izigame.me

Atomfall ultimately is the game equivalent of the snake biting its own tail. It suffers from limited scope - which is understandable for a relatively indie action-RPG - but still doesn't manage to excel at what it did focus on.
I'll explain.
If you play Atomfall expecting it to be a Bethesda (or, more apt, Obsidian) level triple-A RPG, you will not be happy with what you get. Atomfall is, however, a well written story with the trappings of various systems muddled together but none of which really shine. Because of this, it never feels novel anywhere. There's nothing new or refreshing here. It's like someone had a checklist and on it was 'Combat', 'Story', 'Talent Points' and Rebellion just went down the line. What you get is table steaks. Are table steaks bad? Not necessarily, I can smother that A1 if I need to but sadly Atomfall is abundantly lacking in A1 so all we're left with is bland, rote, and familiar.
What I Enjoyed:
- The story was well written and easy to follow. It slow-drips just enough information to keep you interested without drowning you in an overabundance of garbage that doesn't move the plot along.
- The guns in the game are very well done in the sense that they are meaty, loud, and brash. They feel good to use, there's a weight there that I appreciate.
- The landscape and setting with a sort of 'hub' in the Interchange was well thought out and, for the most part, pretty to look at.
What I Didnt Enjoy:
- The ending of the game is terrible. The last 2 hours were just a mind-boggling series of me going 'Why?'. There is no 'end boss'. The decision tree concludes in, literally, a 90second cut scene. Nothing is explained (and I read every bit of lore I could).
- Combat is awful, specifically the AI. Enemies just slowly plod along at you and you can basically just hug a corner and shoot them in the head forever. On the hardest difficulty, nothing posed a challenge. Enemies would get stuck in loops (walk forward then backward), get snagged on the world, stop moving entirely. Like, its bad. It feels like a college level computer science degrees final project...
- Melee combat is similarly jank. All you can do is swing, swing hard, and kick. Thats it. No block, no parry, no melee skills or abilities. So on the off chance you decide to melee, its pretty much a game of whack a mole - its just lifeless and uninspired.
- Graphically the world is pretty but feels overly sharpened, like someone jacked up the contrast to 200%. It gives off this weird sense that everything is out of place or fake. Nothing is soft, the aliasing feels unusually weak and everything feels like a stop-motion picture. Hard to explain.
- There is a serious shortage of enemy types in Atomfall. It basically boils down to about 5 - humanoids (Outlaws, Druids, Protocol, Thralls), Ferals, Bots, Mantraps, and Turrets. That's it. There's not a single animal in the game and 95% of the time you will be killing the same humanoids using the same weapons saying the same voice lines from hour 2 through hour 20. I was honestly shocked at how few enemy types there were, pretty wild.
- All of the talent points feel absolutely worthless. None of them unlock skills, its just 'you have more hp' or 'you have less recoil' or 'you craft things faster'. Absolutely nothing in that tree felt impactful. It was so anti-climatic ... Id be all stoked to get a new talent only to feel like absolutely nothing changed. "Oh yay I take less burn damage from the 4 enemies in the entire game that actually do fire damage..."
- The world itself feels very dead. NPC's rarely move, if they do its very scripted. You can't interact with anything besides crates and doors. Theres no weather or day/night cycle. Despite 25 hours of gametime, it was bright and sunny the entire time. There are no dynamic events to join. The world itself doesn't ever change, you're just a chess piece moving across the board. You'll hear plenty of animals as background noise and never see a one. Outside of the quirky and jovial English NPC's and their voice lines, the world is just....dead.
At the end of the day I fully understand that not every RPG can be the size and scope of a Baldurs Gate or Avowed and I appreciate that. Money doesn't grow on trees, projects take time, resources are limited. But where Atomfall falls short is even accepting this and limiting its scope, what it DID keep off the cutting room floor isn't exciting, new, or, dare I say, fun.
I could recommend getting this at a substantial discount knowing its a roughly 20 hour story driven romp but beyond that I am, unfortunately disappointed with Atomfall and can't, at this time, give it the ole steam thumbs up.