Resident Evil games, focusing on conserving ammo and thinking through how to tackle an area. Unfortunately, the stealth isn’t exactly good, but even if you find yourself in a jam, it’s not going to screw you up. You’ll find plenty of period-era guns, and I learned real quick I couldn’t just go in guns blazing with how little ammo you get. You’ll also receive tools like a flashlight and a metal detector that help when you’re traversing.
You can learn skills that help you get through the game by collecting skill books. You also have to be careful regarding your heart rate, which is a cool twist on the radiation from Fallout. Much like Fallout, you can eat food and drinks that have effects on you and can help you out as well. If you know your heart rate will increase, drink some tea to deal with it. I’m a bit of a sucker for those types of ideas in games. I did feel that having to collect the skill books wouldn’t be how I would’ve designed that decision, but I know developers probably want to try new ideas instead of the typical skill trees and exp points.
The game doesn’t have a massive open world. There are a couple of big open areas, but like Avowed, they’re not overwhelming unless you really want to look at everything. I think I speak for a lot of gamers when I say this open zone design over one giant world works better and helps the games not feel so overwhelming. This design decision helped make it feel like a quarantine zone, and I never felt like I was missing out if I skipped a specific part of the map. No fast travel is annoying, but it didn't make me mad because it’s not so big.
The game direction is good. I didn’t feel lost, and it felt like I was in the real world. When the phone rang in the phone booths, which is its own story, they timed it well. The sound design is atmospheric, so it's not a soundtrack that’s going to knock my socks off, but it fits the game’s personality. However, as you will read, there was one sound issue that really annoyed the hell out of me.
Negatives?
From what I’ve read, the game’s fps is at 60, but I’m surprised to read that because I didn’t feel like it performed that way. I don’t have the most incredible eyes in the world, so I can tell when a game has higher fps when I move the camera, and this game had that underwater feeling when I moved it. Maybe it’s just how the camera pans, but I didn’t like how that looked. There are also some pretty bad audio issues I got annoyed with. Without a reason, you’ll be walking, and then the sound cuts out, and I could only fix it by closing and rebooting the game. I’m sure a patch will be released to deal with that, but it proved a constant annoyance during my time.
While you can adjust how much the game helps guide you in missions (or tasks, as they call them), I never felt completely comfortable with it. I get that this is a survival game more than exploration, but I shouldn’t have to pause the game and then constantly press over to see the map so I can know where to go. This was probably the worst design in the game for me and proved to get a couple of eye rolls when it started to get to me. Subjective opinion about that, but it proved to be the main area outside of the sound dropping that I didn’t like.
essential - RECOMMEND - okay - don’t recommend
Atomfall is a game you could argue you can’t recommend to anyone. Similar to the Soulsborne genre, some people aren’t going to vibe well with survival games, especially action over horror. I’ll be the first to admit I’ve gone back and forth on how much I would recommend this game, and I think, at times, the game feels just okay more than a game I really liked. That being said, there are several things I did like here, from the world design, the game direction, and the unique concepts, and when you are in some of the underground areas, the survival part really shines, and I loved it then. Does this have flaws? Yes. They have to get that sound dropoff issue patched (I’m sure they will), and I feel the game poorly explains where you need to go. However, there’s enough here to like what they gave me, and I think as time passes, this will become a cult classic with many gamers. If you’re okay with the genre, I recommend Atomfall.
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