Atomfall Review: A Compelling, Condensed Survival With a Challenging Heart

A society on the brink of collapse. Nervous inhabitants, largely distrustful of strangers. A desperate scramble for survival. Yes, the United Kingdom is going through a lot right now. Thankfully, there’s plenty of escapism to be found in new game releases such as Rebellion’s Atomfall, an action-survival title set in Northern England. Here, players must scrounge for resources, fend off cultists and outlaws, all while fighting to survive in a post-disaster—oh, hang on. 

Atomfall actually transports its players back in time to an alternate history version of the 1960s, where the Windscale fire of 1957 has covered a large region of the Lake District in radioactive fallout. As a result, the region has been quarantined for the past five years, with its inhabitants locked inside. We wake up in a bunker inside the quarantine zone, unable to remember how we got there or what’s happening around us. A dying scientist encourages us to seek out The Interchange, a large scientific facility, in order to get an idea of what’s really going on in the zone. Heading out of the bunker, we take our first steps into the radioactive British countryside to find The Interchange, and embark on a mysterious, and oftentimes eerie, journey to find out what really happened at the Windscale Plant and to hopefully escape the quarantine zone for good.

An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Now With Mutants and Robots 

Atomfall invites immediate comparison to the Fallout series owing to its 1950s-style setting and themes around atomic power, but similarities between the two games largely stop there. While it’s set in the bright and idyllic Lake District, Atomfall feels as though it has a slightly darker undercurrent to it. Perhaps it’s because it feels a little too close to home, with a looming essence of the UK’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic (though granted I’d rather have been quarantined in a beautiful cottage in the Lake District than my tired, one-bedroom flat in east London).

The game’s central village, Wyndham, is under military control by a group of “shoot first, ask questions later” soldiers called Protocol. The village inhabitants are under constant surveillance and restrictions, with Protocol looking for any excuse to send the villagers to the nearby Skethermoor Prison. Those that don’t live in the village must fend for themselves in the surrounding quarantine zone, where they contend with roaming bands of Outlaws, mutated creatures, and even a few druids with their penchant for a wicker man. Coupled with all this is the mystery behind how the Windscale disaster started. It’s up to our nameless protagonist to venture through the quarantine zone, chasing leads that might eventually uncover some answers, and secure a way out. 

Atomfall is as much of a mystery game as it is an action-survival. Speaking to NPCs, interacting with documents and paper trails, and exploring the world all uncover “leads,” the game’s version of quests. How these leads unravel, or who is helped, is largely left up to the player’s decision and some have a significant impact on the game’s conclusion.

 It’s a mystery that keeps you guessing throughout Atomfall’s 15-20 hour runtime, keeping the story contained and in a way that never wears out its welcome. I took my time with Atomfall, exploring the pockets of each zone and following up as many leads as possible. There was still more I could have done by the time I reached the game’s end, but this particular run through clocked in at just over 15 hours. 

Atomfall might seem short for an action-survival with RPG tendencies, but its runtime felt ideal and refreshing. It features a contained story, and one that offers multiple routes to its destination in a way that doesn’t bog you down with busywork or needless wasteland roaming. The decisions you make feel weighty, and you’ll be constantly at odds with yourself over whether or not you’ve made ethical choices. The good thing is, with a very reasonable runtime, Atomfall is ripe for replayability.

Britain Has Never Looked So Good

Atomfall feels like a contained and dense experience. The game forgoes the usual open world format in favour of open zones. Each one is a decent size; large enough to scatter numerous POIs and locations throughout, but compact enough to ensure getting from A to B isn’t too much of a chore. There’s no fast-travel in Atomfall, but you will be moving through each zone multiple times to chase every lead. 

Each of the game’s zones is ripe for exploration, and incredibly well-detailed. If you’ve ever taken a trip to the British countryside, it’s easy to see just how much care and effort Rebellion have exerted to capture it so accurately. While NPC models can look a little wooden in places, the environments more than make up for any of their shortcomings. Rolling hills and limestone cottages are a plentiful, and welcome, sight in this hostile survival game. While the zones might not have too much differentiation in environments, they each come with their own challenges. The region of Skethermoor, for example, is largely patrolled by unfriendly Protocol soldiers and their more unfriendly robot friends, so entering here without a good stock of ammo and bandages might not be the best move. 

