Atomfall isn't what you think it is (Austin's Hands-On Impressions)

Metatube

Thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring the video. If you want to set up your own website (and get a discount while doing it), hit this link for more info: http://www.squarespace.com/skillup -- We all thought Atomfall was British Fallout. Turns out it's not, but it's still pretty damn interesting...  #Atomfall #Impressions #HandsOn -- Thanks for taking the time to watch the video. If you'd like to support the channel even more, the best way is through my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/skillupyt -- You can find all the Skill Up content (reviews, previews, This Week in Videogames & The Friends Per Second Podcast over on Spotify, where you can listen ad-free if you're a Spotify premium subscriber: https://open.spotify.com/show/2w3Injyqj2VoxOxQg6ESbl?si=b651261f52c24e58  BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/skillup.bsky.social  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skillupyt/?hl=en TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@skillup -- Grab 12% off any SteelSeries peripheral by using offer code SKILLUP at checkout: https://steelseries.pbj2.net/c/2446303/1266556/2390 -- Check out my curator page on steam:  https://store.steampowered.com/curator/28625128-Skill-Up-Curates.../ -- Recent vids: Kingdom Come Deliverance II review:  https://youtu.be/_wFHtqKYMaM  Avowed review: https://youtu.be/yxnyOmJzg_0  The best game of 2024 https://youtu.be/ShInfDuzl7A  Indiana Jones and the Great Circle review:  https://youtu.be/HtbtcLxJTtY  STALKER 2 review:  https://youtu.be/BRCLRAJkqjg  PS5 Pro review:  https://youtu.be/BRCLRAJkqjg  Dragon Age: The Veilguard review: https://youtu.be/QF-Kd2BBpx8  Silent Hill 2 review:  https://youtu.be/dBoU9SNFw9w  Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine 2 review: https://youtu.be/OZ6ur9NOkpE  Astrobot review:  https://youtu.be/JVAEWreFU0I  Star Wars Outlaws review:  https://youtu.be/sKo1owZzYcs  Concord review (RIP):  https://youtu.be/vRrWp_MVAxU  Marvel Rivals Impressions https://youtu.be/7rhAYJM-Tho  Zenless Zone Zero review: https://youtu.be/r-pvw1xGmKY  Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree review:  https://youtu.be/d1FQ3BiL-L8  Stellar Blade Review: https://youtu.be/6NPvgtZ9pxc  Dragon's Dogma 2 review: https://youtu.be/GWaPbEjjSqI  Final Fantasy VII Rebirth review:  https://youtu.be/_LaI5Knv4wM  Helldivers 2 review:  https://youtu.be/5j4TsO8vngA  Skull and Bones review:  https://youtu.be/z_BKf5cdV_w  Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League review:  https://youtu.be/reQKHNg0jh8  Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown review:  https://youtu.be/-mTbCsDQitU  I recommend: 2023 (This Year in Videogames) https://youtu.be/26KzkLymUb4  The Day Before - A Scam To Remember:  https://youtu.be/tdQXfXm8rjg  Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty review:  https://youtu.be/QNKS3vkGAag  Final Fantasy XVI review:  https://youtu.be/PzfUardkloY  Diablo IV review:  https://youtu.be/_Vk7yrh_JhM  The Lord of the Rings: Gollum review: https://youtu.be/E21qSEyRa88  The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom review:  https://youtu.be/BQFImTqvW8E  Redfall review:  https://youtu.be/YTpFvYbDuqA  Resid

Transcript

00:00This video is brought to you by Channel Partner, four years running Squarespace. They just refreshed

00:03their already industry-leading website creation toolset, making it easier than ever before to

00:08build the perfect website for your business, your project, or just for fun. They're offering a

00:11special discount to viewers of this channel, so stick around to the end of the video to learn more.

00:16Atomfall is probably not what you think it is. If you've watched the trailers, like me,

00:20you might have been under the impression that this is basically British Fallout. And yeah,

00:25it certainly presents that way. It's a first-person game set in a post-apocalyptic world

00:30filled with survivor factions, bandits, retro future robots, mutants and ghouls,

00:35but with an English flair sprinkled on top. Sure, the Fallout London mod exists if you want that,

00:41but personally, as someone who's never really clicked with Bethesda's games, I was quite keen

00:45to see a different studio run with Bethesda's RPG blueprint and offer up their own take.

