Atomfall dev praises Baldur’s Gate 3’s “maximal” approach to storytelling, but says that route is ‘not available to everyone’ – Video Gamer
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You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you’re reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games hereThe team behind Atomfall, the upcoming open-world, post-apocalyptic adventure from Rebellion, are certainly not afraid of a challenge. The game, which has made headlines for its intuitive ‘lead system’, is set to release on March 27 and looks to push the envelope when it comes to player freedom. “We didn’t want the player to be told what to do the whole time as they’re investigating,” said Atomfall’s lead designer Ben Fisher lead designer, who was speaking on the latest episode of the VideoGamer podcast. “We wanted them to feel more like a detective and have more of a sense of open freedom.”To help ground this sense of player independence and autonomy, Rebellion has ditched the traditional quest system in favour of a system that “is similar but different” aiming to gently guide or suggest the player through the world. “You have to find your objective as you explore the game world, because there are characters that may or may not want you to do something,” Fisher explains. However, having such an unscripted system does pose challenges when wanting to create narrative arcs.
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“Its easier to choreograph an emotional experience for the player if you’re sending them through an act sequence – that’s not the only way to tell a story, and leaving things much more open makes it hard to tell stories that have that overall arc. “So, if you like at something like Baldur’s Gate, they did it the expensive way, they did it the maximal way and the route they took is excellent, but that route isn’t available to everyone. So, we’re yet to see if the approach we have taken works but we’ve done it in a very Rebellion way so the player character doesn’t have a story that’s imposed upon them but instead there are lots of smaller narratives or characters you interact with in the world.”“If you like at something like Baldur’s Gate, they did it the expensive way, they did it the maximal way and the route they took is excellent.”While at first glance it’s easy to look at Atomfall’s post-nuclear backdrop and draw comparisons to the likes of Fallout and Stalker, it’s actually set five years after the 1957 Windscale nuclear disaster in Northern England, which is still regarded as one of the worst in history. Stalker fans should immediately feel right at home in Atomfall, with an enture Quarantine Zone to explore, ruined houses to ransack and items to craft. “We’re in the very, very, very final polish phase – the Day 0 patch worked,” said Fisher. “So we’ve got a solid build but it’s only once you’ve got a solid build that you really start to fine tune and tweak those little details.” For a deeper look at Atomfall’s development, read our “Making Of” article right here. The new survival game is available to pre-order now and will land on PS5, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series and PC on March 27, 2025.Talal has been writing about videogames for nearly 17 years. He has interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry and leads content at BGFG.
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