Atomfall - A Real Headache (Review)
- James Stephanie Sterling
- 2 minutes ago
- 12 min read
Atomfall
Released: March 27th, 2025
Developer: Rebellion Developments
Publisher: Rebellion Developments
Systems: PC, PS5 (reviewed), Xbox Series
Atomfall is set in a Northern English wasteland beset by rampant violence, toxic terrain, and masked druids murdering all who wander into the woods.
That is to say, Atomfall is set in Northern England.
I swear on the good name of my Yorkshire husband, that will be the only crack at the North I take. Having seen the state of their roads, they’ve had enough cracks to deal with.
To be honest, Atomfall came out of nowhere for me. I think I first heard of it a day before it came out, but the premise of “what if Chernobyl but Lake District?” and the attachment of Rebellion as developer had me interested pretty quickly. I’ve played through it to one of its several intriguing conclusions, I’ve enjoyed it quite a bit, but I’ve also stumbled on a bit of a professional conundrum…
How exactly should one review a game they enjoyed, but also suffered physical pain as a direct result of playing?
Atomfall hurt me, and I am being literal with that. It takes only minutes of playtime before I begin suffering eye strain that either abates after a while or stays until shortly after I stop. As someone prone to migraines, I wrote it off at first, but it kept happening, and after checking with others, I found I wasn’t the only one.
As much as I want to discuss what I enjoyed, it’s not as if I can ignore the game inflicting very real pain, especially when it has practically zero graphical settings through which one might be able to solve the issue. I even think I know what the problem is, but I can’t do a thing about it.
There’s a fisheye effect I started noticing when looking up and down. It’s so subtle it took me ages to notice, but it’s as if the player character’s eyes are on stubby little stalks that give them an unnatural axis of motion. Increasing the FOV only seems to intensify the effect, and I’m fairly certain this unnecessary “bulging” is to blame.
I’m disappointed in the lack of visual options despite an otherwise solid accessibility menu. In fact, the existence of said menu only makes it clear that headache protection is an overlooked part of accessibility considerations.
Well hey, if you’re not quite so affected, it’s a decent game! Certainly decent enough that I pushed through the pain to keep at it.
Atomfall doesn’t really do anything new - in fact, compared to some of the games it resembles, Atomfall does a lot less. This has actually proven key to my enjoyment, as I was pleasantly surprised to see something that looked like S.T.A.L.K.E.R without everything that makes S.T.A.L.K.E.R the game it is.
It’s not that I dislike that particular game, but much of the time I’d rather play one that doesn’t hate me. A breezier way to enjoy the radioactive downfall of society is exactly my cup of tea.
Despite looking every bit like a stressful, survival-oriented, grueling trek through radioactive hell, Rebellion’s effort is much more streamlined, with a greater focus on action. I struggled with the game a little at first because I went in expecting a more punishing experience, approaching combat timidly and fearing a quick death round every corner. Before long, however, I realized the presentation and aesthetics had led to a misunderstanding.
While not a pure guns-blazing shooter by any means, in strict comparison to games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R or Metro, Atomfall is practically arcade in nature. I’m very okay with this.
Atomfall takes the very real Windscale fire of 1957 and adds giant robots, a spooky infection, and soldiers from the “Protocol” quarantining the area with dystopian results. Also there are dangerous mushrooms because, as I noted in my Avowed review, videogames are obsessed with mushrooms lately.
Combat is rather good, with a selection of standard firearms and a bunch of melee weapons ranging from small knives to huge heavy maces. While enemies can hit really hard, aggression is a crucial player strategy - most enemies are as squishy as you are, so dropping them quickly is much better than ever giving them a chance to attack.
That said, one of the coolest things about Atomfall is how reluctant many potential threats are to attack you. So-called Outlaws may look like the average bandit from any number of post-apocalypses, but they’re not mindless aggressors, preferring instead to put their guard up and dissuade you with verbal warnings. Even the Druids who hang out in the woods talking to dirt would rather not risk their lives if they can avoid it.
I love this approach. It always bugs me how Raiders in Fallout are no more capable of reason than any of the monsters you meet, set to mindlessly aggro in any circumstance. A world feels inherently more lived in, more resonant, when some would-be assailants would rather you go your separate ways because they’re just surviving like anybody else.
Considering how many of them roam Atomfall’s segmented environments, things would be an absurd hassle if they were immediately aggressive. As it is, the constant yelling of threats can get a little extreme - you’ll regularly skirt around one pack only to immediately start getting cajoled by another.
Human threats stand out as repetitive thanks in part to a lack of enemy variety. Beyond the prevalent Outlaws, Druids, and semi-friendly soldiers, very select areas offer blue zombies, killer plants, robots, and swarms of rats or other small creatures. None of them are particularly inspired, though the Hazmat-clad Thrall zombies in the latter half of the game leave an intimidating impression.
