Atomfall: (Mostly)Spoiler-Free Review- A Messy Misunderstanding
Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Jank
As is the case with most releases, content creators and game journalists alike used comparisons as a way of succinctly describing Atomfall by utilizing ubiquitous franchises.
If you heard of this game before its release, these descriptors will sound familiar:
Fallout in Great Britain
British Stalker
Comparisons are useful when trying to transmit to a wide audience in as few words as possible something that wouldn’t otherwise fit in such a small word count. These comparisons are often harmless because they work. With thousands of games coming out every week, we’ve reached a point in which most titles are iterating on what came before, with true innovation being a rarity.
Yet, when you’re dealing with a bizarre creation, comparisons can actually become harmful. If you pass your bucket of popcorn to someone and say they’re salty, but they’re sweet, that person is going to cringe on the first bite, even if they enjoy sweet popcorn.
So if you start your Atomfall journey expecting a Stalker-esque British Fallout with Metro influences— like I did—, you will cringe at first. But if you’re as stubborn as me — and live in a country where 50€ equates to a full 8 hour workday — you won’t give up that easily. So I trudged on.
But Atomfall’s gameplay wasn’t making any sense. After exiting the first bunker, I picked up a cricket bat and went searching for trouble. My enemies were mostly goons rushing at me with melee weapons, and combat felt like a prank. How was I supposed to engage in hand-to-hand combat without being able to dodge, block, or parry?
Luckily, I had recently watched Josh Strife Hayes stream The Elder Scrolls Daggerfall, — which has as many mechanical parallels with Atomfall as Fallout does — so I did what I’d learned, one melee hit, one step back. Rinse and repeat.
Unfortunately, much like in Daggerfall, this isn’t a bulletproof strategy, and getting hit by any melee weapon in Veteran difficulty was removing at least a third of my HP bar, while my bandages cured less than a fifth of it.
So the first hours I spent with Atomfall were more Resident Evil than Fallout or Stalker. I had a minuscule inventory to work with, little to no healing resources or bullets, and I was fearing for my life as I turned every corner, scrambling for keys and locations to explore.
With all that said, perhaps the strangest part of Atomfall for me wasn’t the fact that it was sitting almost entirely out of the frame that I had in mind for it, but that Rebellion’s tutorials didn’t seem to fully understand the game they were guiding us through either.
Atomfall’s filled with the infamous Assassin’s Creed patches of tall grass that magically turn everyone inside them invisible. Very early in your playthrough, you’ll get a tutorial window telling you to use stealth as a crucial tool.
At first, this seemed logical. I had no bullets, the game was filled with magic tall grass, and I had little to no hope of engaging in melee combat without losing a chunk of my HP. So stealthy I was
Or tried to be, because even if Atomfall wants you to be stealthy, it doesn’t let you do so. At least in Veteran difficulty, the British punks known as the Outlaws have the eyesight of a hungry eagle. As soon as I moved an inch out of a magic patch of grass, I’d get spotted. Was I doing something wrong?
Cursory Google, Reddit, and Steam Review searches showed me that I wasn’t alone. The overall sentiment boiled down to “Stealth is useless”. So I ignored stealth entirely for the remainder of the game, threw out the frame I had specifically built for Atomfall, and mentally started the journey anew, while resuming my original playthrough.
I mastered as much of the melee combat as I felt I could, and I immersed myself in the bizarre world of the Quarantine Zone, filled with a unique aesthetic and atmosphere, despite the very familiar post-apocalyptic setting. The story had been intriguing from the start, and the voice acting was consistently good. Quickly, my experience with the game morphed. I wasn’t trying to play Fallout anymore, treating combat encounters as fights with Stalkers, or trying to stealthily thin down groups of enemies as I had done in Metro.
I was simply playing Atomfall, blasting through enemies using my trusty Cricket Bat, and falling in love with the game’s charming jank. I began stocking up on guns and ammo, started abusing the bow and chucking Molotov cocktails into any group of goons that approached me. Before I knew it, I was hooked. The narrative and setting kept me going and the gameplay wasn’t bothering me anymore, with some details actually positively surprising me. I’ll list those here, so there are some minor gameplay-related spoilers ahead.
The Good:
Barter system is excellent for the setting. Bottlecaps are a fine solution, but bartering for everything you acquire is more immersive.
The world feels interactive and lived in, with enemies reacting to main story progression.
The shorter runtime is a plus for me.
Atomfall commits to a very dynamic exploration system which allows you to do things in your own order, and quests and NPCs usually react well to you doing things “out of order”.
After a little under 20 hours of playtime, my journey through the Quarantine zone came to an end. I completed one of the multiple endings, watched the remaining ones on Youtube, and was satisfied with the one I chose. I understand what Atomfall was going for, and I enjoyed it, but I can’t help but feel like both the public and Rebellion misjudged this game entirely.
Jank and incomplete systems are expected in a AA product in this day and age, and they do not bother me. But I left the Quarantine zone feeling like half of what I interacted with could’ve been entirely removed from the game without having an actual impact on it.
The Useless Systems:
Trader NPCs never restock items and they don’t sell anything expensive enough. You’ll have acquired everything you care about a few hours into the game.
Atomfall’s progression tree is useless. Some skills impact the game considerably, but those could just be naturally unlocked depending on your playstyle (you use guns more, you get guns skills).
Inventory limitations make the early game tense, but entirely lose their impact a few hours in. You will have access to a ton of Pneumatic Tubes, and you will never be far enough away from one to be struggling for space.
Crafting should’ve been removed entirely. Crafting materials have a cap on them, which is too low. You will spend the latter half of the game always full of materials while having nothing interesting to build with them, or with too little inventory space to justify carrying around multiple crafted throwables.
The heartbeat system is pointless. It is a disguised stamina meter, functions as one, and the “louder breathing impacts stealth” detail has no impact because stealth in Veteran difficulty is virtually impossible either way.
There aren’t enough late game encounters to justify the time and resources spent into upgrading guns and crafting throwables. You can stock up on ammo for two different guns, max them out, carry meds and a melee weapon, and you’re set for the latter half of Atomfall.
Despite this, I enjoyed my time with Atomfall. It is a unique experience, and those are progressively rarer in the gaming industry. It mostly values your time, dispensing with a bloat-filled world, and is priced fairly. I do recommend Atomfall, but I reinforce the fact that you can’t get into it expecting to stalk the British fallout zones and metro stations. You will also ideally have some jank tolerance, because this game will get janky.
All in all, I had fun throughout the majority of my play time, and I hope Rebellion doubles down on this approach. Atomfall is their most successful launch to date, so I’m looking forward to whatever weird creation they come up with next.