Atomfall Devs Anticipate Fallout Comparisons, 25-Hour Playthrough

At first glance, you might mistake Atomfall for a Fallout-style game, perhaps even an actual Fallout game set in a post-apocalyptic England rather than America. Atomfall is first-person, post-nuclear, and features an alt-history design, much like Fallout does. However, despite these similarities, Atomfall is distinctly its own game.

Ryan Greene, the art director at developer Rebellion, acknowledges the inevitable comparisons to Fallout. "Once you play the game, you realize it's not Fallout, but yes, we knew," Greene told IGN. He pointed out that one of Rebellion's owners, Jason Kingsley, is a big Fallout fan, which naturally led to some parallels. "And those guys are great at what they do. And that's cool," Greene added, showing appreciation for the Fallout team.

But Atomfall isn’t really like Fallout at all. This was highlighted by IGN last August when we reported that Atomfall offers a unique experience distinct from a British Fallout. Greene warned that the Fallout comparison is “misleading.” “Once you play it for a bit, you're like, oh, this is its own thing for sure,” he said. Rebellion, the independently owned British studio behind the Sniper Elite franchise, has crafted an ambitious game, but it's not on the scale of Elder Scrolls or Fallout.

“The reality is, here’s this very successful franchise and we're version 1.0,” Greene continued. “To be compared to those guys… thank you very much… Yes, we appreciate it because that’s a skillful team that's making that stuff.”

Atomfall screenshots

13 ImagesAn average playthrough of Atomfall, according to Greene, lasts around “25-ish hours,” though completionists can extend their gameplay significantly.

To get a feel for how Atomfall plays, check out IGN’s recent hands-on preview, where our Simon Cardy explored the game's mechanics by going on a killing spree. Interestingly, Greene confirmed that players can choose to kill everyone in the game, and it will still progress. “You can kill anyone or everyone if you choose,” he said. “That's fine. We have multiple finishes to the game, so some of those would shut down if you were supposed to work with them throughout, but you'll find multiple other routes to finish the game and achieve a result.”

How Will You Play Atomfall? ---------------------------

Keep calm and carry onKill everyone!Kill no-one!Somewhere in-between (let us know in the comments!)

AnswerSee ResultsAtomfall doesn’t follow the traditional RPG structure of main and side quests. Instead, Greene described it as “a spider web of connected story.” “So even if you sever one thread, you can usually find another thread that leads you back to the overall mystery.”

On the other hand, players can also complete Atomfall without killing anyone. Greene is “fairly certain” this is possible. “I've made it about nine hours in, probably close to halfway running at a pretty fast dev play speed and killed no one,” he said. “I'm fairly certain you can do it and there's no gating of having to kill anyone ever.”