While the things you’re fighting aren’t all that outstanding, the fighting itself is rather fun. Guns feel suitably lethal, though they’re balanced somewhat by the post-WW2 setting, which means the rate of fire is always a factor. Melee attacks are pretty much the same - everything is effective, but timing is everything.
Shotguns are a real highlight, having the kind of range real ones have. Along with its damage potential, any shotgun is a good shotgun.
A quick kick can be used to boot back anything that get too close (or stop on swarmers), and it’s one of the most vital elements of combat whether you’re shooting or swinging. Swift and powerful, it stuns most opponents long enough to take out with a heavy attack or precise shot. It’s practically overpowered, but it’s also fun, so who cares?
Once you enter the woods, you’ll find an abundance of bows, which would be useful for stealth if stealth was any good. It’s barely a mechanic despite there being the usual slate of supporting features. Trying to nail a sneaky takedown or avoid hostile attention is often a waste of time - enemies can spot you almost instantly at a long distance, and they’re great at working out where arrows are being shot from.
There’s almost nowhere to hide, just patches of tall grass that never extend far enough to benefit you. Trying to hide behind a wall or box does little more than inconvenience you, since you can’t peek around objects and have no way to see past them without opening yourself up to instant detection. By the time I unlocked stealth upgrades, I’d long written off the very idea of sneaking, not that having quieter footsteps would have helped.
Another disappointing feature is bartering. Despite a big deal being made in-game of how useful traders are, nobody has anything important beyond a couple of tools found for free elsewhere. Most traders just have things you can easily find or craft, and since everything’s done via swapping - there’s no currency - you might as well drop any items you don’t need on the filthy ground.
I absolutely wasted my skill points picking up the Charisma skill early - I simply never needed to trade, especially since my inventory was always too full to do it.
Boy, was it always full!
Inventory management is Atomfall’s biggest misery. The number of slots you get is quite literally insufficient. Every item feels like a burden more than a valuable resource, especially since your paltry allowance has to be rationed between healing items, consumables, weapons, throwables, and even quest items.
There are strictly four spaces for large weapons. You can also upgrade weapons by picking up two of the same one and combining them. Do I even have to explain the ridiculous routine that occurs as a result?
A shared storage box is found in various places, but I rarely used what went in because taking stuff out meant losing space. I got caught in a loop of hoarding “just in case” until even the storage was at capacity, then I started putting shit in random drawers. I needn’t have bothered.
A note to any developer - when an item slot is a more precious commodity than anything that could fill it, your inventory balance is fucked.
Similarly, ammo and crafting materials hit their limits quickly even if you unlock the upgrade that expands them - an upgrade that only covers those two things. In all my exploring I found nothing that expanded the regular inventory, which genuinely surprised me. Maybe I missed it - it would be the only thing not immensely easy to find.
Stuff like crafting recipes and skill points are practically thrown at you, which is fine considering some of the unlocks are pure Skill Parring - you need to invest to get certain stats up to what you’d expect to start a game with. That said, skills are genuinely useful if they’re not related to trading or stealth, and finding the special learning juice that unlocks them is always enjoyable.
Atomfall’s setting does a lot to carry it (even if the protagonist can’t carry much at all). You’re a classic amnesiac, waking up in a place caught between the dilapidated and the picturesque. Despite the architectural degradation, outdoors environments are bright and sunny, a charming country vibe offsetting the grimness.
The world’s broken up into several distinct zones that lead into each other, and a central area called the Interchange that connects to all of them (and has its own unique zones). While no single place is particularly immense, Rebellion’s done a great job of maximizing space, wringing a lot of play from each one.
Backtracking is a noticeable issue, with a ton of running back and forth between zones and an Interchange that’s too sprawling and repopulated to make a good shortcut. It doesn’t help the issue of repetitive enemies, I can tell you.
By default, Atomfall doesn’t give players objective markers, breaking missions down into “leads” that provide clues on where to go - coordinates, directions, etcetera. Frankly, I don’t have time for that sort of thing, so I really appreciate the freedom to toggle various settings relating to both combat and exploration. Funnily enough, the world is designed well enough that many locations naturally guide you to important spots, and I found quite a few leads simply by chance.
One of the places I spent a ton of time in was Wyndham Village. Despite it being the least hostile area, I still enjoy how its atmosphere hammers home the environmental contrast - Wyndham’s a cozy looking place with friendly residents, if not for the overbearing army presence and a big clunking mech patrolling the square.
I enjoy the visual style a lot, and the graphics are solid save for one detail - characters' faces seem to be made of some sort of bizarre rubber. Whenever emoting, their skin wrinkles into a central point between the eyes, pulling it from the sides and top of the head to a disturbing degree. Age isn't a factor, either - even the younger characters keep turning into Zelda from Terrahawks. You can't not see it once you spot it the first time.
