Best known for its Sniper Elite and Zombie Army series, British developer Rebellion this time tries its hand at an open world adventure, Atomfall. Based on the same in-house engine as its other projects and running on both current and last-gen machines (plus PC), it’s nonetheless a steep departure for the studio – and therefore an interesting challenge for its Asura engine that we last saw in 2022’s Sniper Elite 5.
Perhaps the most striking aspect of all is Atomfall’s alternative history Cumbrian setting, which sees the player wake up in a bunker near a nuclear diaster quarantine area. There are elements of the refined run-and-gun gameplay that Rebellion is known for, with plenty more on top: survival elements, multiple pathways, branching dialogue with NPCs, stealth and investigation. It’s a welcome jump into new territory, drawing comparisons with Bethesda’s Fallout series, though there are plenty of differences here too.
One notable tech change is that Atomfall tends to divide its environment into chunks, with loading screens in between, though its areas are still suitably vast. Viewed from afar there is a beauty to its landscapes, but it’s clear from our testing that there are also rough points in its technical delivery – that could be attributed to the decision to target both current and last-gen consoles. We’ve tested the game on PS5 Pro, PS5, Series X and Series S for this face-off, and even on current-gen machines there are certainly better and worse choices of platform.
Before we get into the platform comparisons, it’s worth discussing some of the less favourable elements of the game’s tech. Texture quality falls flat on current-gen systems, for a start, with low resolution assets used for a great many surfaces. Screen space reflections (SSR) are also a distraction, where the technique used on console has large water bodies flicker with player movement. And finally, image quality is lacking, due to the game’s anti-aliasing method struggling to address the flicker and noise during any camera movement.