I knew little about Atomfall earlier than taking part in a demo of it at a latest Xbox occasion in Los Angeles. I noticed its trailer throughout June’s Xbox Games Showcase and assumed it was only a British tackle S.T.A.L.Okay.E.R, which is getting a sequel this 12 months. Although Atomfall actually has that very same survival edge and nuclear disaster setting, it additionally has RPG components harking back to video games like Fallout: New Vegas — particularly with regards to its dialogue system. Atomfall is a daring swing for a sport developer finest identified for the Sniper Elite series, and I used to be left wanting extra after my temporary hands-on time with it.
The preview construct of Atomfall I performed started close to the beginning of the sport. My amnesiac participant character emerged right into a postapocalyptic-looking countryside on this alternate historical past the place the Windscale fireplace nuclear catastrophe in Northern England was much more devastating. As is the case in S.T.A.L.Okay.E.R, gamers are thrust right into a quarantine zone surrounding this nuclear catastrophe, and nearly everybody else there’s out for blood. In this early-game space, I walked across the ruins of a village whereas trying to stealthily take out the crazed outlaws within the space, who had arrange an outpost close by.
Atomfall’s survival sport roots actually flare up right here, as the sport appears fairly troublesome. While enemies will go down after a few gunshot wounds and react to the place they’re shot, gamers are equally fragile. I couldn’t pause the sport to heal, so I needed to take account of that in gunfights. At least early on, stealth gave the impression to be the way in which to go so I may construct up my arsenal of pistols, shotguns, cricket bats, and different makeshift weapons to battle via this apocalypse.
After that, I had a better time taking up these outlaws, however then ammo and therapeutic merchandise constraints grew to become my greatest issues. It’s deliberately powerful. Unfortunately, the autosave wants some work to help that problem, as I received caught in a irritating instantly-spotted-after-respawn loop at one level throughout my playtime. That’s the one facet of the problem that doesn’t really feel honest proper now, however it’s actually one thing that developer Rebellion Developments can tweak and kind out earlier than launch.
While Atomfall will launch after S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, it does appear to be this can be a stable different for these already seeking to transfer on from GSC World’s newest by subsequent March. It additionally does a greater job of interesting to extra basic gaming followers, primarily these of Western RPGs like Fallout. While nearly each NPC in Atomfall needed to kill me, one didn’t. His identify was Nat Buckshaw, and once I spoke to him to collect details about this British nuclear wasteland, the dialog performed out like it might in Fallout: New Vegas. I had full strains of dialogue to select from, every related to a unique emotion or tone.
Buckshaw would give completely different solutions relying on what the participant stated to him, and I even had the choice to homicide him with my weapons if I needed to. There are additionally ability and crafting techniques, though I didn’t have a lot time to go too deep with both of those throughout my playtime. None of this essentially breaks new floor with regards to RPGs, however it was a shock to see these techniques coupled with the nonlinearity and depth of a survival sport. Considering that S.T.A.L.Okay.E.R. and Fallout are each sequence about nuclear apocalypses, possibly I shouldn’t be stunned that the gameplay techniques every makes use of mesh effectively collectively.
It’s fairly the participating combine, and if Rebellion kinds out the autosave situation I encountered, I’d play extra. There had been fairly a couple of areas, particularly nuclear bunkers, that weren’t accessible on this demo, and I actually need to know what’s behind these locked doorways.
Atomfall launches for PC, PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S in March 2024. It can be on Xbox Game Pass from day one.