At first glance, Atomfall can sometimes be mistaken for a fallout-style game. Perhaps even Actual A fallout game set in post-apocalyptic England, not post-apocalyptic America. Atomfall is the first person, post-nuclear (called Atomfall for reasons), and has an Alt History design, as Fallout makes it famous.
Ryan Greene, art director at developer Rebellion, has a full understanding of where the fallout comparisons came from. Not only that, the development team knew that Atomfall would be compared to Atomfall as soon as it was announced.
“When you play the game, you realize that it’s not a fallout, but yes, we did,” Green told Passthecontroller.
“And Jason Kingsley, one of our owners, is that he’s a huge fan fan, so there are inevitably similarities to all sorts of survival in the Apocalypse, and soon Fallout appears as things. And those guys are great at what they’re doing. And it’s cool.”
However, Atomfall doesn’t look like Fallout at all. This was pointed out last August when Atomfall reported that it was far more interesting than the UK’s fallout.
In fact, Green warned that comparisons of fallout are “misleading.”
“Once you play it, oh, this is certainly its own,” Green said. And Green pointed out that the rebellion was not a Microsoft-owned Bethesda. The independent British studio behind the Sniper Elite franchise has created an ambitious game compared to other games, but here we are not talking about the elder scroll or fallout size experience.
“The reality is that there’s this very successful franchise, version 1.0,” Green continued. “To be compared to those guys…thank you… yes, it’s because it’s a skilled team that makes something like that.”
Greene said the average Atomfall playthrough is “probably 25 hours.” But the perfectionists can extend that “long path.”
To find out how the game plays, check out Passthecontroller’s latest Atomfall hands-on preview. Simon Cardi kills everyone away from the deep end during the playthrough.
After all, you can experience the whole game and kill everyone and that will deal with it. “If you choose, you can kill who or everyone,” Green confirmed. “That’s fine. The game has multiple finishes so if you’re supposed to work through the whole thing, you’ll shut down, but there are multiple other routes to finish the game and achieve the results.”
Atomfall does not have main quests or side quests in the sense of traditional RPGs. Rather, “it’s a spider web of connected stories,” explained Green.
“So even if you cut one thread, you can usually find another thread that goes back to the overall mystery.”
Conversely, you can play Atomfall without killing anyone. At least the green is “very certain.” “I made it in about nine hours. I probably ran along the way at a very fast development speed and didn’t kill anyone,” he said. “I’m sure you can do that, and there’s no gating about having to kill someone.”
Wesley is the UK news editor at Passthecontroller. Find him on @wyp100’s Twitter. You can contact Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
