Atomfall Devs Expected Fallout Comparisons, 25-Hour Playthrough

At first glance, you might mistake Atomfall for a Fallout-style game. Perhaps, you might even think it's an actual Fallout game set in a post-apocalyptic England instead of the usual post-apocalyptic America. Atomfall is a first-person, post-nuclear game (aptly named Atomfall), featuring an alt-history design reminiscent of the Fallout series.

Ryan Greene, the art director at developer Rebellion, completely understands why people draw comparisons to Fallout. The development team anticipated these comparisons right from the game's reveal. "Once you play the game, you realize it's not Fallout, but yes, we knew," Greene told IGN. He added that one of Rebellion's owners, Jason Kingsley, is a big Fallout fan, so parallels were inevitable. "And those guys are great at what they do. And that's cool," Greene said, acknowledging the skill of the Fallout developers.

However, IGN pointed out last August that Atomfall is something much more interesting than just a British version of Fallout. Greene himself warned that the comparison is "misleading." "Once you play it for a bit, you're like, oh, this is its own thing for sure," he stated. Rebellion, an independently owned British studio known for the Sniper Elite franchise, is not Microsoft-owned Bethesda. Atomfall is ambitious but distinct from the expansive Elder Scrolls or Fallout experiences. "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

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Greene mentioned that an average playthrough of Atomfall would take "probably 25-ish hours," but completionists can extend their playtime significantly. For a detailed look at how the game plays, check out IGN’s most recent Atomfall hands-on preview, where Simon Cardy explored the game by killing everyone during his playthrough.

Interestingly, Atomfall allows for extreme player choices. "You can kill anyone or everyone if you choose," Greene confirmed. "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."

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Unlike traditional RPGs, Atomfall doesn't feature main or side quests in the conventional sense. Instead, Greene described it as "a spider web of connected story." He explained, "So even if you sever one thread, you can usually find another thread that leads you back to the overall mystery."

On the other end of the spectrum, players can also choose to play through 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."