Atomfall from Rebellion brings us a survival-action game inspired by real-life events and is set five years after the Windscale nuclear disaster in Northern England. Learn more in our Atomfall review!
Atomfall from Rebellion brings us a survival-action game inspired by real-life events and is set five years after the Windscale nuclear disaster in Northern England. This disaster took place on October 10, 1957, and it was certainly the worst nuclear accident in the United Kingdom’s history and one of the worst ones ever worldwide. The nuclear fire burned for three days straight, releasing its dangerous radioactive fallout that ended up spreading across the UK and Europe. That is the basis for the scenario in Atomfall, in which the consequences of the nuclear disaster are far, far worse.
The area was walled off, and all communications with the outside world were cut. The quarantine zone is a big unknown, and you’re about to find out what is going on. You wake up inside an abandoned bunker with no recollection of who you are or how you ended up inside of said bunker in the first place. While you’ll be able to find some more quaint locations, that’s not going to usually be the case during your time with Atomfall. Being cut off from the rest of the world for five years has definitely… changed the people in the quarantine zone. Most have gotten a bit, shall we say, eccentric with their way of life. There are now factions that are trying to run things, and danger can lurk around every corner. You’ll interact with the Protocol, B.A.R.D. (British Atomic Research Division), the Outlaws, and the Druids.
Because of this, you’re going to have to scavenge for supplies in order to survive. And since you’re not the only person trying to get their hands on any of the available resources. You’ll also have to make the most of the stuff you do find so that you can craft the items and weapons needed to stay alive as you take on the different factions as well as on the rather large mutated creatures from the radiation. Short-range weapons are going to be a more viable option most of the time since ammo is going to be a bit scarce. You’ll be able to find a pistol or two early in the game but might not have enough ammo to fully reload them. You could find a single-shot rifle that deals more damage, but it is, you know, single-shot, so you could leave yourself wide open if you decide to use it against a group of Outlaws.
You can play through Atomfall in one of five difficulty options: Sightseer, Investigator, Brawler, Survivor, and Veteran. If you choose the Sightseer difficulty setting, you’ll be able to take on this experience while enjoying the narrative and not having to worry so much about the combat side of things. The Investigator difficulty setting bumps things up with a higher challenge that won’t make you feel overwhelmed. Go with the Brawler difficulty setting to take on enemies that are going to punish you for your mistakes. Playing in Survivor will have you take on what the team at Rebellion feels is the standard experience that balances exploration, combat, and survival. And if you want to dial things up to 11, you can always go with the Veteran difficulty setting, where making a mistake in combat could be the end of you.
Since the game is played from a first-person perspective, you’ll take control of your character with the left analog stick as you use the right analog stick to look around you as needed. You can run by pressing in on the left analog stick and can crouch by pressing the Circle button. Crouching is very important since you’ll be able to make less noise as you move around, as well as use some spots like tall grass to hide your presence from enemies as you take a breather and recover from the madness… if even for a short moment. Jump by pressing the X button, and kick by pressing the L1 button. Kicking an enemy can throw them off balance, buying you some extra time for dealing additional damage. You can assign four items to the D-Pad for quick access, as long as they’re not consumables.
You’ll attack enemies by pressing the R2 button, which will be used to swing with your melee weapon or to shoot with your bow or gun. Press the R1 button for a heavy melee attack. You can press the L2 button to aim first so that you can make every attack and shot count. Reload by pressing the Square button. Focus by pressing in on the left analog stick. Do know that your heart rate will affect your shooting. If you’re agitated and your heart rate is too high, then you’ll have a bigger shot spread and recoil. Using throwable weapons is also an option. You can open up your weapon wheel by pressing the L1 button and choosing, for example, a Molotov cocktail that you can throw at a group of enemies and set them on fire. You might also want to try to do a takedown by sneaking up on an enemy from behind. That way, you won’t waste any ammo, even if you make lots of noise.
Instead of taking on quests here and here, you’ll end up discovering Leads. These can be obtained during a conversation or after finding a particular item or document. It will be up to you to use the clues you’ve found to get to the spot that you need to be at. The additional twist to all of this? You don’t know if a Lead is legit. What this means is that you could be following a red herring because someone gave you the wrong information since it’s in their best interest that you don’t find the truth. There are not going to be any waypoints added to your map as you get new Leads, so it will be up to you to add compass markers that can remind you of where it is that you’re heading.
