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I’ve been spotted. While sneaking around the rocks and grasses of the Druid’s Camp, I’ve been seen trying to make my getaway. It’s my fault really, I’m standing atop a ladder in plain sight for any and everyone on the lower level. Before I know it, four hostile troops are at the bottom of the ladder, armed to the teeth. I don’t want to go down, for obvious reasons, and instead let them come to me. As a head pops up over the top rung of the ladder, I smack them with a cricket bat.

Each time a head appears, I smack it back down, like a slow-paced whack-a-mole. It takes just three solid hits with a cricket bat to take down standard enemies, so each time they fall, they slowly compose themselves and – once I’ve reminded them that being out of sight doesn’t mean I’ve ran away – begin to climb the ladder again. One of my key tactics after encountering a group of enemies in this game so far is simply hiding behind something until they approach me, and then swinging until they stop fighting back. Their level of object permanence is only a few steps above your average newborn, so NPCs aren’t the most competent of foes. Their stupidity is pretty funny, though.

Atomfall is the latest game from Rebellion, the studio best known for the Sniper Elite series. Atomfall is a bit more ambitious than Sniper Elite, mind. Instead of being a relatively linear, level-based third-person shooter, Atomfall is a semi-open-world first-person RPG, more in the vein of the modern Fallout games.

Set in an alternate history Northern England in the 1960s, the Windscale nuclear disaster has ruined the landscape and civilization is a shadow of its former self. The lands are filled with crazed druids and hostile outlaws armed with sharp objects, all of whom boast a variety of accents from North of Birmingham — so it’ll feel familiar to UK natives, and not just because of the accents.

The land feels intensely hostile, so much so that I almost killed the first friendly NPC that I met. It’s not just the people you need to be wary of, there are plants that can kill you too. An old lady tending to a garden asked me to acquire a book, later an irradiated man tried to trade with me, and then a mysterious voice on the phone told me that the old woman I met was actually evil. From my perspective, I’d met around 30 people at this point, and she was one of only two that didn’t try to immediately take my life, so I was going to trust her more than the phone call.

I hadn’t been given too much context on what was going on when I was dropped into the woods near some murderous druids, but that wasn’t necessary. I quickly figured out how smart NPC AI was (not very), and that three hits from a cricket bat takes them out. What more would I need?

The ne’er-do-wells in the woods had me on edge, and the second I stepped inside a somewhat civilized village, I had my back up and my gun readied. Villages are safe havens from the chaos of the wilds, but they come with their own issues. The one I visited had leaders that were openly cracking down on the freedoms of the residents, and giant robotic armed guards ready to gun down any troublemakers. If you want to retain some semblance of a civilized existence in post-apocalyptic England, it’ll be under an oppressive boot. Some things never change.

The game immediately warned me that taking on a large group would almost certainly mean death, but there are certainly ways to work around this. You pick up a bow relatively early, and a well-placed headshot will take enemies out in one — you can pick up your fired arrows from corpses, too. Crouching in the tall grass and sniping druids is currently a fool-proof approach, as even the druids that get close to you won’t immediately notice you or hear the strumming of your bowstring. Even if things do go really wrong, you can always lead your assailants up a ladder and lie in wait with the cricket bat.

Atomfall will be released on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on March 27, 2025.