Atomfall is a unique experience from Rebellion Developments of Sniper Elite fame – a post-nuclear survival action game with extensive freedom of choice. Between the lack of traditional quests and investigating leads, your experience is very much shaped by feeling around and seeing what happens.
That seemingly extends to the development process, with lead designer Ben Fisher promising some “experimental stuff” you won’t find anywhere else. On VideoGamer’s upcoming podcast episode, Fisher said, “We took the creative pillars we were aiming for and just ran with them, so there’s some experimental stuff you wouldn’t try somewhere else because you can’t guarantee a result.”
Such is the experimentation that Fisher isn’t even sure it will pan out. “There’s some bonkers choices in Atomfall. There are events the player can trigger or completely miss that can have a huge influence on the enemy population in the game world and stuff like that…It might work, it might not…I’m looking forward to finding out.”
That part about influencing the enemy population is interesting, especially since games like Bethesda’s Fallout 4 let you destroy almost all the factions. How much further Rebellion will go remains to be seen, but it’s an exciting proposition, especially with all the iterations it went through during development.
Atomfall launches on March 27th for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS4, PS5, and PC. Check out this trailer outlining the gameplay, world, and enemies.