Since it was revealed in 2024, Atomfall has been constantly compared to the Fallout series. Despite Rebellion's post-apocalyptic open-world game doing its own thing for the most part, there is undoubtedly some inspiration from its contemporaries. But the biggest draw for Atomfall is – in my eyes at least – its exploring post-nuclear disaster version of England (no, not modern-day Birmingham), as the game is based on an alternate history where the Windscale fire in Cumbria back in 1957 resulted in the Lake District becoming a Fallout-esque disaster zone.
However, Atomfall designer Ben Fisher has said that he was somewhat inspired by Fallout, more specifically, the best Fallout game: New Vegas. This was something that he was quizzed about when speaking to TheGamer. "The narrative [of New Vegas] largely all reflects this key location and the events happening in that location, and all of the characters you come across are esoteric people that have a perspective on this central location," Fisher explained. This is one of the inspirations when it comes to world design, but it takes another cue from New Vegas: being able to kill every character.
Fisher revealed that earlier in development, "Atomfall was structured more like Metroidvania," but it wasn’t quite coming together. "So we asked the question, what happens if we lean right into that Rebellion cultural DNA of giving players freedom and openness?" Fisher said, before coming to the conclusion, "What if we just let them kill everyone? And you know, they might close routes to themselves, but that's fine. That's valid for their play style." TheGamer’s Rhiannon Bevan noted in the interview that the game has ‘mysterious phone boxes’ that feature "an unknown caller nudging you in certain directions," so it looks like there are safety nets allowing you to be able to finish the story even if every NPC is in the ground.
But then again, the opposite is also true. Fisher claimed that you can, in fact, play through Atomfall without killing a single soul. Although as someone who played a build of the game at Gamescom 2024 and got beaten down what had to be 10-plus times in the hour I played, I don’t think many players will stick to their pacifist aspirations.
Atomfall is out later this month, but if you really can’t wait, why not check out our list of games like Fallout to scratch that nuclear itch (which you should really get checked out)?
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