Atomfall Review (Shotgunbadger)
Finally, a 'post apocalypse' game with color and life to it.
Atomfall is a great example of 'focus on what you do and do it well' as game design. Is it a sprawling open world with tons of options and side activities and such? Nope, and that's to its credit. The game focuses on having three maps (and a city with things to do in it) that are more compact but more full of life than most of its peers can do with massive single maps. All three are perfectly sized to make walking through them not a schlep but still feel like a bit of a trek you need to keep your head on a swivel during.
Which is good because there's no fast travel. For some this is a con, for me this is a pro, but it is only fair I give a heads up about that! Like I said, the map size keeps this from feeling like a big slog while still giving enough activity in NPC patrols or random little caves or camps to find to make it exciting.
The resource management is also perfectly hit in the sweet spot for me. No hunger or thirst or the like, all food items are just healing, but ammo isn't abundant and the only guns you'll find are crappy rusted, well used, ones. There's a mid game perk to let you upgrade them yourself, but even with a pristine gun firefights become exercises in bullet management. Is it worth likely draining one of your guns to take out this patrol, or should you sneak by? Will that camp you want to raid have enough supplies in it to justify the cost? Everything feels like a real choice you're making even in late game.
Speaking of choices, the story is excellent. Rather than hand holdy quests everything works off a 'leads' system. Find a note, talk to an NPC, find some hints about 'the trader camp by the waterfall' or 'the helicopter crash near the mines'. Maybe you luck out and there's actual coordinates in that note you can add a marker on your map for. Most importantly, though, these leads shape how you interact with the world. That vicar seems a little shady, but everyone seems to like him well enough, nothing to be done there...unless you find an odd note or two, maybe you should confront him about it, or the person who wrote the note to ask what's going on.
The main story is quite interesting as well, with the mysterious 'Oberon' and the feral victims of its poisoning adding to the surreal nature, and forcing you to ask some real questions about if science going too far can be fixed for a greater good.
The atmosphere adds to all of this perfectly. This is an extremely English feeling game, the green, bright, countryside of North England are if anything brought to even more life thanks to Oberon's strange influence, greenery overtaking civilization's ruins add a haunting element to the surroundings that's such a breath of fresh air from the usual gray and brown wastelands.
The game IS rather short, at 7ish hours I'm already well into the middle point of things it feels like but the game encourages replays to see what other leads and paths you can go down, and it seems like the big 'final choice' elements to endgame do provide a few interesting choices to make that's worth seeing. If you want a game to get lost in this is the game for you even if that process of losing yourself may involve a couple replays rather than one epic playthrough.