Deck13 is a developer that doesn't need an introduction for Soulslike fans, as the German studio is among the very few developers who managed to take the formula created by FromSoftware and spin it in some rather convincing ways with The Surge series. For its latest title, Atlas Fallen, the studio left behind the hardcore action RPG formula for a more straightforward one set in an interesting world and filled with some interesting mechanics whose middling execution, however, doesn't manage to make the game more than a decent action title.
Atlas Fallen takes place in a world that was almost completely destroyed by the Sun God, Thelos, who covered it with sand which left much of the previous civilization ruined and forgotten. With the fall of kingdoms also came the fall of civilization, and the many Nameless are dominated by the few capable of defending themselves against the horrors that lurk among the sands.
Controlling one of these Nameless, the player will eventually come across a mysterious Gauntlet that grants them the power to banish the Wraiths forever, as well as a deep connection with a being called Nyaal, who seems to have no recollection of how he ended up inside the Gauntlet. As they journey together, the Nameless and Nyaal will get to learn more about the Sun God Thelos and those who enforce his will and start a war against them to release the world from their clutches.
The Atlas Fallen setting and premise sound interesting enough, and they manage to stay so throughout the whole adventure, although they will hardly surprise any player since there aren't any major, unexpected twists or anything else of the sort. Characters, on the other hand, are only a step above being forgettable, as most NPCs, even those central to the story, don't do anything more than provide players with main and sub-quests to complete. The fact that the main campaign is not that long, lasting only around 20 hours, is a definite plus in Atlas Fallen's case, as a longer campaign would have made the story and characters overstay their welcome.
Just like the story, the Atlas Fallen's gameplay doesn't go beyond being just acceptable, which is a shame, as it looked much better in pre-release trailers than it actually is. It's not that it's bad, to tell the truth. It's just that many of its mechanics, which sound interesting on paper, are not executed as nicely as expected.
At its heart, Atlas Fallen is a third-person action game where players control their custom-created Nameless Gauntlet bearer as they explore five different medium-sized open areas completing quests, collecting resources to power the Nameless up, completing different activities, and defeating a variety of enemies, ranging from small to massive, multi-parts Wraiths. The best way to describe the whole experience is a sort of God of War lite, as the Deck13 game has quite a bit in common with the latest entries in the series by Santa Monica Studios, from the semi-open-world setting to character progression, which is quite different from that of a typical action role-playing game. Much like Kratos, the Nameless' level and abilities, for example, are determined by the suit of armor they wear, which also dictate their level, allowing players to compare their abilities with those of the enemies quickly.
Traversal is definitely the feature that sets Atlas Fallen apart the most from other similar action games. While the sand-covered world doesn't lead to anything particularly interesting, it is undeniable that the five different maps are designed rather well, with plenty of verticality that forces players to use their abilities to the fullest, such as double jumps and air dashes. There's usually something interesting to find in most locations, such as Essence Stones, that can be used to customize the main character's abilities and unique enemies, so exploring does feel rewarding enough, although the available activities don't really go past the run-of-the-mill open-world design seen in countless other titles.
Combat, on the other hand, is not as rewarding. Despite its superficial similarities with the combat system seen in the best character action games seen in the past few years, like Devil May Cry 5 and Hi-Fi Rush, Atlas Fallen plays nothing like these games, being more of a mix between a pure action game, a Soulslike and hunting games like the Monster Hunter series and Omega Force's Wild Hearts. On paper, this mix sounds intriguing, but in reality, not so much. While controlling the Gauntlet bearer is smooth enough, the moment they start wielding their weapons, the combat issues start becoming evident. The three available weapons don't feel good to use due to their lack of weight and the slow and clunky animations. Additionally, enemies, both huge and small, don't react to hits, forcing players to alternate attack strings, which can use two of the three available weapons, with Sandskin, a parry that can be activated at any time.
Pushing players to alternate offense and defense isn't anything new and can make any action game incredibly fun, but Atlas Fallen executes this concept in a rather shoddy way. The Momentum mechanics, which require players to fill a gauge by attacking enemies repeatedly to increase the power and size of their weapons, activate Perks and Special Moves granted by the aforementioned Essence Stones, work mostly against the parry the system due to how easy it is to miss it. Enemies flash when they are about to unleash their attacks, whether they can be parried or are unblockable, but the main issue is that the timings between the flashing and the attacks actually going off are all over the place, so it is easy to miss a parry, eat an attack and lose Momentum. Furthermore, every big Wraith will at some point summon lesser Wraiths to fight at its side, and the attack indicators are not visible enough to avoid attacks coming off-screen, which is one of the worst mechanics to have in an action game, in my opinion.
The game also seems to push towards alternating ground and aerial attacks seamlessly, but fighting enemies up in the air is even worse than fighting them grounded, as aerial movement and attacks are terribly floaty. Unleashing an attack in the air leaves the main character in the air for a few seconds, making aerial combat feel terribly clunky. It is a shame that Atlas Fallen's combat is so mediocre, as some of its mechanics are very interesting, and the enemies' design is generally good and could have made the game fun. It is also a little surprising to see this mediocre execution of some basic concepts, considering The Surge 2's combat system felt way more polished and well thought-out. That is not to say that Atlas Fallen isn't fun at all, as I still somewhat enjoyed my time with it, even more so in co-op, which is very easy to initiate. It's only that I wasn't expecting that I would be fighting the mechanics more than the Wraiths.
When it comes to visuals, Atlas Fallen won't set the world on fire. The world design is mostly alright, featuring some nice vistas over the sand-covered wasteland of the game's world, and so are the character models, although they could have done with a little more polish, detail, and, most of all, variety, as they don't look all that different from one another, lacking a distinct visual personality. The upside to these visuals that don't attempt to push boundaries further is that the game runs rather well, not counting some light pop-in and other minor visual glitches.
Powered by the studio's in-house FLEDGE Engine, Atlas Fallen isn't plagued by those horrible traversal stutters found in Unreal Engine 4 games, and performance is generally pretty smooth. On my system (i7-10700 CPU, RTX 3070 GPU, 16 GB RAM), the game ran without any issue at max settings, 120 FPS, 1440p resolution. At 4K resolution, I needed to turn AMD FSR on and some settings down to achieve a solid 90 frames per second framerate, although drops were noticeable when things got hectic during combat. Unfortunately, the game does not support either NVIDIA DLSS or Intel XeSS, so upscaling options are limited to AMD's tech. The game also features a decent enough selection of graphics settings, among them the usual Camera FOV, Motion Blur and Blur intensity, Lens Flare, and Lens Dirt Intensity, Chromatic Aberration, and Depth of Field, but it would have been nice to get more information on how each setting impacts both visuals and performance, something that is becoming slightly more common in PC ports nowadays.
Before release, Atlas Fallen looked like an intense action game that could rival the best titles released in the past few years. The execution, however, relegates Deck13's latest game to be nothing more than a decent title that can be fun if one is willing to look past its shortcomings. With a little more polish, the game could have been great, but in its current state, it will eventually become a faint memory like the world that was covered in sand by the God Thelos.
PC version tested. Review code provided by the publisher.
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