Atomfall drops you straight into exploring its mysterious, dangerous Quarantine Zone. As helpful as the popups, tooltips, and loading screen hints are, there’s a lot to figure out on your own. The gameplay will feel familiar to a lot of players, but things are just different enough that you might find yourself surprised at inopportune times.
Before getting too far from the Bunker where you first find yourself, it’s a good idea to go over these tips. They’ll help you be prepared for your adventure, and the dangers that lie ahead.
Scavenge Everywhere
The rest of the Zone’s inhabitants have a five-year head start on you when it comes to taking anything valuable or useful that’s lying around. Everything left, from crafting material to ammo, will be tucked away at the bottoms of crates and the backs of shelves. If you want to have enough supplies to survive, you’re going to have to look positively everywhere.
In general, the safer an area is, the less stuff you’ll be able to find there. Infiltrating an enemy camp means you’ll be able to steal their hoarded supplies, but the risk of being caught and attacked means it’s a gamble.
Be Stingy With Ammo
If you’re not careful, it’s very easy to spend ammo faster than you can replenish it in Atomfall. It’s important to make every shot count; take time to aim instead of firing rapidly, and go for the head to eliminate hostiles with as few shots as possible.
Remember, gunshots are loud, so shooting an enemy may attract other foes to your position.
This isn’t to say that you should hoard ammo; on the contrary, if you’re being charged by a Feral or find yourself surrounded by bloodthirsty Druids, a few well-placed bullets or shotgun shells might be what saves your skin. The point is, if a melee weapon will do the trick, save your bullets for dire situations like those we just described.
Kick Often In Melee
At tempting as it can be to try and rush down your opponents’ health, especially with fast-attacking weapons like the farming knife, you’ll often find yourself coming out of a fight in better shape if you mix in lots of kicks to maintain distance from your foes.
Not only does a kick push back every enemy that it hits a good meter or so, it also briefly stuns them, giving you time to reposition, reload, or follow up with a deadly melee combo. Kicks also do a small amount of damage, which can end up being the fatal blow, saving you the trouble!
Use A Gun To Scare Lone Enemies
If you’re wandering an area that might have hostiles (which is most of them), it’s a good idea to have a gun at the ready, even if it isn’t loaded. Unless you’re trespassing inside an enemy camp, wandering foes will often be startled if they run into you, and pointing a gun at them can get them to back off if they’re alone.
Enemies who have a gun of their own are much less likely to be successfully intimidated this way, and Ferals don’t know what a gun is so you can’t scare them.
Enemies will rarely flee outright, and they’ll eventually decide to take the risk and attack even despite the danger, but intimidating an enemy will buy you several extra seconds to loot the area, leave… or just shoot them, since they’d do the same to you.
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Takedowns Aren’t Stealthy
Sneaking up behind unsuspecting enemies to finish them without a fight is a staple of gaming at this point, and these takedowns are essential to survival in Atomfall. However, it’s critical to know that eliminating an enemy from behind isn’t quiet or clean, and if there are other foes in the area they’re likely to hear the commotion.
You should still definitely try to get the drop on lone enemies, and if you’re in a camp or lair a takedown is a good idea as long as you leave the room immediately afterward. If you’re trying to ambush a patrol, though, a burst of SMG fire or laying an explosive trap is the way to go, as sneaking up on the rearmost enemy will just cause the others to turn around and attack you.
Be Patient
Unless you’re running from active pursuers, you can afford to wait for most things in Atomfall. If an area is heavily patrolled, lay low until the enemies pass. If a trader doesn’t have what you need, check back with them later.
This applies to travel, too. There’s a lot to explore, and as we mentioned above, you need to scavenge to survive. Taking the long way and uncovering new supplies, leads, and secrets is absolutely the way to go in this game.
Take Notes
Your carrying capacity is very limited, so within a few hours of starting the game you’ll have to start leaving things behind and making tough choices about what to keep in your backpack. When that time comes, it’s a good idea to have a notes app or some scrap paper handy to jot down places where you didn’t pick up useful resources.
If you find yourself in dire need of, for example, Cloth to make Bandages, and it turns out that you left some untouched in a nearby Bunker ten hours of gameplay beforehand, you’ll be glad you made that note.
Only Fight If You Have To
There’s a good chance that fights will come to you more often than you go looking for them, but the best way to survive long-term in Atomfall is to avoid combat whenever possible. Every single engagement is a drain on your resources, whether that means ammo, consumables, or Bandages to patch yourself up afterwards.
Atomfall has no experience point system, and you gain new skills by finding Training Stimulants, not by fighting. Killing enemies might get you some loot, but other than that, there’s no incentive to start a fight with wandering foes. Sneak first, then flee or hide, then fight if there’s no other alternative. Your first priority is always survival.
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