Best of all, it’s keen to allow as many people as possible to join the party.
The first few minutes of Atomfall rapidly convey the kind of game this is.
Do you grab the nearby materials, craft a bandage, and exchange it for the keycard?
Do you immediately murder him and loot it from his corpse?
Do you craft the bandage, swap it for the keycard, then kill him anyway?
It’s up to you.
“It’s up to you” is the philosophy at the heart of Atomfall.
Eventually, you might be able to piece together exactly what happened, and why.
For now, all you’re free to do is pick a direction and start walking.
Curiosity is very much encouraged.
Your nosiness drives everything forward.
But this ‘less is more’ philosophy works to the game’s benefit.
There’s no sense of filler.
Similarly, the mutated ‘ferals’ are used sparingly.
UK, hun?
There’s no XP for example, and no linear skill tree.
The freeform approach feels incredibly unique, like little else I’ve played.
One of my favourite examples is the murder investigation I embarked upon when stumbling onto a body.
When I uncovered the murderer, I was asked to ‘take care’ of him.
Fission for compliments
There’s no money in Atomfall.
You’re severed from the outside world; why would there be?
They can drive a hard bargain!
It took me 15 hours to see my first ending.
That may sound swift for an open world game, but there are some important things to consider.
The heartbeat management aspect didn’t help.
Weapons become more difficult to handle, and eventually there’s the threat of blacking out.
An occasional annoyance, but never something that stopped me enjoying myself.
Although Atomfall’s marketing uses the word ‘survival’, this is slightly misleading.
Atomfall was reviewed on PS5, with a code provided by the publisher.
Atomfall is a hard game to pin down.
