“Atlas Fallen has some ambitious ideas for a game of its scale, but its poor presentation holds back a promising combat system.”
Pros
Fun sand-surfing
Satisfying traversal
Thoughtful Momentum fight
Cons
Weak opening
Bad voice performing
Lackluster visuals
Technical issues
First impressions imply rather a lot, and Atlas Fallen doesn’t precisely put its greatest foot ahead.
Atlas Fallen is an bold AA fantasy open-world sport with satisfying sand-surfing motion and fight enhanced by a dynamic momentum system, however developer Deck13 doesn’t lead with any of that. Instead, my first hour with Atlas Fallen was a drag as I made my manner by means of a gradual linear opening by which my customized character finds a gauntlet with the ability of a god and escapes captivity.
The poor voice performing and visuals of Atlas Fallen have been on clear show throughout that point as I explored a dreary camp at evening, making an attempt to get help to revolt towards the evil Captain enslaving us all. Lots of worldbuilding and jargon about gods, nights, the world’s social system, and extra have been laid on me in speedy succession earlier than I ever had an opportunity to get invested in something the sport needed to say. It’s a weak opening and an omen of what was to come back. Atlas Fallen is an bold sport, however one which struggles to stay as much as that ambition persistently.
An intriguing story informed poorly
In Atlas Fallen, gamers are combating again towards the nice that guidelines over this dreary, ruined fantasy world with the assistance of Nyall. Nyall is an amnesiac being with god-like powers whose spirit is intertwined with a gauntlet that grants its consumer magical talents. Atlas Fallen’s story is about combating again towards oppression. While that’s a noble central theme, the dryness of the narrative’s supply, particularly within the opening part of the sport, made it robust to get that invested in it.
Atlas Fallen’s real looking visuals lag behind modern open-world video games …
None of that’s helped by the truth that Atlas Fallen’s presentation total is missing. It options a few of the weakest voice performing I’ve heard in a sport of this scale in a while, with poor deliveries on strains that aren’t all too properly written to start with. It can generally have a so-bad-it’s-good high quality due to how earnestly Atlas Fallen presents itself. However, it makes these early hours extraordinarily robust to get by means of, turning a doubtlessly intriguing narrative right into a low level.
Atlas Fallen’s real looking visuals lag behind modern open-world video games, and the dry conversations that dominate the sport’s early hours look stilted with tough facial and character animation. Even afterward, as sand-surfing takes middle stage, and sand results don’t look that spectacular. I used to be definitely upset the primary time I began browsing round, just for it the impact to look blurry and for any marking left behind me within the sand to vanish rapidly. In rejecting a extra stylized method akin to a sport like Journey, we’re left with a stilted realism that appears dated.
Focus Entertainment
Satisfying sand-surfing
While the opening of Atlas Fallen is disappointingly linear, it’s not emblematic of many of the sport. What I did more often than not was sand-surf from mission to mission within the open world, acquiring objects for fetch quests or combating a bunch of enemies to progress the story. While sand browsing lacks a lot of a visible influence, Atlas Fallen’s motion is satisfying. It feels closest to Forspoken as gamers can sand-surf, bounce, and air sprint throughout massive open-world areas. The capability to boost buildings sunken merchandise the sand is an thrilling contact, though its use is basically contextual.
Fluid motion is a core part of nice open-world video games, and Atlas Fallen has that. After beating it, I spent a while simply leaping and shifting across the (literal) sandbox. Sadly, the map design doesn’t do rather a lot to again that strong motion up, as the one memorable space from my journey was a sunken metropolis the place I may struggle a boss in a Colosseum. There are some egregious pop-in points too, which harm my sense of pace as the sport tore aside at its seams, unable to maintain up with me.
Focus Entertainment
It took a few hours earlier than motion choices opened up and aims grew to become non-linear sufficient that I may really get a really feel for one of many strongest elements of the sport. It’s one other manner that Atlas Fallen’s weak opening finally misleads greater than it immerses. Atlas Fallen turns into a extra gratifying journey as soon as extra motion instruments are unlocked, however there’s loads of quicksand to trudge by means of to get to that time.
Keeping up the momentum
The core of Atlas Fallen’s fight is similar to modern motion video games because it emphasizes swift gentle and heavy assaults between dodging and parrying. Some tough animations could make timing these defensive strikes difficult, but it surely’s an simply comprehensible loop that motion sport followers ought to be capable to choose up with relative ease. That’s what makes the Momentum system — which intends so as to add much more risk-versus-reward choices to each fight encounter — so intriguing.
I engaged with Atlas Fallen‘s fight on a deeper stage, taking extra dangers than I usually prefer to in robust motion video games.
Alongside my well being bar, there’s a blue momentum bar break up into three sections and slowly fills with every blow I deal an enemy. The extra I fill it, the extra talents I had at my disposal throughout a battle. The catch? The harm I take from enemies will increase because the bar fills. The solely option to regain the vitality wanted to heal is by attacking enemies, like in Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, which is one other manner the sport encourages gamers to remain on the offensive for so long as potential.
At first, I attempted to play Atlas Fallen conservatively, solely hitting the enemy as a lot as I wanted to earlier than a heal. The extra I performed, although, the extra helpful it was to keep up excessive momentum. After at the very least a 3rd of a momentum bar is full, gamers can pull off a robust “Shatter” assault at any time to interrupt what the enemy is doing and deal huge harm. This led to some intense encounters towards harder foes; I keep in mind being fairly upset in myself once I died within the final a part of the ultimate boss struggle as a result of I allowed myself to take an excessive amount of harm with excessive momentum.
Focus Entertainment
The important reward for fight encounters is Essence Stones. These, that are crafted with supplies discovered all through Atlas Fallen’s important areas, add talents as gamers achieve momentum throughout all three tiers. For every tier, gamers can have a loadout of 1 lively ability, which provides a brand new assault to the participant’s arsenal at that tier, and three passive expertise, which give passive buffs or help throughout fight. I ended up equipping myself with a really offensive construct that gave me numerous assault buffs and extra beneficiant parrying home windows, making it considerably simpler to construct momentum. This yielded fast outcomes, highlighting the true power of the standout Momentum system. Because I had the ability to tailor my character to my liking, I engaged with Atlas Fallen‘s fight on a deeper stage, taking extra dangers than I usually prefer to in robust motion video games.
Ambition vs. actuality
Despite the boundaries of Atlas Fallen’s presentation, I discovered that Deck13’s creativity did make the journey a little bit extra endearing. Loads of its boldest swings merely don’t land, although. Even inside the eight hours it took me to beat the sport whereas finishing some side-quests alongside the way in which, the sport’s aspirations all the time felt extra in depth than the scope its builders may obtain. Momentum provides an invigorating risk-versus-reward system into fight however loses its luster as fight encounters preserve taking place towards the identical enemies and get more and more repetitive as they play out the identical manner each time.
Focus Entertainment
Fluid motion is held again by lackluster visuals, tech points, and an absence of participating mission or world design that pulls me out of the expertise each time I’m not simply turning my mind off and having fun with traversal. And although Atlas Fallen’s story offers with intriguing themes in a artistic, authentic world, that’s by no means delivered in a manner that feels engrossing or polished.
Within an hour of enjoying Atlas Fallen, the sport’s strengths and weaknesses all change into clear. It’s a smaller launch punching above its weight class. That’s endearing, however ambition solely will get you thus far. Though even when a sport disappoints like Atlas Fallen, you may nonetheless usually excavate some revolutionary concepts from them. I simply needed to do loads of sifting so as to discover the gold in a sand sea of different points.
Atlas Fallen was reviewed on Xbox Series X.