00:50But after one and a half hours of hands-on time with Atomfall, I quickly realised that it's

00:56really not like that at all. And that's probably going to come as a surprise to you too,

01:01if all you've seen are brief snippets of gameplay from trailers.

01:05Here's how the developers themselves describe Atomfall in a recent deep dive.

01:21Brutal combat.

01:25So yeah, those are the main pillars upon which this game is built. You'll notice there's no

01:29mention of branching consequences or character customisation or world interactivity as core

01:35design tenets. It's helpful to remember that this is from Rebellion, the studio best known

01:39for their Sniper Elite series. Because yeah, I think this game bears a much closer resemblance

01:44to those games than anything else. It is not an open-world game in the traditional sense.

01:49The story unfolds over these modestly sized, disconnected maps with room for some light

01:54exploration. And it places an emphasis on action, with surprisingly tight combat fundamentals.

02:00Like Sniper Elite, it's mostly unambitious in those aspects, but something that is pretty

02:04interesting here in Atomfall is its novel storytelling approach. It doesn't follow

02:09a linear main questline. Rather, it invites investigation alone to drive the plot and

02:14exploration, with clues hidden around the world intended to sway your trust in the characters

02:18you meet. I wasn't able to gauge just how much these relationships meaningfully shape a

02:23playthrough based on my limited time with it, but the traces of it that I did get to experience

02:27do show promise. And that's important to note. I only had about one and a half hours with this

02:32game, and that was nearly enough time to come to a proper conclusion about whether it fully delivers

02:37on those core design pillars. My goal with this video is just to help you set the right

02:41expectations. Because yeah, I think we're all guilty of tripping over our own expectations

02:46from time to time. And in that way, you might have been disappointed to learn that this isn't

02:50as expansive or sophisticated as you might have imagined. But if you are one of those people that

02:55enjoys a leaner experience, like those found in Rebellion's previous games, Atomfall might be up

03:00your alley. Atomfall is set in the 1960s, taking place after the Windscale

03:16Fire of 1957, one of the worst nuclear accidents in recorded history. Atomfall though presents an

03:22alternate history, where that disaster has turned much of the northern English countryside into a

03:26quarantine zone, now patrolled by military forces, bandits and unnatural creatures.

03:31It's a setting clearly inspired by the likes of Fallout and S.T.A.L.K.E.R., but what helps it set

03:36it apart are the distinctly British details. You'll come across regular supplies of tea,

03:40the iconic red telephone boxes are somehow still around. The people you come across will yell at

03:46you for just looking at them funny. I mean, it's basically the same as modern day London.

03:52In the preview, I was dropped a couple hours into the story, and at this point my character's still

03:56getting his bearings. He's suffered from amnesia, with little recollection of how he ended up here.

04:01All he knows is that he needs to get the hell out of the quarantine zone.

04:04This journey began with me running into a group of cult members, who appear to worship some

04:09entity birthed from the nuclear disaster. There was no negotiation here, the enemies in Atomfall

04:14are seemingly wired to attack on sight, and so it was here I got my first taste of combat.

04:20And combat is solid. I actually feel like it's a notable step up from Sniper Elite in this regard.

04:26For me, those games have felt kind of stuck in the past for a while now, with their animations

04:30and weapon handling, relying on a lot of the fun coming from the x-ray nutshots.

04:35Atomfall offers more of what you'd expect from a shooter from this era. Guns have a ton of kick to

04:40them, melee weapons feel especially weighty, and the way your enemies recoil and ragdoll to each

04:45hit provides some very satisfying feedback. Your combat repertoire also includes being able to fire

04:50a swift punch with your offhand, or smack them with the butt of your weapon. If you feel so inclined,

04:55you can even give your enemy a boot to the gonads to send them off balance.

04:58Kind of a dirty tactic to be sure, but anything goes in the wasteland.

