It’s not every day you wake up in a bunker beneath the English countryside, crawl through a radioactive hedgerow, and immediately get barked at by a bloke in a gas mask offering you tea. But then again, Atomfall isn’t your average post-apocalyptic romp. It’s weird, it’s British, it’s a bit broken in places and yet somehow, it’s absolutely brilliant.
Set in an alternate 1960s where the Windscale disaster went a lot worse than it did in our timeline, Atomfall dumps you into the rolling hills of rural Cumbria. It’s the sort of place you’d expect to find sheep, scones, and the occasional tractor, not secret experiments, mutated wildlife, and sinister cults wearing balaclavas. The result is a fascinatingly grim but oddly charming world, where quaint village greens sit awkwardly beside concrete bunkers and mushroom clouds loom on the horizon like a poorly timed weather forecast.
You play as a nameless protagonist, fresh out of a fallout shelter and understandably confused by the state of things. The government’s gone silent, the countryside is under martial law, and no one’s quite sure what was actually going on at the nuclear facility that kicked all this off. Naturally, the only way to get answers is to poke your nose into everything and annoy just about everyone.
Gameplay-wise, Atomfall is somewhere between a survival sim and an investigative open-world adventure. You’ll spend your time scavenging through abandoned homes for half-eaten pies, rigging together makeshift weapons, and trying to avoid getting mauled by irradiated badgers. And while it never quite dives into full survival-horror territory, there’s a constant tension that keeps you on your toes. Ammunition is scarce, health packs scarcer, and every corner you turn might lead to a firefight, an ambush, or a polite old woman asking you to find her missing knitting needles.
Combat isn’t flashy, but it gets the job done. Guns feel appropriately clunky, as if someone slapped together WWII leftovers with duct tape and wishful thinking — and melee weapons range from kitchen knives to a cricket bat that deserves its own character arc. Don’t expect twitchy, fast-paced action here. Fights are deliberate, often messy, and sometimes best avoided altogether. That said, when the chaos hits, like a pack of feral cultists charging at you mid-loot — the game delivers some proper “oh bollocks” moments that leave your heart thumping and your inventory a complete disaster.
What really stands out, though, is the setting. Rarely has post-nuclear doom felt so quaint. The developers have nailed the eerie beauty of decaying British countryside. There’s something hauntingly brilliant about wandering through a fog-covered moor while an old war-era radio crackles nonsense in the distance. Every location feels lived-in and abandoned all at once, like the apocalypse happened halfway through a Sunday roast and no one had time to clear the table.
Exploration is encouraged, but not in a hand-holdy “go here now” kind of way. Instead, you’re given leads, breadcrumbs that hint at stories unfolding in the world around you. You might stumble upon a crumpled note in a farmhouse leading you to a mysterious chapel, or find a key in a burned-out pub that opens a hatch beneath a bus stop. It’s subtle and it works. It makes you feel like a nosy detective in wellies, uncovering the mess left behind by a government that definitely got up to no good.
Narratively, Atomfall doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel, but it does take it off the car, give it a Geiger counter, and roll it down a radioactive lane. You’re investigating what happened, sure, but you’re also piecing together all the smaller stories, from missing children to rogue scientists and villagers who’ve gone absolutely loopy. The dialogue is surprisingly well-written, often darkly funny, and always soaked in regional character. It helps that the game never takes itself too seriously. Even when things get grim, there’s usually a moment of absurdity waiting to balance it out — like a cultist accidentally setting themselves on fire mid-monologue.
Technically, the game runs decently well, though there’s a bit of jank to be expected. A few times I found enemies moonwalking across fields or staring at walls with intense existential dread. AI can be hit or miss, some foes will flank you like pros, others will charge headfirst into your cricket bat with the enthusiasm of a discount action figure. Still, none of these issues ever broke the experience. If anything, they added to the charm in a “yeah, it’s the end of the world, what did you expect?” kind of way.
Graphically, it’s not pushing boundaries, but it has a strong visual identity. The lighting in particular is phenomenal, early morning mist, golden-hour haze, the soft flicker of a dying torch — it all sells the world better than any ultra-high-res texture pack ever could. The soundtrack, meanwhile, is a moody, ambient affair, mixing vintage radio tunes with eerie synths and distant wind. It’s atmospheric as hell and never overbearing.
By the time the credits rolled — or rather, by the time I’d poked every creaky house and looted every suspicious shed, I realised I’d become genuinely attached to this weird, irradiated slice of Britain. It’s not a perfect game. It’s rough in places, a bit clumsy in others, and occasionally leaves you wondering whether the map marker just fell asleep. But it’s got heart. It’s trying something different. It’s taken the tired post-apocalyptic formula, added a Yorkshire accent, and thrown in enough mystery, humour, and cricket bats to make it feel genuinely fresh.
So no, Atomfall doesn’t have power armour or laser guns. But it does have character, charm, and a sheep that blew up right in front of me. And honestly? That’s worth a 9/10 any day.