Bartering is going to be a big part of your Atomfall experience. You’ll need to use the items you’ve managed to collect to try and trade with traders who might be carrying what you need to craft a more powerful weapon or some healing items to keep you alive for longer. Different traders will have different inventories for you to choose from, as well as different predilections for trading for this or that item, so be sure to check with as many as possible so that you can make the most of the scarce supplies you do manage to find. This is important since you won’t be able to just craft whichever item you want.
In order for you to be able to craft an item, you’ll first need to find the corresponding recipe so that you can learn it. You can purchase recipes from traders or find them as you explore. Once you’ve learned a recipe, you’ll be able to check the ingredients needed to craft that particular item. Along with those, you can also use crafting to repair weapons. Weapons will have three quality tiers: rusty, stock, and pristine. Most of the weapons you find will obviously be rusty. Stock weapons are harder to find. As for pristine weapons, they must be crafted. You can improve a weapon and move it up one tier by having two of the same weapon and some gun oil. Doing this will boost some of that weapon’s stat values.
You can also gain access to skills, which are abilities you can unlock by using Training Stimulants. You can check the skill menu to see how many Training Stimulants are needed to unlock each skill. On top of that, you might need to find Training Manuals to add some skills as options. You can obtain Training Manuals from traders or as you explore each area. What are some of the skills you can unlock with Training Stimulants and Training Manuals? You could get Thick Skin, which reduces damage received from melee attacks. Unlock Weapon Throw Training so that thrown weapons travel faster and deal more damage. Get Charisma so that your items are worth more when bartering. Unlock Fortitude to increase your max health.
The game has some accessibility options so that more gamers can take this one for a spin. You can set the UI text to 100% or scale it up to 200% to make it easier to read everything. Choose the UI backplate opacity, as well as the colors for helpful info, warnings, and your crosshair. You can also activate subtitles and choose the size for the subtitle text. Toggle highlights on NPCs as well as choose the color for NPC, enemy NPC, and interactions. Activate traversal indicators for things such as vaults and spots for you to crawl, as well as ledges and so on. Set camera bob, recoil, and sway, as well as camera shakes. Activate or deactivate motion blur.
You can also ask the game to auto-center the camera view after a short period of camera inactivity. Activate automatic forward movement so that tapping forward on the left analog stick will toggle movement on and off. Activate automatic traversal so that traversals that would normally require a prompt are triggered automatically by running into them. You also have the possibility of activating automatic firing so that you can continuously fire your weapon while holding the fire button. There’s also audio assistance, such as aiming cues, which will reproduce an audio cue to help players locate targets through sound.
With this one being a retail release, that means there’s a full trophy list with a Platinum trophy for you to try to add to your collection. And since this one is a Cross-Buy release, you’ll be able to download the PS4 and PS5 versions of the game to your PS5 console, and each list will have a shiny Platinum. Each of the lists is split into 26 Bronze trophies, 4 Silver trophies, and 6 Gold trophies for you to work on. There are plenty of objectives to complete, so along with the trophies that will pop as you progress through the game’s story, you’ll also have to find 10 metal detector caches, find 5 buried lunchboxes, find 10 comics, locate 5 audio logs, learn 12 skills, defeat 10 enemies with a thrown weapon, redirect a thrown grenade with the cricket bat, power up a deactivated robot, take out at least 5 enemies with a single explosion, and consume a Cornish pasty, English tea, and a slice of cake in 30 seconds, to name some examples.
Atomfall brings us a survival-action game inspired by real-life events and is set five years after the Windscale nuclear disaster in Northern England. This disaster took place on October 10, 1957, and it was certainly the worst nuclear accident in the United Kingdom’s history and one of the worst ones ever worldwide. The nuclear fire burned for three days straight, releasing its dangerous radioactive fallout that ended up spreading across the UK and Europe. That is the basis for the scenario in Atomfall, in which the consequences of the nuclear disaster are far, far worse.
The area was walled off, and all communications with the outside world were cut. The quarantine zone is a big unknown, and you’re about to find out what is going on. You wake up inside an abandoned bunker with no recollection of who you are or how you ended up inside of said bunker in the first place. Will you manage to survive? Atomfall launches next week on March 27 as a Cross-Buy title, so your $59.99 purchase will allow you to download the PS4 and PS5 versions of the game at no extra cost. There’s also the Atomfall Deluxe Edition for $79.99, which, along with the base game, includes the following:
3 days Early Access
Story Expansion Pack
Basic Supply Bundle
Enhanced Supply Bundle
Disclaimer
This Atomfall review is based on a PlayStation 5 copy provided by Rebellion.