05:04There's also a basic skill tree here, with perks like making less sound during an

05:09assassination or gaining a melee damage buff after killing a melee enemy. It's,

05:13you know, familiar stuff, bit reminiscent of the skill trees in stuff like Far Cry,

05:17but instead of gaining skills by levelling up, you find them out in the world in the form of

05:22training manuals. You also have the option of stealth. You can crouch in grass to stay hidden

05:26and sneak up behind enemies for a takedown, or take them out silently from range with a bow.

05:31That's about all the stealth sandbox offered in my preview. I didn't notice any environmental

05:36elements that could help me out. Couldn't throw anything as a distraction except for an explosive

05:41I found, but that isn't exactly quiet. Could very much just be the case of this being a preview

05:45build that takes place so early in the story though. Remains to be seen if the full game

05:50has more of that kind of thing to vary up your approach to encounters.

05:53What I did particularly like here is that they've leaned into a bit of realism to push that

05:57survivalist fantasy. There are no health bars here, but you don't need em since enemies don't

06:02have a lot of health, so you can trust that a single well-placed arrow to the dome is gonna

06:06take em out. By the same token, you're equally fragile. Just a few shots and you're out cold.

06:15This means you can be very easily overwhelmed if you find yourself out of healing consumables or

06:20ammo in the middle of a fight, which happened to be a number of times in this short demo

06:24given how scarce these things are. I mean ammo especially is particularly hard to come by.

06:29Bag space is also extremely limited, so every item is competing for a space in your inventory.

06:34It was a little stalker-esque in that way, making the stealth approach always the preferred tactic

06:39to help you preserve those supplies for when shit really hits the fan.

06:43Exploration is one of the main areas that was a lot simpler than I expected. To be clear,

06:48Atomfall is not offering a rich, expansive open world experience like the trailers sort of have

06:54you imagine. The campaign seems to play out over a series of separate zones, each of them only

07:00taking like 5-10 minutes to run from one end to the other, with some sort of core objective to

07:05overcome before you move on to the next. Scattered throughout are a number of landmarks to loot,

07:09like abandoned towns or enemy camps, as well as dungeons of sorts that house some kind of puzzle.

07:14Like this one here I found inside a bunker where I needed to avoid a patrolling robot

07:18and somehow get the power up and running to open a vault door. But despite the zone's compact scale,

07:24I didn't feel like there was much going on between these landmarks, which is a shame given

07:28how ripe this post-nuclear setting is for those spontaneous encounters or even just

07:33ambient worldbuilding stuff. I didn't come across any exciting loot either, which again could be a

07:39result of me being so early in the game, but I wouldn't expect much here given there's no real

07:43gear system and the trailers don't show off any wacky improvised weaponry or anything like that.

07:48Exploration is required for that more investigative element of the game though.

07:52For example, that dungeon I mentioned with me needing to turn on the power,

07:56I was completely stumped. Straight up couldn't figure out the puzzle here.

07:59Right before my preview ended as well, I was desperately trying to find the key

08:03to open this final door of a cult base, and it didn't drop from any of the guards,

08:07but eventually I found a note outside the base from the key master who had

08:12scrawled some vague coordinates down that I had to manually pinpoint on the map.

08:16All that's to say that very little of this game is explicitly leading you by the hand.

08:20There's some really cool sleuthing required here, which in this day and age feels quite refreshing.

08:26Likewise, this investigation stuff is the driving force for the way you progress the story.

08:30See, the conceit here is that there's no strict golden path. Rather,

08:34the game offers one broad mystery about the true nature of the nuclear disaster.

08:39How you piece this together is determined by your interactions with the main characters,

08:43which may be influenced by the clues hidden around to sway your trust in them.

08:48This is the part of Atomfall that I was least able to fully grasp in this brief hands-on,

08:53but it's definitely the most promising aspect of the game for me.

08:56I did catch glimpses of this system in my preview. For example,

08:59my character seemed to be under an affliction causing him to hear voices,

09:03and I'd picked up a note that clued me in on a herbalist who lives at an old mine.

09:07So I head over there, hoping she might be able to help, and I'm greeted by this excitable old lady.

09:19Folks that find their way to me are usually in need of something.

09:23What's on your mind, dear? Perhaps I can help.