Alternative History Cumberland is populated by a cast of entertainingly overacted characters. There are lots of thick regional accents, including Welsh, which is always a nice treat in a videogame. The vocal performances make for some really likeable NPCs, and even the enemies can be affable.
Atomfall’s various endings are tied to specific people met along the way, each one claiming they can get you out of the zone if you trust them. Who you should trust is entirely up to you - everyone has an agenda, with no clear cut goodies or baddies.
The Protocol Captain is an authoritarian asshole, but his soldiers have the guns and gear to potentially get you out. Dr. Garrow is utterly shady, but she knows a lot and appears more self-interested than malicious. The modulated voice calling you via phone boxes seems to have a sensible goal, but insisting on trust while going out of your way to be creepy isn’t encouraging.
I went with Mother Jago in the end. Sure, her Druids are Wicker Man weirdos who chat with dirt, but one thing you can say of them is that they’re sincere. Also, I figured they had to know where the good shrooms grew.
There are others too, each with their own agenda, and your choices for dealing with them have a bit of a freeform approach - betrayal doesn’t necessarily lock you out of questlines. You can work against the Protocol’s interests on every job you do for them and then lie to the Captain about it, even framing someone for murder in at least one case.
Some choices have harsher consequences, but I was able to have all except one person’s ending ready to go, coming down to whoever’s final task I completed. Admittedly, that made the ending feel a little bit arbitrary, but the open opportunity to switch sides is nonetheless cool.
This freedom works in conjunction with the aforementioned pursuit of mission leads, creating the illusion of naturally unfolding events. It’s a great idea, but the veil isn’t without puncture marks.
Due to the lack of real loot or leveling, there’s no tangible incentive for doing everybody’s quests - everything clearly comes down to one choice at the end, and when I’d picked my side, the sense that I could just leg it to the credits made a lot of what I was doing feel more hollow.
An even bigger problem is the piss-poor way dialog choices are presented. Very little has been done to account for a player’s actions and the order in which they were performed. It was thoroughly jarring when an NPC mentioned Mother Jago and all my potential responses assumed I hadn’t met her despite having worked with her for hours.
Such instances are frequent to the point of stupidity. Apparently the amnesia hit real hard.
Outside of actual quest dialog, I’m not sure a single player experience is factored into the options. It’s such a specifically glaring oversight - a game that pushes investigation and character interactions as much as Atomfall is defeating its own purpose when it glosses over those very things.
When I write my reviews, I’m not just explaining my thoughts to you, I’m explaining them to myself. People regularly ask me what I’m “going” to score a game I’m reviewing, and I never answer due to how I approach my work - I can finish a game with a ballpark score in mind and talk myself into a totally different number by the time I’ve written a first draft.
It’s tempting to decide scores first and use the words to justify them. I think it’s a common method, not necessarily wrong, and even natural - I find myself doing it often enough. One’s mind has to be open to change though, and I’ve often changed my own as I’ve written all the thoughts down.
This is being brought up here because Atomfall really made me think about this process. I emphasized how much I liked the game early on, but after listing out so many complaints and disappointments - even ignoring the eye strain thing - I came to appreciate how much of my time was spent in frustration.
I’m not saying I’m so charismatic that I can debate myself and win, but I could convince myself to say it if I wanted me to.
Atomfall is certainly not a bad game, but it pointedly undermines itself with flaws stemming from conscious design choices that make them all the more glaring.
Stealth is defunct since nothing exists to accommodate it. An abundance of player choice is diminished by a drought of consequences. The way aggro works is refreshing but repetitively saturated enemies suffocate it. A pathetically inadequate inventory torpedoes item value and makes two other systems inherently unappealing.
That’s all before we get to how this game caused me physical discomfort in a way no other has managed. Even as a frequent migraine sufferer, I can’t say I’ve ever encountered a game that caused immediate and painful eye strain.
I’d be lying if I said I disliked Atomfall. I completed it despite what it did to my eyes, which is saying something.
I love the juxtaposing vibes of English countryside and grimy wasteland. I got a big kick out of combat, especially the literal big kick. Despite the story’s issues, I still greatly enjoyed its secretive nature and the many agendas left for the player to trust or suspect.
As an accessible alternative to radioactive shooters with an endearing British flavor, Atomfall provides a good deal of fun. Sadly, it offers self-defeating design choices and literal eye pain alongside it. All the elements of a truly great FPS are here, all the potential in the world is waiting to be realized, and if not for a pile of dropped balls, it wouldn’t have tripped and fallen off that course.
Plus, again, actual fucking eye aches.
6.5/10
