Looks like Fallout, smells like Stalker, but ultimately tastes quite different. The new action game Atomfall has positively surprised MeinMMO editor Benedict Grothaus and, despite its rather short playtime, has caused him to (once again) oversleep for work.
If a game grabs me, I am reluctant to put it aside – especially when it becomes clear that I will soon be finished. It’s no secret that I’m willing to sacrifice sleep for that, I almost missed work with Remnant 2 back in the day.
Now the British indie studio Rebellion has invited us to test Atomfall before its release. I had already played the game at gamescom 2024, and now I got to play the full release version.
As a die-hard Fallout fan, a nuclear post-apocalypse in North England sounds like the game I absolutely want to play. I did not expect that Atomfall would ultimately be quite different.
Atomfall is not the Fallout 5 that everyone is waiting for – and yet it has captivated me completely for almost a week.
Trapped with Angry Scots and Aggressive Hippies
Regarding the premise: Atomfall takes place in North England in the 1960s. The real near-super meltdown at the Windscale nuclear power plant serves as the backdrop. Here, Atomfall explores alternative and somewhat bizarre events.
At first, this sounds like Fallout. And indeed there are some parallels: strange “mutations” (that aren’t really mutations), different factions, and the human attempt to regain some structure after a war. Even a strange cult that embraces the consequences of the catastrophe hides in the woods.
However, Atomfall locks you in a quarantine area, similar to the ancient RPG Gothic – and you must find a way to escape. Even in the first few minutes, the action game shows what sets it apart from its obvious relatives in the wasteland:
- Red telephone booths and cricket instead of baseball bats clearly indicate where Atomfall takes place.
- Fully voiced NPCs have a clear British, often even Scottish accent – a nice detail for the atmosphere.
- The fictional timeline is not as far removed as in Fallout; World War II is still very much in the minds of the people in Atomfall, and they often talk about it.
- Weapons are very rustic: no cool mods, simple sights, no huge Hollywood clips – and ammunition is rare!
Atomfall does not indulge in silly humor and exaggerated depictions; it stays grounded – more like Stalker. There are still some oddities, like the skeleton of Mr. Bean with his armchair on his Mini. However, the differences are much greater.
Atomfall does everything differently than related RPGs
You may have noticed that I don’t label Atomfall as an RPG, and there’s a good reason for that. There is no character creation and even leveling up works differently. More precisely: it doesn’t work at all.
Instead of leveling up, you’ll find skill points in the world and can choose from a total of 36 skills, some of which you need to discover first. There are also no quests. NPCs do give you tasks and tell you roughly where you might find something, but you always have to figure out for yourself where you have something to do.
The “hints” help you solve puzzles and replace the quest log. Instead, the focus is on exploration. If a place looks interesting, it usually is, and it’s worth sniffing around a bit.
A nice mechanic here is the treasure hunt. Once you have a metal detector, it occasionally beeps, indicating that something is buried nearby. Although it’s just a small minigame, it creates brief moments of happiness and lightens up the exploration.
If you want to know what’s going on, you have to ask
What kept me playing Atomfall for hours, partly skipping other gaming dates and writing this text here with just 4 hours of sleep, is the story.
You wake up with no memory and first have to figure out what happened. A strange voice on the phone only makes you understand even less, and if you want to know what’s going on in the world, you need to – quite uncharacteristically for true basement dwellers – talk to people and hope that they respond.
Because not every NPC wants to talk to you or reacts positively to your dialogue choices. You only receive important information, clues, and background about the story by talking to NPCs or finding documents in the world.
Important: Every NPC can be killed. So if you accidentally punch someone and they fight back, you might end up having beef with an important quest NPC. In principle, you can wipe out the entire quarantine zone and still finish the game; Atomfall gives you a lot of freedom here.
With not even 20 hours, Atomfall has a very lean content structure, which still does not feel too short. On the contrary: there are a few tasks for which I had to walk around the world repeatedly. It was just on the edge; more of that would have led to boredom.
Sympathies Decide How the Game Ends
Depending on your decisions, you will end up with one of six different endings with different outcomes. How the game ends depends on who you are on good terms with, who survives which encounters, and who you want to support.
Through save games, I was able to see at least four of the endings, which, however, partly played out in the same way because my gameplay up to that point had remained the same. One ending stands out.
Warning, you are reading information about the ending of Atomfall with details that you only learn very late in the game
Oberon, whom you are supposed to destroy, as a voice on the phone tells you, speaks to a group of somewhat crazy druids. If you choose to help this group, you must ultimately sacrifice yourself – and damn the world to perish. Quite literally, as Oberon wants nature to reign again, not humanity itself. I won’t reveal who or what Oberon is, but whether there will really be a “natural” order at the end, I doubt… That ending was the best so far, I think.
It’s probably worth at least taking a second look and making different choices. Looking at the achievements on Steam, I found some things I’ve missed that I want to catch up on – including an ending that I didn’t realize could be possible while playing.
Atomfall is set to be released on March 27 on Steam, PS5, and Xbox. With a price of 50 euros, the game sets a somewhat high price for the playtime, but I still enjoyed it. Those who purchase the deluxe edition for 80 euros can start playing from March 24.
For my playthrough, I needed just about 17 hours, and the playtime is a bit of a hot topic after everything I have observed. Some think that’s too little for a game like Atomfall. Others are happy that there are full-fledged games that they can also play through with little time. The discussion started last year: “I’m retired and don’t have 90 hours” – The former PlayStation chief says that no one needs games that take 100 hours anymore
