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Atomfall isn’t a Fallout clone and that's absolutely fine It turns out Atomfall won't just be "British Fallout," and I want to talk about why that's such great news for the upcoming Xbox Game Pass survival game. Opinion by Tom West Published 16 Feb 2025 Follow topics Rebellion PC Game Pass Xbox Game Pass Xbox Series X|S Opinion First Person Shooter Tom West Atomfall isn't a Fallout clone , despite the similarities of a post-nuclear setting, makeshift weaponry, and robots with a retrofuturistic vibe. Despite what has become a commonplace description of the game — I'm sure you've seen the phrase "British Fallout" a few times — as we inch ever closer to exploring the Lake District for the Atomfall achievements , it's becoming clear it isn't anything like Bethesda's famous RPG series.
So, I thought I'd dispel that myth and share some of the reasons I'm giddy with joy for the upcoming Game Pass game — and why I think you should be too! Tom's take — The coming Game Pass game is my most anticipated Xbox survival game of 2025 Release date: March 27, 2025 Platforms: Xbox Series X|S and PC Game Pass tier: Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass Atomfall immediately caught my attention when it was announced last year. It's set in the picturesque English countryside of the Lake District, Cumbria, and (likely along with many other players) my first thoughts were that Rebellion was offering up a Fallout-style experience set a little closer to home — a solid win in my book. However, the closer we get to launch and the more we learn about it, the further apart the two games become.
Based on the real-life events of the 1957 Windscale Disaster (the worst nuclear accident in British history), Atomfall offers a fictional retelling of the events with a sci-fi horror twist, putting us in the shoes of a nameless character suffering from amnesia five years later. After learning more about Atomall, the comparisons between it and Fallout are becoming few and far between. Sure, you're free to explore the Fallout games as you wish, but they're RPGs to their core, with an overarching storyline and contemporary side quests, level-based character progression, gear upgrades, and the like.
As for Atomfall, all signs point to survival gameplay — Rebellion will only task us with managing our health, though, so no need to worry about hunger, thirst, or sleep here. There are very few RPG elements , and it seems we're going to be pretty much left on our own. There are character upgrades to find, but it's a light skill system requiring you to find manuals and combine them with a rare Training Stimulant material.
Ammo and resources will be scarce and combat can be brutal, depending on the difficulties you choose. Like all the best RPGs, we'll be able to craft our own story but, this time, without any traditional 'main' storyline to follow, similar to Nintendo Switch's Breath of the Wild. Instead, Rebellion will give us leads to uncover, which we're free to follow or ignore.
I'm looking forward to just having a nose around to see what I can dig up without a major plotline hanging over my head, not that I've ever been too concerned about a game's main story while I've been randomly following dogs around to see what it does in its day-to-day life. Instead, Atomfall's world is filled with clues and mysteries to uncover that can lead to investigation threads, potentially to a way out of the quarantine zone. Without any mission markers to follow, we'll truly be free to explore the world as we wish.
A similar system is used for conversations as well, with many characters offering their take on the events which we can choose to believe or not. We'll have multiple lines of dialogue to choose from when interacting with NPCs, but if we upset the wrong person, we could effectively destroy a potential lead. "We want players to question everything, to not trust anyone.
We want players to make their own decisions, to adapt to their surroundings, and follow whichever leads they want to," Rebellion Entertainment director Ryan Greene recently told GamesRadar+ . Interestingly, none of the NPCs are safe either, as Rebellion says you can kill everyone in the game if you want to and still find enough leads to reach one of the "five or six" core endings. While that mission freedom feeds my desire for exploration, there is another system in Atomfall that is a big love of mine in open-world games like Fallout: loot.
Set five years after the Windscale incident, the quarantine zone is cut off from the rest of Britain, and as such, resources and currency are running dry. Instead of collecting gold or any other kind of dosh, merchants will trade their wares for other bits and bobs they deem of appropriate value. We'll still be lugging around tons of junk, I'm sure, but it sounds far more exciting to trade them directly instead of selling it all off for a bunch of gold over and over again.
It could also mean we'll need to be careful about what we're picking up because we'll not be able to offload everything in bulk like in other games. Atomfall is a huge step away from Rebellion's other games like Sniper Elite, but there is a bit of crossover in the world design. Similar to the popular sniper game, Atomfall will feature interconnected maps instead of a conventional open world.
The team is fantastic at creating play spaces that give you multiple routes for approaching combat and objectives, and it'll be leaning on that for this game too, so you'll be able to choose whether to stealthily creep up to an objective, or lock, load, and get blasting. Atomfall isn't the 'Fallout: Britain' game I thought it was, but the focus on survival and freedom that Rebellion is cooking is exactly what I want. While we'll need to wait until March 27 to see for ourselves, I really think this could be a contender for our list of the best Xbox games ! Are you looking forward to exploring the Lake District next month? Drop a comment below and let us know! head.
ready(function() { getTimeAgo(); }) Game Pass Ultimate Xbox Game Pass Xbox Series X|S Windows Written by Tom West Tom has been playing video games since he was old enough to hold a controller, experimenting with a number of systems until he eventually fell in love with Xbox. With a passion for the platform, he decided to make a career out of it, and now happily spends his days writing about that which he loves. If he’s not hunting for Xbox achievements, you’ll likely find him somewhere in The Elder Scrolls Online or fighting for survival in Battlefield.
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