Atomfall Is Structured Like The Best Tabletop RPG Campaigns

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I’ve never been particularly drawn to post-apocalyptic settings or open world games, so I wasn’t expecting Atomfall by Rebellion to appeal to me from the start. While I had hoped it might offer something fresh and surprising, its combat, exploration, and narrative elements all seemed familiar and repetitive compared to other games in the genre.

Although I acknowledge that others might find Atomfall enjoyable, as my colleague Ben Sledge rated it a strong 4 out of 5 in his review, it’s the type of game I would play only once and likely forget about, if not for one notable aspect: it evokes memories of Ravenloft for me.

Bunkers & Beasties

Castle Ravenloft, familiarly recognized as The Curse Of Strahd in the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons, stands as one of the most significant campaigns in D&D’s history. Originally penned by Tracy and Laura Hickman, it deviated from D&D’s traditional medieval fantasy setting by delving into gothic terror, offering players an immersive exploration of the vast, mysterious land of Barovia.

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The campaign setup allows players to freely investigate Barovia upon arrival, uncovering puzzles and gathering magical artifacts along the way, all with the aim of eventually invading Castle Ravenloft and vanquishing the powerful vampire lord, Strahd von Zarovich.

Unlike many other adventures that typically followed a more straightforward, sequential path, Ravenloft provided players with a greater sense of control, allowing them to select their companions and navigate the story at their own pace. Additionally, it was designed to offer a degree of replayability, as the locations of artifacts within the game are randomly generated.

In the game Atomfall, the structure remains consistent. You start by waking up in a bunker, receive cryptic instructions to locate “the Interchange”, and are then free to explore the Quarantine Zone as you see fit. Your objective is to get to the Windscale Plant, which is depicted as the epicenter of the catastrophe, and discover a way out. To achieve this, you’ll need companions and objects (specifically Atomic Batteries to energize the gear within the interchange) along the way.

Roll For Initiative, Mate

Ravenloft offers an impressive blueprint for tabletop games, and Atomfall closely mimics its design. It features patrols of hostile forces as random encounters across the Zone. Additionally, optional dungeons, remnants of the British Atomic Research Division, connect to the overarching plot through hints, background information, and gear. Crucially, while there’s a central objective, the methods you use to achieve it are open-ended.

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Despite Atomfall’s rough edges, it maintains a charming resemblance to a tabletop game. It’s like playing with an enthusiastic yet green Dungeon Master (DM). They are sincere and rule-abiding, but they follow the rules meticulously; if the Players’ Handbook states you’re on fire, applying Burn Salve requires a full action, so even if it leads to your character’s demise, you still take that fire damage.

They also insist on using Encumbrance rules, the tyrant.

In Atomfall, the characters aren’t exceptionally distinctive; the one who stands out with a hint of complexity is Vicar McHenry, but even his polite demeanor fades if you don’t support him. It’s plausible to envision our hypothetical game master attempting to give each new character a unique accent. This accounts for why the combat robots resemble Daleks, while Captain Sims mimics John Cleese. The game master is running short on voices; we can’t all be Matt Mercer, given that he’s just one person.

Atomfall Made The Right Call

Financial perspective suggests that Atomfall would thrive more as a video game compared to its potential as a tabletop game, given the vast market size, even considering the recent surge in tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs). On the other hand, I can’t help but ponder if Atomfall might have become the next Ravenloft had it been developed for tabletop gaming instead.

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In Atomfall, several issues stem from its selected format, as the player character is essentially a tabula rasa, leaving much of the character development to your imagination. Unlike traditional pen-and-paper games, the game does not provide predefined characters for you to explore the Quarantine Zone with, instead, allowing you to envision and craft your own.

Despite Atomfall’s emphasis on freedom, it encounters a common challenge shared by numerous open-ended games: your decisions often narrow down to strategies like stealthy or overt, cooperative or adversarial, aggressive or pacifist. This issue is also present in Baldur’s Gate 3, and while tabletop games may face the same broad dilemma, the added layer of live role-playing allows for a richer exploration of these dimensions.

Eventually, though Atomfall didn’t quite resonate with me, it sparked a fresh admiration for my oldest creative pastime – tabletop role-playing games (RPGs). These games offer an engaging platform for collective storytelling, and tools such as Ravenloft or Atomfall are essential in providing ample narrative and enjoyment throughout the process.

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2025-03-27 17:05