Atomfall Is A Detective Game In A Post-apocalyptic England

Atomfall is a detective game. Yes, the post-apolyctic first-person shooter from the Sniper Elite studio feels more like Paradise Killer than Fallout. Rather than ping-ponging between objective markers around a map, Atomfall's story is structured around a series of clues that are organically picked up and tracked as you explore its world. Its quests are nonlinear and you're gently guided to points of interest. From there, it's on you to reference your quest log and put the story of its world together.

Atomfall's world might look derivative given how prevalent the post-apocalyptic genre is, but its setting and tone do a lot to differentiate it from its peers. The game takes place five years after the Windscale fire of 1957, a real-world event that happened in the UK and is considered one of the worst nuclear accidents in history. However, Atomfall envisions a world that never properly recovered from that disastrous event. Violent factions have popped up all over England, irradiated monsters roam the wilds, and--of course--there might be a few government conspiracies at play.

While this may sound like Fallout England, Atomfall's tone is quite different. The dark, sarcastic humor of the wasteland is mostly replaced with a more grounded take on the genre. Creative Director Ben Fisher really wanted to capture the look and feel of British speculative fiction and science-fiction from the 1950s and 1960s, like Doctor Who and John Wyndham novels. The result feels like a uniquely British take on the post-apocalyptic setting.