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Atomfall, the newest game from veteran publisher-developer Rebellion, seems familiar at first glance. It’s a first-person action game set in a devastated post-apocalyptic zone. It also has light RPG elements. And more importantly, it presents an open world, sort of. So, what can Rebellion bring to the table in such an overcrowded segment of the video game space?
Safe to say, I was severely disappointed by Stalker 2 last year. Thus, I still needed my current-gen post-apocalyptic action game fix. Lo and behold, Rebellion comes riding into the scene with a new IP that has a flavour of its own thanks to an extremely British setting and a less hand-holdy approach to guiding the player from one area to the next. It also opts to make the environments denser rather than wider, largely avoiding some of the common trappings of modern open-world games as a result.
During my hands-on preview time with the game earlier this week, which was followed by a Q&A session with three members of the development team, I was able to explore a forest-y area seemingly found early on in the game and twist the systems a little bit as I tried to figure out what made Atomfall unique and worth checking out when it releases on March 27 on PS4/5, Xbox consoles, and PC. Yes, we’re somehow still receiving major sandbox releases for last-gen hardware in early 2025.
Ben Fisher, head of design and creative director on Atomfall, made sure to underline in the post-gameplay discussion that the team was quite interested in presenting a “blank slate” sort of character who didn’t know where they were or what had happened. It’s the kind of narrative hook which typically works wonders in video games where the world has been altered in a big (and usually negative) way. While we didn’t get to experience the early beats of the story, it appears that Atomfall’s protagonist has even less of a background story than the main characters in the Stalker games or a custom Fallout survivor. We’re fully expecting late-game twists though.
One thing that came up over and over again during the Q&A discussion was that the game is extremely open-ended, and not in the way we were predicting at first. There were “many debates over the course of the project about how much kind of leading the player around there would be,” said Rich May, senior programmer. The final bet they decided on was to let the players go wild and try to figure out the correct path forward. And, as far as we know, there’s no ‘correct’ path forward.
Atomfall’s biggest strength, which I barely scratched during my time playing it, is how flexible its narrative can be and how that directly influences (and is influenced by) the way in which the player interacts with the world and navigates enemy-infested areas. Combat can feel rough and basic, but we were later told that was kind of the point, as you’re just a nobody trying to survive. No power fantasy nor big character progression here, just some ‘extra training’ you can pick up along the way and making the most of bad situations. Resources are scarce, and ammunition is even scarcer.
I started out following my one ‘lead’ to an old abandoned mine that was found across the map. Between the starting point and that objective (which I could’ve totally ignored in favour of more freeform exploration), there were lots of trees, a few unsettling phone calls from a mysterious individual, and plenty of druid cultists that I could either murder or hide from. Hint: You’re likely to get murdered yourself if you try to antagonize every enemy group you encounter. This is no Far Cry.
There’s also, of course, tons of loot. But it’s all loot that makes sense for the setting and isn’t super abundant. I barely came across bandages to heal myself or bullets to put into my rusty shotgun. Instead, the general feeling was that I was always on the backfoot and trying to analyse potential conflicts before jumping into them. Mind you, Atomfall feels very basic when it comes to mechanics, movement options, and whatnot, but its simpler take on survival, crafting, stealth, and combat might be refreshing and the sort of stuff that many worn-out gamers into similar settings are currently looking for.
That said, it’s also easy to see other folks almost instantly dropping Atomfall due to combat and interactions that, no matter the creative intent behind them, feel a bit too rigid and ancient by all accounts. There’s a charm to the simplified loop and how easy to pick up and play it is, but I wasn’t thrilled by many of the tenser moments I found myself in, and some melees turned into cumbersome kerfuffles quickly. Shooting the evildoers in the face works really well, however, but as I said: Not many bullets around plus your inventory size is quite limited.
Eventually, I ran into the old lady I was looking for, who didn’t sound any less cryptic than everyone else. As Ben Fisher said when discussing the protagonist’s relationship with the world: “You might develop a perspective” after interacting with a number of the characters, but the player needs to define “what sort of person” they are. This ties into the whole ‘leads’ system, which effectively replaces traditional quests. You learn by exploring and talking to people, and cluelessly piecing bits of information together opens up new narrative branches. We were told these leads could be finished in any order for the most part, with the game only funnelling the player down a certain path towards the end.
This freedom supposedly translates into a non-linear progression across the major areas that will be available to explore. While I wasn’t able to experience this for myself, that seemed doable, considering there’s no ‘level gating’ of any kind and the RPG elements are kept to a minimum beyond dialogue choices and the very thin skills system, which doesn’t require any sort of XP gains or investment. It’s all about exploring and taking from the world, either peacefully or by force. Just don’t approach the mutant bee hives.
After some failed attempts to sneak into the ‘castle’ where most of the scary druids were hanging out (they also have plant turrets that shoot venom), I decided to pursue another lead I’d come across while exploring an abandoned tower with no power. An outsider had gone into the (fictional) Windscale quarantine zone and was looking for a way into a key underground facility in the area. I found her in an abandoned bunker that I’d have missed otherwise and proceeded to ask for pointers. She wasn’t helpful even though I’d offered myself, so I shot her because I wanted to see how flexible the systems were. She died, the lead was marked as failed, but I could still try to finish her mission myself.
A while later, I ventured into the facility she’d told me about and unearthed an entirely different subplot. The place was creepy, infested with mutated rats that attacked me in large groups, and partially locked down. There was a way to figure out how to open the big gates ahead of me and navigate its maze-like corridors, but my hands-on time ran out before I could crack the mystery. “You can kill anyone,” the developers confirmed before stating they were looking forward to content creators breaking the game, as their main goal is to get players “to develop an understanding of the game world” they can take into more playthroughs that play out very differently. There’s no ‘intended’ path, and that alone is exciting in the age of huge worlds filled with interchangeable icons and quest markers.
“If you come out of that opening area and choose a different direction… you’ll have a different experience,” teased Rich May. It’s not just a matter of choosing the order in which you finish the available content. You’ll miss out on some stuff, and you can skip entire sections altogether if you’ve got the knowledge. Killing rampage run? Sure, try to do that. On paper, this all sounds refreshing and exciting and could make up for a half-baked combat/stealth loop I’m not entirely sure about. When coupled with the colourful yet grounded world-building that makes great use of an alt-history 1960s Britain setting, Atomfall could have just enough juice to capture the attention of thrill-seekers looking to escape bigger and more time-consuming open-world experiences. The Wicker Man and early Doctor Who influences are an added bonus.
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