In my opinion, the best kind of games are the ones that leave you with plenty of stories to tell. Our old editor-in-chief Tom Bramwell coined the phrase ‘anecdote factory’ when he reviewed Far Cry 3, and this is the perfect expression to describe my time with Atomfall. I was given 90 minutes with Rebellion’s upcoming radioactive RPG at a recent hands-on event and I probably came away from it with about 90 different stories to tell, each one just as unexpected and entertaining as the last.
AtomfallDeveloper: Rebellion Publisher: RebellionPlatform: Played on PCAvailability: Releases 27th March on PC (Steam, Epic Games Store), PS4/PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One and Game Pass
A good example of this (and one that’s highlighted in the much more detailed video below) happened about ten minutes into my session. After hiding from a pair of angry Protocol soldiers I decided to sneak up on them and take them out, only to round a corner and catch one of them doing an unexpected wee against a wall. I was laughing out loud as I ran at him and took him down with a couple of swings of my very English melee weapon, a cricket bat.
But I’m getting ahead of myself, Atomfall is an action RPG set in the picturesque English county of Cumbria with all the action taking place in a quarantine zone that’s been set up in the aftermath of a nuclear disaster that’s loosely based on the real-world Windscale fire of 1957. This setting gives us the benefit of a fresh take on the apocalypse. Gone are the dusty and often barren grey-yellow-brown environments that we see in most post apocalyptic productions.
Instead, Rebellion has set its story among the woods, hills and lakesides of the English countryside. There are bright colours everywhere, from the deep rich greens of Casterfell Woods and the bold reds of the classic British phonebox, through to the luminous blues and purples of the flora and fauna that have mutated after the disaster. Even the Windscale powerplant itself looks more like a sight you’d see in Alex Garland’s Annihilation film rather than a Fallout game, thanks to the subtle pinky purple haze that quite literally radiates from its burning reactors.