Atomfall Preview: We played the new survival hit for hours

Atomfall Preview: Welcome to England

Five years have passed since a massive nuclear disaster shook England. Five years after the world changed forever, you find yourself in the Windscale region in the north of England in the upcoming survival action game Atomfall.

The year is 1962 and we find ourselves in the radioactively contaminated restricted area around the Windscale nuclear power plant, where picturesque British landscapes with green hills and rural villages, as well as mutated plants and animals, go hand in hand.

Atomfall is reminiscent of titles such as STALKER 2 or Fallout in places, but takes a fresh, unused direction with its British setting. You will look in vain for nuclear deserts and barren valleys here. Instead, you will find yourself in picturesque but extremely dangerous forests where everything and everyone is out to get you.

In our Atomfall preview, we had the opportunity to play around two hours of the game ourselves. We were able to explore the game world completely freely for around two to three hours after the opening. And we experienced a lot in the process.

Far Cry meets STALKER

But how does Atomfall actually play? Surprisingly, quite differently than I had initially assumed. The survival parts of the game are significantly less than I initially thought.

Essentially, you can think of the game as a mixture of Far Cry and STALKER: An open-world game from a first-person perspective whose world you can explore completely freely. The survival-typical base building is not present, at least in the version we played. There is, of course, a crafting system, but this is limited to cobbling together formations, throwing items such as Molotov cocktails and fragmentation bombs or ammunition.

I personally find this very refreshing, as the title is noticeably more action-heavy than most of its competitors. Almost like a shooter, really. With the difference that ammunition is scarce in Atomfall and you’re more likely to use powerful melee weapons such as a lumberjack’s axe, sickle or cricket bat.

However, you should weigh up the open confrontation carefully, as the battles in the game are merciless. After just a few hits, your character will die and you will find yourself at the last save point. The fact that enemies rarely roam the landscape alone, but often flock together in small and large groups, doesn’t necessarily make things any easier.

This is where the easy survival mechanics come into play. You use scraps of cloth and alcohol to make bandages that stop bleeding and heal you. In the cultists’ village, you can quickly help yourself to tomatoes and bread to replenish your life bar.

It all works very well, but anyone expecting a true survival game in Atomfall might be a little disappointed. The crafting system is very rudimentary, at least in our preview version. Unfortunately, we can’t say at the moment whether more complex options and recipes will be added as the game progresses.

What we can say, however: The battles are already extremely intense, powerful and varied. It’s a lot of fun. Especially as the possibilities with stealth takedowns, firearms and thrown objects are very diverse.

Where will the journey take us?

Playing freedom is very important in Atomfall. It’s entirely up to you which corners of the game world around Windscale you want to explore. It’s up to you which missions you accept, in which order you tackle them or… whether you simply kill the quest givers and appropriate their inventory.

None of the NPCs are immortal. It’s entirely up to you whether you bury the nice British granny with the fancy flowered hat, who introduces herself to us as Mother Jago, in her herb garden or follow her task of retrieving a book from a cultist camp.

We opt for the latter and get a rough hint from the lady as to where the druid fortress should be located. Atomfall also takes a fresh approach here, because instead of leading you directly to your destination with a quest marker on the map, the action game sometimes only gives you a rough direction, but sometimes approximate coordinates for the mission.

Mother Jado lets us go on our journey by telling us that the area of Casterfell Woods, where the fortress is located, is very dangerous. We will soon find out for ourselves what she means by this.

Because numerous dangers lurk in the depths of the forest. Not only in the form of mysterious druids with their terrifying cloth masks and medieval robes, but also in the form of mutated poisonous plants that spit corrosive acid at us from a great distance.

An incredibly dense atmospheric atmosphere quickly emerges, which absolutely sweeps us away. Any misstep could have fatal consequences. Absolutely gripping!

Intense fights

A cautious approach is the top priority. We can easily take on one opponent, but two or three of the druids can be a real nuisance. Atomfall makes for extremely intense gameplay that clearly favors sneaking.

We move silently through the tall grass, observe the routes of our enemies and then – at the right moment – strike with a silent stealth takedown from behind a tree. In theory, this works very well. In practice, however, the game can be quite tricky, as enemies feel like they can spot us from a hundred kilometers away, while we can barely make them out ourselves in the dark forest.

And they don’t want to give up their pursuit, even if we flee several hundred meters into the thicket through a huge greenhouse complex. This can be quite exhausting, but rarely caused frustration during our playthrough. After all, we had filled our rucksack to the top with bandages and bread to replenish our life energy.

However, caution is advised when feeding and healing: Because while you rummage in your backpack in the menu, the game continues and you always remain vulnerable to attack.

During the course of the game you will find numerous firearms, ranging from rusty revolvers to submachine guns and shotguns. All well and good, but I never found more than a handful of bullets. So you’d better save your ammunition for tougher fights.

It’s a completely different story with the bow, as the druid fortress was teeming with Robin Hood wannabes who were kind enough to give me a large supply of arrows.

Of course, this made it much easier to proceed silently, but the game doesn’t become a self-runner either. Because it takes a long time to draw the bow. If two or three enemies come running at you, the weapon isn’t much use either.

Atomfall Preview: Conclusion

Atomfall surprised me in an absolutely positive way when I played it. The action-heavy approach suits the game perfectly and plays much faster than is normally the case with survival games.

Added to this is the truly unique post-apocalyptic England setting, which quickly captivated me with its lush meadows, gloomy forests and mysterious bunkers. The fact that the crafting system is very rudimentary, at least from what I’ve seen so far, and that there is no base building, doesn’t bother me either.

However, I have seen very little of the story and game world, even three weeks before release. It remains to be seen whether these will be exciting enough to keep you motivated until the end. But if things continue as my odyssey through the Casterfell Woods began, then we’re in for a convincing open-world shooter at the end of March.

Rating: Good to very good