My 90 minutes exploring the Lake District (oft known as ‘The Lakes’ within the north of England) was full of dying. Not of my enemies, however me. I died by the hands of a gang of Druids, by falling down a steep ledge, being burned to a crisp by an enormous robotic guarding an underground facility, ingesting too many poisonous fumes, disturbing a mutant, and unknowingly triggering a tripwire. This isn’t the Lake District I spent my childhood years exploring, but it surely’s simply as visually spectacular and intriguing to discover.
Set in a quarantine zone in Nineteen Sixties northern England, Atomfall places you within the footwear of a nuclear catastrophe survivor. You don’t know who you might be, or what precipitated the catastrophe, however 5 years following the occasion, you already know you’ll want to discover your means out of the quarantine zone to security.
Developer Riot has clearly spent lots of time learning what makes the Lake District an space of pure magnificence. Purple telephone containers punctuate lush, inexperienced fields. Dry stone partitions guard huge meadows, and church buildings and pubs populate little villages, engulfed by dense forests. The realm of Casterfell Woods encapsulates the synergy of civilization and nature that makes this a part of England such a pleasure to go to.
It is a post-apocalyptic variant, although, 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’ve constructed shrines, established well-guarded outposts and bases, and gained’t draw back from searching you down in the event that they spot you. There are additionally the aforementioned automatons. Hulking machines that guard mysterious underground bunkers and services. Linger too deep right into a tunnel or cave and also you’ll discover creatures mutated from the blast mendacity in wait.
Popping out of the preview, fight remains to be my huge query mark. Attributable to some latency points, my 90 minutes with the sport have been fairly uneven. This made it tough to get an actual really feel for the melee fight and ranged weapons. It did really feel fairly difficult, however which may be as a result of I generally needed to resort to wildly flailing a cricket bat within the route of enemies and hoping a few of my swings would join with their skulls. What was evident is your probabilities of survival will very a lot rely in your enemy. Taking down some Druids was far simpler than the only luminescent blue mutant hiding in a tunnel. This forces you to contemplate your strategy to totally different situations: do you undergo the bridge and waste treasured ammo and assets defeating a single mutant, or do you simply take the good distance round? Do you creep up on these patrolling Druids and take them out one after the other with silent takedowns? Or do you go in all weapons blazing, or waving a fireplace axe above your head like a lunatic within the title of conserving ammo?
The hostile inhabitants of Casterfell Woods weren’t the one fellow survivors I met. A beautiful scouser by the title of Billy Gorse supplied to commerce with me, and a quest-giver donning conventional English clothes known as Mom Jago supplied assist and requested mine. Nonetheless, bartering with my Liverpudlian pal piqued my curiosity probably the most in all of my interactions with NPCs in Atomfall. Cash doesn’t exist within the quarantine zone, so if you need one thing that another person has, you’re going to wish to commerce your objects for them.
The mechanic is consistent with the setting and feels wholly totally different from the everyday buying and selling mechanic in different RPGs. Start a commerce and a set of balancing scales between your two inventories will point out who’s at present getting the higher facet of the deal as you add objects into the commerce. Solely when the scales are balanced or tipping within the favor of who you’re buying and selling with will you have the ability to make the deal. I didn’t see a means I may rip a dealer off, although. Whereas I perceive why this won’t work from a gameplay perspective with out massively unbalancing the expertise, it does detract barely from the practical strategy to the gameplay that Riot goes for that trades all the time must be balanced or within the different particular person’s favor. Perhaps I need a whole lot for as soon as!
Earlier than we dived into our time with the sport, a member of the event workforce gave an summary of the place we might be within the recreation and pointed us in the correct route. As an alternative, I largely simply explored the open world, partly as a result of I needed to see what mysteries I may uncover, but in addition as a result of there aren’t any blatant waypoints indicating the place you’ll want to go subsequent. I met Mom Jago, she instructed me she needed her e-book again which was within the Druids’ fortress someplace in Casterfell Woods, after which despatched me on my means. I opened my map, however nothing was marked on it, so I merely ventured out, seeing if I’d occur to encounter it.
For me, this can be a huge plus. I’m usually an enormous waypoint follower. However having this security internet taken away from me resulted in me dropping myself on the earth. I uncovered the robot-guarded facility with its personal secrets and techniques, stalked Druids at an outpost, discovered hidden caches with my metallic detector, and took mysterious telephone calls from the pink telephone containers warning me of the risks within the woods. I additionally met Joyce Tanner hiding in an underground bunker who requested for my assist getting the Interchange powered. She truly did know the place one thing was, so she circled it on my map, creating a brand new lead for me to observe. My 90 minutes with Atomfall felt very very like a few of my greatest moments in Fallout video games, venturing off the overwhelmed path to see what lore or secret weapon I may uncover, or embarking on an epic facet quest. This natural exploration is how I think about my evenings following the sport’s launch can be stuffed, chipping away on the myriad mysteries that Riot has weaved into the material of the world.
There’s a superb likelihood this isn’t going to be for everybody although. No waypoints means getting misplaced. Getting misplaced can lead to trial and error. And trial and error can lead to frustration. Should you’re the form of participant who likes to really feel as if you’re making important progress each time you load up a recreation, Atomfall’s lack of hand-holding might take some getting used to.
On this similar theme of realism, your Atomfall stock may be very restricted. You’re not going to be lugging round 40 weapons such as you would within the Elder Scrolls or Fallout sequence. You’ve acquired 4 slots for bigger rifles, ranged, and melee weapons, after which about 12 slots for smaller objects like consumables, handheld melee weapons, and ammo. This shortly fills up, particularly when issues don’t stack. It once more provides to the realism and makes you really take into account what’s necessary to take with you, however can really feel prefer it breaks up the stream of your gameplay. A disclaimer on this: there could also be a technique to broaden your stock, however throughout my time with the sport, I didn’t see one.
Atomfall actually does really feel totally different. It’s taken clear inspiration from Bethesda RPGs, but in addition from Nineteen Sixties English speculative fiction, mixing these reference factors into one thing balanced however new. The shortage of waypoints, restricted stock, and bartering system all make the sport really feel extra brutal and gritty with out taking the enjoyable out of it. Nonetheless, for me, the jury’s nonetheless out on the fight, with the latency points I confronted within the preview hindering my means to completely decide the way it feels to bash Druids over the pinnacle with a cricket bat or nail them within the face from vary with a bow and arrow. Regardless of this, Atomfall has turn into considered one of my most anticipated video games of 2025, and I can’t wait to spend extra time making an attempt to uncover its mysteries.