A couple of weeks in the past, we launched the most recent trailer for Atomfall, our upcoming sport the place you’ll have to uncover the thriller behind what occurred on the UK’s Windscale nuclear energy station within the Fifties. This can be a fictionalised telling of what occurred following this real-life nuclear catastrophe in Northern England.
The trailer showcases the sport’s folks horror influences and provide the first glimpse of Casterfell Woods, an eerie location inside Atomfall the place you’ll encounter an unsettling wicker man and a ringing phone field that must be answered.
However what had been our influences behind Casterfell Woods? We thought it might be attention-grabbing to let you understand how we got here up with this distinctive aesthetic.
From the outset, we knew that we wished some spookier areas of the sport, the place we might emphasise folks horror and supply some distinction with our extra idyllic areas. Most of our out of doors environments are very inexperienced, vibrant, fairly, and really a lot British. However for Casterfell, we wished the participant to query what issues may occur within the deep darkish woods. Hidden issues can occur there, secret and historic issues… We knew that this could be a ton of enjoyable – so began doing our homework.
Our preliminary purpose was to determine the visible baseline for our sandbox areas, with a concentrate on the content material that we would have liked to construct out our numerous pure biomes. Then, we might begin including our thematic twists.
Early within the mission, the workforce took fairly a number of journeys as much as the English Lake District for reference gathering and to seize photogrammetry content material. For a number of of the non-Brits on the workforce (myself included, as an American) this was extremely unique. For anybody who hasn’t been there, it’s an especially numerous space of excellent pure magnificence and variety. It’s simply so moist and inexperienced, with lakes and streams all over the place, and great stone formations topping the excessive fells and hilltops. The whole space is simply dripping with greenery, ferns, and moss.
As I used to be new to driving within the UK, I discovered these tiny Cumbrian roads terrifying! There are slate stone partitions on one edge, and steep drops right into a lake on the opposite. However the journeys had been very academic, and the views had been sensational. By the top of the journey, we had a ton of improbable reference, fabulous photogrammetry content material, and had been assured that we might floor the sport visually within the north of Britain.
Subsequent up, had been the twists. How might we make our world completely different from a typical vacation journey to a fantastic pure vacation spot? How might we layer in an older period, and warp issues a bit extra?
We began taking a look at storytelling centered on folks horror, sci-fi, and old-school British imaginative fiction for inspiration. Movies like The Wicker Man, The Blair Witch Venture, Annihilation, and Midsommar had been nice to have a look at. Then after all we’ve BBC programming like Physician Who, The Prisoner, and The Quatermass Xperiment, in addition to books by John Wyndham, who has so many splendidly bizarre tales.
We wished the participant to really feel that they’re getting into an older period. The actual Windscale nuclear accident was in 1957, which is when the quarantine started in our sport. As we had been aspiring to be a interval piece, how might we impress that right into a pure space? This was a tricky one, and we had lots of conversations about it. I imply, particularly within the woods, the place bushes just about would have appeared the identical in 1957, 2024, or 1066.
We started asking ourselves who was dwelling on the market, past the comforts of village life? How would they survive with no manufactured assets?
The reply was fairly easy in that these outcasts would survive simply as that they had in archaic instances. We might regress them even additional again and have them use what was at hand. Wattle (and daub) development grew to become our go-to architectural model. Thatched roofs, woven branches and vines, and dry-stone constructions additionally appeared to suit. Despite the fact that many of those conventional strategies of development can nonetheless be seen within the modern-day, they’re actually historic and overseas to many people who grew up elsewhere.
Then, making an allowance for our inspirational media reference, and our want for extra Britishness, we started layering much more symbolic imagery. Historic markings, effigies, and wickermen, all intermingled with extra conventional maypoles and bunting to provide robust pagan spiritual overtones.
We predict you’re going to love exploring Casterfell Woods and discovering the secrets and techniques that it holds when Atomfall is launched on March 27 for Xbox Collection X|S and Home windows PC, and day one with Sport Cross. We will’t watch for you guys to get your fingers on the sport.
Atomfall
Revolt
A survival-action sport impressed by real-life occasions, Atomfall is ready 5 years after the Windscale nuclear catastrophe in Northern England.
Discover the fictional quarantine zone, scavenge, craft, barter, struggle and speak your means by way of a British countryside setting full of weird characters, mysticism, cults, and rogue authorities companies.
From Revolt, the studio behind Sniper Elite and Zombie Military, Atomfall will problem you to unravel the darkish thriller of what actually occurred.
Participant Pushed Thriller: Unravel a tapestry of interwoven narratives by way of exploration, dialog, investigation, and fight, the place each alternative you make has penalties.
Discover this Inexperienced and Disagreeable Land: The picturesque British countryside, with rolling inexperienced hills, lush valleys, and rural villages belie the hazards that await you.
Search, Scavage, Survive: You’ll must scavenge for provides, craft weapons and gadgets, and struggle desperately to make it out alive!
Determined Fight: With weapons and ammunition scarce, every frenetic engagement will see you mix marksmanship with vicious hand-to-hand fight. Handle your coronary heart fee to carry a gradual purpose and guarantee you might have the vitality that you must attain on your cricket bat and land the killer blow.
Inexperienced and Disagreeable Land: The picturesque British countryside, with rolling inexperienced hills, lush valleys, and rural villages belie the hazards that await you. Navigate cult-controlled ruins, pure caves, nuclear bunkers and extra as you discover this dense, foreboding world.
Reimagining Windscale: A fictional reimagining of a real-world occasion, Atomfall attracts from science fiction, folks horror, and Chilly Battle influences to create a world that’s eerily acquainted but utterly alien.