Atomfall preview - Postman Pat meets Stalker and Fallout: New Vegas

Much like how Stalker adds a little unwordly twist to their post-nuclear disaster zone, it’s not just radiation you need to worry about in Atomfall - something Rebellion co-founder Jason Kingsley went into great detail on with us.

But not only that, Atomfall builds upon the winning formula by adding its own twist, namely the leads system that makes hunting down characters and quests far more involved, relying on different clues that don’t directly point you towards your objective but instead a general area or a voice recording or NPC telling you about a certain character.

In effect, there are no traditional objective markers; rather, it’s all "a crashed helicopter next to the bridge", or if you’re extra lucky, there are some grid coordinates to track down.

I got to grips with this during an extended gameplay session at a preview event in The Woodman Pub in London, which had been sent back in time and given a do-over to become Grendel’s Head found in the game. Check it out in the video below!

Speaking with Rebellion head of design Ben Fisher, he told us that "you’re much more of a detective [in Atomfall]".

"We don’t have a traditional quest system, instead we’ve got leads, so you’re piecing together an understanding of this game world and how it fits together."

This extends to the choices I could make as a player, as Fisher explains that: "You’re never told [the] good option and the bad option. There’s not any single morally justified character, it’s all shades of grey and it’s all to do with how you feel about dealing with the situation, who you think you can trust."

Separating it further from the post-apocalypse stalwarts is the quintessential British setting, itself informed by the literary and media influences Atomfall draws upon.

"A lot of that came from the storytelling style of 1950s [and] 1960s UK," Ben told me, "that kind of early Doctor Who, [The] Quartermass Experiment, bits of John Wyndham.

"Also, setting it a bit wider, things like Prisoner, things like The Wickerman, that kind of tense moral ambiguity, a murky situation where people are just trying to survive."

I can personally attest to this, as the look of the world brought to mind those classic British novels. Every corner I turned, I swore I would see the Famous Five sacrificing a poor denizen of the zone.

When asked, Ben did believe that Postman Pat would fare quite well in the zone, but Jess - his black and white cat - most likely would’ve been made into a pelt donned by the now hardened postie to strike fear into his enemies.

On the topic of colloquial characters, much like I experienced during my review of Still Wakes the Deep, hearing characters in a game that have accents local to where you live really heightens the immersion. Though I am a dissenting Scot, talking to the native Cumbrians and hearing other regional accents was a delight.

It's one of the aspects of the game that I found most alluring, and despite my time with Atomfall being brief at an hour and a half, I quickly found myself getting sucked into its world and quests even though I was plopped in some ways off the start of the game.

I put this down to the premise, setting and vibes of the game which are utterly unique. Not only that, the mysteries of Windscale called to me.

Something the Fallout games do excellently is provide you with a location that piques your interest and sees you getting completely distracted from your current quest. Atomfall pulls this off spectacularly too.

Walking along an idyllic path, I came across an imposing Casterfell hydroelectric dam. After some metal detecting and snooping, I stood above a large opening in the ground revealing blast doors. As any sane person would in a post-nuclear disaster zone, I jumped down and immediately started exploring.

Very quickly, I was in a room going up against a ginormous robot equipped with flamethrowers. Though I wasn’t able to defeat it with my middling supplies and equipment, I was keen to return as soon as I could to uncover the facility's secrets.

Tech-wise, however, Atomfall isn’t pushing any boundaries. It is dated graphically-speaking, but as someone who regularly revisits those old Stalker and Fallout games, I really don’t mind, as the visual design of the game is brilliant and excellently captures the look of England’s picturesque Lake District through the lens of a Famous Five book cover.

This also has the added benefit of making Atomfall available on a wide number of last and current generation systems. I found myself thinking the game would be perfect to whittle away at on the Steam Deck, provided it runs well on the handheld system.

Though I didn’t play the demo at Gamescom, I got the impression that combat was much improved. It felt suitably crunchy and scrappy with single-shot shotguns and rifles, making you really consider each shot. Melee combat was a little awkward at times, but I soon got the hang of it.

Later on, you can find more and more powerful firearms, but the game makes no secret that it encourages you to try avoiding combat. Factions who are wary of you recognise the danger of getting into a scrape and won’t attack you on sight (unless you are trespassing), with a meter filling up indicating how close to becoming hostile they are.

This didn’t always work as intended for me, as coming up against some Druids – cultists who are afflicted by the mysterious happenings of the zone – in the forest, I went away and broke line of sight and couldn’t see where they were, but they could seemingly see me through terrain and were aggro’d nonetheless.

Outside of this instance, I had a blast sneaking around enemies and getting into all sorts of bother. Towards the end of my playthrough, I made it to the village of Wyndham as I searched for a missing scientist. Wyndham acts as a hub of sorts for Protocol – a military faction policing the zone – and local residents.

Here, there were plenty of leads to take on, with Captain Grant Sims and his stiff upper lip timbre ruling the roost. Sadly, my playthrough ended not long after arriving, but I was so keen to get stuck into every lead and talk to every colourful character I could find, which I’m going to take as a good sign.

If you love Fallout: New Vegas, I think you’ll be right at home in Atomfall, but keep your eyes peeled for the review ahead of the game's launch on 27th March 2025.

For more info, see our interview with studio head Jason Kingsley below!

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