The first five minutes into my two-hour preview of Atomfall do not go well. This is, admittedly, not Atomfall’s fault. I’m dropped unceremoniously into the Cumbrian wilds of Casterfell Woods from a pre-existing save file. A river wends its way directly ahead, flanked by stone steps. I wander up the steps on the right and into the ruins of a miner’s shack. “Death to unbelievers!” a masked woman screams as a detection meter cycles through white, yellow, then red. I turn tail to sprint up the steps on the left, and straight into a folk horror nightmare of cheery maypoles and human sacrifice. Alright, then.
Once I’ve battered my pursuers to death with a cricket bat, the immediately familiar blend of Bethesda-style RPG and light survival game elements help me get my bearings. This might be my first time in Atomfall, but it’s far from my first time in Cumbria – though this version is not quite as I know it. An Ordnance Survey Map is my only guide, an unexpected throwback to my hike to Helvellyn several years back. Aside from a few points of interest, represented as hastily scribbled illustrations, the map is otherwise refreshingly blank.
Rebellion has taken William Blake’s “green and pleasant land” to heart; Atomfall may well be the most vibrant and idyllic quarantine zone I’ve ever taken a stroll through. I’ve long considered Cumbria the perfect setting for an open-world game. Its fells and tarns, bothies and druids’ circles, all amount to a primordial landscape as picturesque as it is unsettling. You are as close to history as you are to the wide-open sky, but that boundless freedom can occasionally tip into agoraphobia and even paranoia. When popular culture is so preoccupied with London for the benefit of its global audience, it’s a real joy to pick through a landscape so close to my own cultural heritage – though I’d rather die than call a bread bun a teacake.
Hair-trigger druids aside, it’s immediately apparent that Rebellion has had to contend that the UK’s wildlife is quite a bit more docile than across the pond. No scorpions, rattlesnakes, or coyotes roam our countryside; even our badgers aren’t particularly aggressive, though I have been wary of a seagull or two in Whitehaven. Instead, the greatest zoological threat I face in Casterfell Woods are mutant wasps that emerge from their (presumably) irradiated hives to swarm me. Anyone who’s been in a pub garden in Windemere knows the experience well. The absence of sheep, cows, or horses is a little unnerving; those hiking trails have never looked cleaner.
Of course, Atomfall isn’t meant to be a Lake District walking simulator. Rebellion takes inspiration from classic British speculative fiction like The Quatermass Experiment and Doctor Who, plus modern thrillers like Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach book trilogy, and it’s the latter that makes me consider that Atomfall’s lack of livestock is a deliberate choice. These colossal influences are fed through the filter of Cumbria’s pagan past – though Atomfall’s wooden effigies and festoons of maypole bunting evoke Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man more than the Birkrigg stone circle. Atomfall’s ubiquitous red telephone box is perhaps a better representation. It occasionally rings, and when I answer it, a gravel-voiced speaker talks in riddles and portents.
Following this telephone box trail leads me to Wyndham, a fictitious village that presumably pays homage to sci-fi novelist John Wyndham. It’s characterized by its low stone walls, Union Jack bunting, and locals-only pub. In short, it’s the Cumbrian village archetype. Poking around its country lanes and stone mills reminds me of childhood visits to Beamish, the Living Museum of the North. On Wyndham’s outskirts, I meet Prudence Rook, an upper-class southerner who could easily score a bronze medal in a Queen Elizabeth lookalike contest. She’s sequestered in her stately manor, in the relative comfort of post-fallout denial. “I was just looking over the garden. We’ve rather let it get away from us, I’m sorry to say,” she says apologetically. I look to my immediate right, where ivy blankets the entire opposite wall. I look back at Prudence. Keep calm and carry on, indeed.
Back in the village, the bandstand on the green has been overtaken by a plummy captain who blares the moral dangers of paganism from a tinny loudspeaker. Alf Buckshaw, the landlord at the Grendel’s Head pub, tells me that the captain treats strangers better than the villagers, then assures me that he isn’t a gossip. He does still manage to tell me about the arrest of a scientist, a local conspiracy theory, and London’s military occupation following the Windscale accident. “Plenty ‘round here reckon it’s what it would’ve been like if the Nazis had invaded after all,” he imparts, but I didn’t hear that from him. After all, Alf doesn’t gossip.
Atomfall’s cast of eccentrics goes a long way to capture northern hospitality and aggression in equal measure; I’m called a bastard as many times as I’m told I’m jammy or, god forbid, mithering. Perhaps more importantly, Rebellion doesn’t overdo it. My biggest disappointment? The glaring omission of Kendal Mint Cake, a Cumbrian staple and the energy bar for would-be survivalists in the area. Kendal Mint Cake is an institution that’s powered me up the steepest Lakeland fells, and the only reason I’ll accept for its absence is that the denizens of Atomfall’s quarantine zone have simply eaten it all. And don’t even get me started on the apparent shortage of Cumberland sausage…
It’s difficult to decouple Atomfall from the Bethesda formula, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I come away from my two-hour stint with an impression of a survival RPG that knows what it wants to be. If Avowed’s warm reception proves anything, there’s nothing wrong with delivering a solid experience built on a tried-and-tested foundation. Much like Prudence, I’m inclined to overlook Atomfall’s clunky melee combat and scaled-back immersive sim elements for the comfort of an RPG that I’ve kind-of, sort-of played before. Atomfall’s setting is the real draw, and for this dyed-in-the-wool northerner, it’s enough to win me over.
The Atomfall release date lands March 27.