Atomfall: The First Hands-On

Joe Skrebels, Xbox Wire Editor-in-Chief

Published

August 21, 2024

Announced at Xbox Games Showcase earlier this year, Atomfall is the surprise new title from Rebellion (Sniper Elite, Zombie Army) that, on first glance, feels like a very British Fallout. A retro-future, post-apocalyptic setting, first-person RPG mechanics, and a world stuffed with weirdos all hearken back to Bethesda’s epochal series. But in my time with a first-ever hands-on build of Atomfall, it quickly became clear that there’s much more to this game than a location transplant.

Set in an alternate timeline following the real-life Windscale Nuclear Disaster of 1957, the first thing you’ll notice about Atomfall is that, for a game set after an atomic meltdown, this place is beautiful. Set in the rolling hills of the Lake District in Cumbria, this is a truly bucolic take on the end of the world – streams babble, nature grows unabated, and semblances of the old world still exist; never more so than in the picture-postcard village of Wyndham you’ll find early in your travels.

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It’s a unique location for this kind of game, and sets the tone perfectly – this is less about a world destroyed than a world gone wrong. Outlaws roam the hills wearing cricket pads as armor, vicious rats with glowing blue eyes swarm around tumbledown farm buildings, and druids are said to be performing pagan rituals in the woods, towards ends unknown.

From the outset, how you choose to engage with all this is up to you. For the first portion of my time with the game, I simply hiked the backroads, taking down bandits to loot for their weapons, and scraps of material with which to craft bandages or throwables. Combat will be familiar to players of first-person RPGs, but comes with some distinct touches – you can only quickslot four weapons at any one time, and ammo is extremely scarce, making at least one melee item a must. You’ll also want to keep a stock of healing items, as death is quick here – it quickly becomes clear that avoiding a fight can be as helpful as starting one.

Once I felt suitably tooled up, I began to engage with what might be Atomfall’s most interesting design choice. In Rebellion’s take on the genre, you don’t get quests – you get leads.

From the beginning of the demo, it’s clear that my character is on a journey simply to find out what’s happened here – there’s no grand objective, no hero’s quest. You just have a simple question driving you: What’s going on? And to support that, your journal isn’t full of concrete explanations of what to do, but rather clues you’ve amassed. Early on, I met a trader, who’d throw in local gossip with every barter deal we made – that gave me a lead to a local bunker I might explore, and an approximate location on my map.

Later, I visited Wyndham, and decided to see what was inside the local church – and here’s where the promise of leads became very exciting. Inside, I found a vicar standing over a murder victim – he asked me not to investigate, for fear of inciting the wrath of the soldiers that have occupied the town. I could have left it here, but I searched the body and found a bloodied note that pointed me to a local hotel. Again, I could have followed that clue and gone to explore – but I chose to speak to the church caretaker, who revealed she’d seen the victim entering an out-of-the-way cellar the night before.

Now I had two leads about the same thing – the game didn’t tell me if one was the primary quest, or give me any indication as to the right path, it was down simply down to my own interest. I chose to look through the cellar and, on first glance, thought I’d hit a dead end – until I saw a chink of light from under a wall and realized I could crawl through. Here I found a note that pointed to the local shopkeeper as the murderer, and a clue that he was in-line with the local faction of druids. I went to confront him, and was presented with multiple options – I could report him to the soldiers, explain his part in the murder to the vicar… or even make a deal for his silence.

Atomfall

Rebellion

☆☆☆☆☆

★★★★★

Get it now

A survival-action game inspired by real-life events, Atomfall is set five years after the Windscale nuclear disaster in Northern England.
Explore the fictional quarantine zone, scavenge, craft, barter, fight and talk your way through a British countryside setting filled with bizarre characters, mysticism, cults, and rogue government agencies.
From Rebellion, the studio behind Sniper Elite and Zombie Army, Atomfall will challenge you to solve the dark mystery of what really happened.
Player Driven Mystery: Unravel a tapestry of interwoven narratives through exploration, conversation, investigation, and combat, where every choice you make has consequences.
Explore this Green and Unpleasant Land: The picturesque British countryside, with rolling green hills, lush valleys, and rural villages belie the dangers that await you.
Search, Scavage, Survive: You’ll need to scavenge for supplies, craft weapons and items, and fight desperately to make it out alive!

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Category: gamescom