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New York Times
27-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Atomfall's Nuclear Disaster Has a Toxic Element: Tedium
Atomfall, an open-world role-playing game set in the verdant English countryside of the mid-20th century, is hampered by questionable design choices that made me wonder if I'd fallen into a time warp and was playing a spiffy-looking game from 15 years ago. There are narrative tropes, flat characters and unimaginative enemies everywhere. The latest game from Rebellion — an Oxford studio best known for the Sniper Elite series — spins an alternative history around the 1957 Windscale fire, the worst nuclear event in British annals. The fire, which affected one of the two nuclear reactors in the Cumberland area of northwestern England, released radioactive material into the environment, but the disaster was downplayed by the British government. It's a small irony, then, that Atomfall opens with newsreel footage that depicts the British military cutting off contact between the area around the reactor and the outside world. I can't say that Atomfall's opening inspires confidence. At the start, my unnamed character is roused from a cot inside a bunker by a scientist in a hazmat suit with a gaping wound to his side. In response to my character's obvious confusion, the scientist hastily sets the scene: 'You're trapped in the quarantine zone around the Windscale atom plant. That's where it all went wrong.' In the mythology of the game, the Windscale incident followed a top-secret scientific discovery. But may we all agree that at this point in video game history, an amnesiac protagonist should be included only if there are a number of mind-melting payoffs queued up? Soon after emerging from the bunker into the bright light of day, in the manner of the Fallout games, I encountered a group of outlaws who told me to back away lest there be trouble. Perhaps if they endeavored upon an actual conversation I wouldn't have resorted to the ol' ultra violence. But everything about them signaled that they were disposable, forgettable antagonists. I made my way to Wyndham Village, where military personnel patrol the streets while the locals tend to their affairs. The nonplayer characters, who provide texture and memorable moments in stronger role-playing games, are here little more than tiny founts of information with a splash of personality to stretch them into one-dimensional beings. At a country house, I encountered a doddering lady who asked me to find her missing servant. After I discovered and relayed the servant's fate, she told me that I could be a replacement. That ha-ha revelation and some generic loot gained from reaching a previously locked-off part of the estate's grounds was one of the game's ho-hum quests. A bulk of Atomfall's main story line involves restoring power to a secret government facility called the Interchange. (Yet another overused plot device I could happily do without.) The first time I encountered one of the ferals — the blue zombielike enemies who lurk there — I groaned inside. They struck me as generic, not scary. Moving deeper into the facility I encountered what looked to be possessed scientists in hazmat suits who were far more difficult to kill; they followed me through tight environments with a tenacity that reminded me of Mr. X in Resident Evil 2. I found them, in addition to some of the robot enemies that patrol the Interchange, marginally more interesting to spar with. That said, the artificial intelligence of enemies can be easily manipulated. My favorite thing about Atomfall is its suite of accessibility options, which allow you to fine-tune your experience at any point. On the recommended setting, the player must rely on a compass to navigate; this can be tweaked so waypoints for objectives are shown on the map, the only way I avoided checking out earlier. From its lackluster opening until the 25th hour, I held out hope that Atomfall would eventually satisfy — but to my dismay, it never did. I should have just stayed in the bunker.
BBC News
27-03-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Atomfall: How a forgotten nuclear disaster inspired a video game
Fukushima. Three Mile Island. Chernobyl. Places that will forever be remembered as the sites of nuclear people will have heard of them. But fewer are aware of the Windscale was one of the world's first - and remains the UK's worst - nuclear accident.A nuclear reactor at the site in Cumbria caught fire and burned for three days, releasing radioactive material into the details of the event were kept quiet for decades, and it is far less famous than some of the more recent a new video game has brought the disaster, and the area where it happened, back into the spotlight. Atomfall is the latest release from Oxford-based Rebellion, best known for its long-running Sniper Elite Jason Kingsley tells BBC Newsbeat he was walking in the Lake District when the idea of using the real-life Windscale story "as a trigger point for a fictionalised version of the disaster" began to take is set in the rolling green landscapes of the beauty spot, but on an alternative sci-fi inspired timeline where the area surrounding the plant has become a quarantine zone."It went pretty wrong in real life, but it was controlled," says Jason. "It was a proper disaster, but it didn't cause strange glowing plants or mutants or dangerous cults to emerge." Although the Windscale fire was "very serious", Jason says it's not something that is especially well-remembered, even among is estimated about 240 cases of thyroid cancer were caused by the radioactive leak and all milk produced within 310 square miles (800 square km) of the site was destroyed for a month after the was eventually renamed Sellafield and produced nuclear power until 2003. It still employs about 10,000 people in the local Newsbeat visits Cumbria, most young people we speak to say they haven't heard of the indie game developers Hannah Roberts and Harry Hawson say that they became more aware of it once the game was two people like them, who hope to break into the games industry, they're excited to see a game set in the place where they 26, says it's evident Atomfall's makers have done their research. "The actual environments are spot on, they've got fantastic Morris dancing stuff going on - it really tickled me when I saw that," she says. Hannah says other small details - like black and white Cumbrian signposts - were also pleasing to setting and its inspiration have made it an anticipated title since it was first revealed last year, and Harry, 23, says that's been encouraging for him. "Seeing that such a small space like Cumbria can be taken by the games industry and built upon and people are receptive to that, it's exciting for the future and I look forward to seeing what's next for me," he says. It's fairly unusual for high-profile games set in the UK to be set outside London. While indie games - such as the Shropshire-set Everybody's Gone to the Rapture and last year's Barnsley-based laughfest Thank Goodness You're Here! - have ventured further north, bigger games haven't tended to stray beyond the says the US is about 40% of the video games market, so it's important to appeal to players there, and there's a "natural tendency" to follow the an independent company, he feels, allows Rebellion to do things differently, and Britain offers lots of inspiration for new settings - if you're prepared to look for them."The UK, I think, to understand certain aspects of our culture, you've got to dig into it a little bit because we tend to understate things quite a lot."Head designer Ben Fisher says the goal was to create a "slightly theme parkish" version of the Lake District with accurate details."There are things that, as locals, it's easy for us to forget are unique to Britain, that are unusual," he team that worked on the game has members from various countries, Ben says, which helped to highlight things the UK natives might have missed."The lead artist on the project is from Seattle and was mystified by dry stone walls," says adds the team spent time recreating the structures - which are constructed without the use of mortar - to "capture those local details".Featuring a local area in a film or TV show can expose a new audience to that place."Ultimately, what's incredibly rewarding about this industry is you can put your ideas down and they can be played by people across the globe," Jason says."And you know, how wonderful is it to sort of talk about the Lake District to people that live in Africa or Southeast Asia or Canada or wherever it might be. "That's a kind of form of soft power that very few types of media have." Oliver Hodgson, 21, can see Sellafield from his bedroom hopes that the local area will benefit from some of the soft power Jason describes."I think it's just an incredibly powerful thing for young people in west Cumbria," he says. "I think it's really positive to see such a big gaming developer set a story in Cumbria, which is normally just known for its lakes and mountains," he who runs his own PR firm, is working with the creators of a project to create a £4m gaming hub in Whitehaven aimed at boosting digital skills in the says he's glad the game has taken its inspiration from Windscale and is drawing attention to the area, as well as switching locals on to their history."I think we should own it,' he says. 'The story of the Windscale disaster obviously isn't a positive one but we can't rewrite history. "So acknowledging what happened and teaching and letting young people learn about that history, if this is what brings it into the classroom or on to young people's phones or their social media, then so be it." Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.
