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Unless you’ve been living under a large rock you will have heard of Atomfall, the latest game coming soon from Rebellion. The game is set five years after the Windscale nuclear disaster in Northern England. Inspired by the real-life event. You have to explore the quarantine zone, barter with people as well as survive to find out just what is going on.
Follow The Leads
We were incredibly fortunate to be invited to a special press screening and playtest recently. This is what we experienced.
Playtest
So, a number of other members of the gaming press were introduced to the game through a short presentation by one of the developers. Once that was all done, we were invited to control a PC running Atomfall remotely.
Starting my game a bit further into the game than perhaps I should have. I quickly got restarted and I started the game just inside of a tunnel. This is where the fun began!
Upon leaving this tunnel, I had my first glimpse of melee combat. It was brutal: a swift swing of my axe, and the enemy in front of me was covered in claret. A few more of their friends joined the fun; thankfully, they were straightforward to take down.
This then gave me a glimpse of the next aspect of Atomfall, looting! Checking through the bodies, we could pick up what they had in their pockets. With a number of items going towards crafting different things. To start, all I could craft was a simple bandage which, unlucky for me, I needed to use immediately. The inventory system was straightforward enough. Four larger slots for bigger weapons, a rifle, shotgun, large axe. And then a number of smaller slots for the smaller items. Food, resources, handguns and knives all sat here.
Environment
The environments are lush and green with plenty of foliage scattered around. Every so often you might find some ruined buildings that you can enter and scavenge. Be careful though as there are traps littered everywhere. From large spike traps, to smaller explosives. Thankfully, if you have the right skills, you can actually disarm these bombs using the skills options. I didn’t really spend much time in the skills aside from having a quick look and selecting a couple. I imagine in the full game, your skills will determine the style of play that you will have.
Your map starts off pretty blank, but soon enough you start to get Leads. These are the objectives within Atomfall. Finding a lead and completing it fills in your map with little hand-drawn icons. Whether it’s a destroyed helicopter, or a small village, it’s a great way to encourage you to explore the map. On the map are little signpost icons, these signify where you can move to the next section of the map. I quickly aimed for the one in the furthest South East.
Now on top of the environments, you have a massive amount of variety when it comes to enemies. One of which that personally I am not looking forward to having to deal with. Is rats. Heading into one particular location on the preview, I unlocked a large vault-like door. Once opened I was quickly approached by a couple of rats. No problem I though. I was wrong, they brought some friends and I quickly left that area.
Wyndham Village
Eventually I found the safe zone, a nice little quaint village called Wyndham. Here you can still get yourself in trouble if you don’t behave, but there is plenty of other things to do.
Heading towards the village, you start to see a relative normality going on. There are shops that you can go into, as well as talk to a number of NPCs. Eventually you find the town hall and you get to find out a bit more about the little village. Here you meet Captain Grant Sims and are tasked with looking out for anything suspicious going on. Needless to say, you eventually find something to report. This leads to you being welcome into the Protocol.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I had 90 minutes of playtime on Atomfall. All that it has achieved is making me super impatient for the final release. With a rich storyline that I can tell is only going to evolve and become deeper. Add to that the beautiful environments that I can’t wait to explore more. The game is shaping up to be incredibly exciting. Rebellion have well and truly lit a fire in me for this game. Now we only need to wait another couple of weeks until the final release on 27th March 2025.
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