09:27Her warm, British hospitality speaks to a kindly woman, so I get straight to the point.

09:32She can whisk up a tonic to ease the infection,

09:34but explains that a nearby cult has stolen the recipe, so I'd need to go fetch it from their camp.

09:38Additionally, she asks me to retrieve one of her herbalism books while I'm there,

09:42though tells me it's nothing worth killing over, which I thought was kind of interesting.

09:46The druids have something of mine, my herbalism book. I'd like it back.

09:52Nothing worth killing over, you understand? But I would like it back.

09:58Now, I did have options to approach this conversation in different ways.

10:02I could press her for more information to figure out her true intentions,

10:05or proceed with wariness and turn her away entirely.

10:09Throughout my playthrough, I also came across things that made me question my trust in her,

10:13like on the way to that cult base, I was distracted by the ringing of one of those

10:16telephone booths, and on the other end was this mysterious voice warning me about it.

10:21Do not trust Mother Draco. Mother Draco is compromised.

10:28And then at the cult base itself, I also found a note suggesting that the members

10:32were actually wanting to collude with her for her supposed deeper connection to their strange deity.

10:38God damn it, should have learned my lesson from Baldur's Gate 3,

10:41you can never trust an old lady in the woods.

10:44So yeah, I definitely got the impression something sus was going on here,

10:47and I thought this was kind of cool. You know, the idea that a lot of the characters you meet

10:51might exist within a sort of grey area, that there is no reliable narrator,

10:55that various things you'll happen upon are going to try to sway your trust in one direction or

11:00another. I'm really keen to see how that all manifests, and if Rebellion are able to deliver

11:04on that sort of non-linear storytelling approach. And that concludes my short time with Adamfall.

11:10Again, I want to reiterate that this wasn't really enough time to understand the full

11:14breadth of these systems and whether they can sustain a full playthrough. What I do know now

11:18is that this is a much simpler game than I think many are expecting. It's more of an arcadey action

11:23game with light RPG elements, rather than trying to be a rich, deeply immersive RPG experience.

11:30Walking away from the preview, I certainly have much more measured expectations for Adamfall now,

11:35but I'm still keen to see how the full game pans out, given its solid combat fundamentals and

11:39interesting narrative structure. Like I said in the intro, this has a very similar feel to

11:44Rebellion's previous games, in its trimmed back, focused design, kind of reminiscent of the games

11:49that we got back in the Xbox 360 era. Something that's fundamentally quite simple, but has some

11:54promising ideas. If you're into that, then Adamfall might be worth keeping an eye on.

11:58You can likely expect a full review around its release on March 27th.

12:05A lot of people ask me how to break into the games media business. There are plenty of ways

12:08to do it to be honest, but for me, I like to write. I like to write my scripts. I very rarely

12:12do anything off the cuff. Writing gives me the time to think things through and make sure I

12:16actually say what I mean to say. If that's something that appeals to you too, then I really

12:19think having a place where you can write and publish your work is super helpful. And if you

12:23want to create a space like that for yourself, then consider doing it with this video's sponsor,

12:26Squarespace. For years now, Squarespace have been the very best in the website creation business.

12:31Their tools are second to none, making it super easy to create a website, no matter your experience

12:35building websites. You can be a total beginner and Squarespace's tools will let you build a

12:39professional-looking website in mere minutes. The ease of their tools lets you focus on what

12:43matters most, your writing. You can write with the confidence that when it's time to publish,

12:47the process will be simple and will always look great. Squarespace isn't just about the front-end

12:51experience though. It's also got all the back-end stuff you need to make sure your website is

12:55surfaced in search. Every Squarespace website supports sophisticated SEO tools that are just

13:00as easy to use as everything else Squarespace offers, meaning you can be sure that the

13:04customers who are looking for you can find you. There's so much more that Squarespace offers,

13:08so if you'd like to check it out for yourself, you can visit squarespace.com to try it for free.

13:11And if you want to get serious, visit squarespace.com. Forge slash skill up to get 10%

13:15off your purchase of a website or a domain name. A big thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring the

13:19video and thank you for watching it.

Category

Transcript

Recommended