A Cornish Pasty a Day Keeps the Radiation Away

I played Atomfall on its recommended 'Survivor' difficulty, promising a challenging but balanced experience, and by no means is it an easy game. In the early hours, you’ll be scavenging around and bartering with NPCs to find healing items (bread, cakes, pasties), melee weapons, and ammo for your rusty guns. You quickly learn that taking on more than one or two enemies at a time is a surefire way to get yourself killed, pushing you to take a more cautious approach out in the wilds. The game is designed in a way that puts you on near-equal ground with the common enemies you face. Outlaws, druids, and Protocol soldiers are all just human, and as equally delicate or deadly as you are. It’s something that you have to take into account in every combat scenario, using what you have at your disposal to come away from each encounter unscathed, but also what might net you the best resources. 

For example, the area called Casterfell Woods is home to druids. These are enemies that don’t use guns, preferring to live off of nature’s bounty. Therefore, you’re more likely to find arrows and melee weapons on their bodies or in their camps rather than ammunition. It makes sense, then, to attack using melee weapons or a bow and arrow yourself, as arrows have a chance to be retrieved and reused. With ammunition being a precious commodity, it’s worth saving your bullets for the tougher fights. Not to mention, there are few things more satisfying than taking down a druid with one clean arrow to the head. 

With each enemy encounter potentially being your last, there’s weight to every combat scenario you find yourself in. Perhaps you’re heading down a corridor in an underground bunker that you definitely shouldn’t be in, and a Protocol soldier turns the corner to find you. Fire your gun and you’re likely to take him down quickly, but at the cost of alerting the rest of the bunker to your presence. Attack him with an axe or cricket bat and you might come away with a chunk of health missing, but at least you’ll remain hidden to other nearby enemies. What players also have to watch out for is their heart rate, Atomfall's answer to a stamina meter. Most actions will increase your heart rate to some degree, be it running, climbing, or swining a weapon around. Should your heart rate rise too high, you'll start to lose vision. It also affects your effectiveness with weapons, such as gun accuracy.

There are certain tools and items available to increase your combat survival, such as painkillers or combat stimulants that can increase your damage resistance and output, but for the most part increasing your power and resilience permanently is limited to the game’s upgrade system. As you explore, you’ll come across B.A.R.D supply boxes, often containing a particularly valuable resource called Training Stimulants. Each one collected gives you a skill point to assign to the skill tree. However, not all skills will be available from the get-go. Instead, you’ll need to find Training Manuals either through exploration or by purchasing them from traders. They correspond to one of four skills sections: Ranged Combat, Melee Combat, Survival, and Conditioning. Each one offers a slight upgrade to certain skills, whether that be the amount of damage you deal with melee weapons, or how fast you can craft and scavenge items. The latter can be particularly useful considering all crafting is done in real-time. Time doesn’t stop just because you’ve entered a crafting menu to cobble together a nail bomb, chum. 

Where combat does get a little frustrating is the ceiling of upgrades. Weapon upgrades are locked behind the Gunsmith skill in the skill tree, which isn’t uncommon, but each gun only has three tiers: Rusty, Stock, and Pristine. The weapons are Rusty by default and can be upgraded to each additional level by combining two of the same type and level of weapon along with some upgrade materials. Two Rusty rifles can be combined to create one Stock rifle, and two Stock rifles can be combined to make a Pristine one. This is about the extent of upgrades outside of the skill tree. There’s no armor to find that might boost your resistances, and no modifications to make to your weapons that might give you an edge in combat. I can understand the absence of these additional features; Atomfall isn’t an RPG. But the absence is notable and feels almost like a player restriction in a game that otherwise very much values player freedom. 

Keep Calm and Carry On 

Though a brief adventure, Atomfall invites players to experience something a bit different. While not an RPG in a strict sense, it certainly scratches that itch through its open zones, item scavenging, and player choice. Its action-survival elements ensure that every encounter feels meaningful or precarious, with zones providing just enough challenge and respite to keep players interested. It falters somewhat in its limited upgrades, weapons and armor systems, stagnating the combat ever so slightly.