My 90 minutes exploring the Lake District (oft referred to as ‘The Lakes’ in the north of England) was filled with death. Not of my enemies, but me. I died at the hands of a gang of Druids, by falling down a steep ledge, being burned to a crisp by a big robot guarding an underground facility, ingesting too many toxic fumes, disturbing a mutant, and unknowingly triggering a tripwire. This isn’t the Lake District I spent my childhood years exploring, but it’s just as visually impressive and intriguing to explore.
Set in a quarantine zone in 1960s northern England, Atomfall puts you in the shoes of a nuclear disaster survivor. You don’t know who you are, or what caused the disaster, but five years following the event, you know you need to find your way out of the quarantine zone to safety.
Developer Rebellion has clearly spent a lot of time studying what makes the Lake District an area of natural beauty. Red phone boxes punctuate lush, green fields. Dry stone walls guard vast meadows, and churches and pubs populate little villages, engulfed by dense forests. The area of Casterfell Woods encapsulates the synergy of civilization and nature that makes this part of England such a pleasure to visit.
This is a post-apocalyptic variant, though, so it’s not all sunshine and daisies. Druids roam the world, and obey the ‘voice of the soil.’ They’re your typical eccentric cultists who have built shrines, established well-guarded outposts and bases, and won’t shy away from hunting you down if they spot you. There are also the aforementioned automatons. Hulking machines that guard mysterious underground bunkers and facilities. Linger too deep into a tunnel or cave and you’ll find creatures mutated from the blast lying in wait.
Coming out of the preview, combat is still my big question mark. Due to some latency issues, my 90 minutes with the game were quite choppy. This made it difficult to get a real feel for the melee combat and ranged weapons. It did feel quite challenging, but that may be because I sometimes had to resort to wildly flailing a cricket bat in the direction of enemies and hoping some of my swings would connect with their skulls. What was evident is your chances of survival will very much depend on your enemy. Taking down some Druids was far easier than the single luminescent blue mutant hiding in a tunnel. This forces you to consider your approach to different scenarios: do you go through the bridge and waste precious ammo and resources defeating a single mutant, or do you just take the long way around? Do you creep up on those patrolling Druids and take them out one by one with silent takedowns? Or do you go in all guns blazing, or waving a fire axe above your head like a lunatic in the name of conserving ammo?
The hostile inhabitants of Casterfell Woods weren’t the only fellow survivors I met. A lovely scouser by the name of Billy Gorse offered to trade with me, and a quest-giver donning traditional English clothing called Mother Jago offered support and requested mine. However, bartering with my Liverpudlian pal piqued my interest the most in all of my interactions with NPCs in Atomfall. Money doesn’t exist in the quarantine zone, so if you want something that someone else has, you’re going to need to trade your items for them.
The mechanic is in keeping with the setting and feels wholly different from the typical trading mechanic in other RPGs. Begin a trade and a set of balancing scales between your two inventories will indicate who’s currently getting the better side of the deal as you add items into the trade. Only when the scales are balanced or tipping in the favor of who you’re trading with will you be able to make the deal. I didn’t see a way I could rip a trader off, though. While I understand why this might not work from a gameplay perspective without massively unbalancing the experience, it does detract slightly from the realistic approach to the gameplay that Rebellion is going for that trades always have to be balanced or in the other person’s favor. Maybe I want a good deal for once!
Before we dived into our time with the game, a member of the development team gave an overview of where we would be in the game and pointed us in the right direction. Instead, I largely just explored the open world, partly because I wanted to see what mysteries I could uncover, but also because there are no blatant waypoints indicating where you need to go next. I met Mother Jago, she told me she wanted her book back which was in the Druids’ castle somewhere in Casterfell Woods, and then sent me on my way. I opened my map, but nothing was marked on it, so I simply ventured out, seeing if I’d happen to stumble upon it.
For me, this is a big plus. I’m typically a big waypoint follower. But having this safety net taken away from me resulted in me losing myself in the world. I uncovered the robot-guarded facility with its own secrets, stalked Druids at an outpost, found hidden caches with my metal detector, and took mysterious phone calls from the red phone boxes warning me of the dangers in the woods. I also met Joyce Tanner hiding in an underground bunker who asked for my help getting the Interchange powered. She actually did know where something was, so she circled it on my map, creating a new lead for me to follow. My 90 minutes with Atomfall felt very much like some of my best moments in Fallout games, venturing off the beaten path to see what lore or secret weapon I could uncover, or embarking on an epic side quest. This organic exploration is how I imagine my evenings following the game’s release will be filled, chipping away at the myriad mysteries that Rebellion has weaved into the fabric of the world.
There’s a good chance this isn’t going to be for everyone though. No waypoints means getting lost. Getting lost can result in trial and error. And trial and error can result in frustration. If you’re the kind of player who likes to feel as though you’re making significant progress every time you load up a game, Atomfall’s lack of hand-holding may take some getting used to.
On this same theme of realism, your Atomfall inventory is very limited. You’re not going to be lugging around 40 weapons like you would in the Elder Scrolls or Fallout series. You’ve got four slots for larger rifles, ranged, and melee weapons, and then about 12 slots for smaller items like consumables, handheld melee weapons, and ammo. This quickly fills up, especially when things don’t stack. It again adds to the realism and makes you truly consider what’s important to take with you, but can feel like it breaks up the flow of your gameplay. A disclaimer on this: there may be a way to expand your inventory, but during my time with the game, I didn’t see one.
Atomfall really does feel different. It’s taken clear inspiration from Bethesda RPGs, but also from 1960s English speculative fiction, blending these reference points into something balanced but new. The lack of waypoints, limited inventory, and bartering system all make the game feel more brutal and gritty without taking the fun out of it. However, for me, the jury’s still out on the combat, with the latency issues I faced in the preview hindering my ability to fully judge how it feels to bash Druids over the head with a cricket bat or nail them in the face from range with a bow and arrow. Despite this, Atomfall has become one of my most anticipated games of 2025, and I can’t wait to spend more time attempting to uncover its mysteries.
Published: Mar 7, 2025 09:00 am