Just a few weeks in the past, we launched the newest trailer for Atomfall, our upcoming sport the place you’ll have to uncover the thriller behind what occurred on the UK’s Windscale nuclear energy station within the Nineteen Fifties. It is a fictionalised telling of what occurred following this real-life nuclear catastrophe in Northern England.
The trailer showcases the sport’s folks horror influences and provide the first glimpse of Casterfell Woods, an eerie location inside Atomfall the place you’ll encounter an unsettling wicker man and a ringing phone field that must be answered.
However what have been our influences behind Casterfell Woods? We thought it might be fascinating to let you know the way we got here up with this distinctive aesthetic.
From the outset, we knew that we needed some spookier areas of the sport, the place we may emphasise folks horror and supply some distinction with our extra idyllic areas. Most of our out of doors environments are very inexperienced, vibrant, fairly, and really a lot British. However for Casterfell, we needed the participant to query what issues would possibly occur within the deep darkish woods. Hidden issues can occur there, secret and historical issues… We knew that this might be a ton of enjoyable – so began doing our homework.
Our preliminary objective was to ascertain the visible baseline for our sandbox areas, with a give attention to the content material that we wanted to construct out our numerous pure biomes. Then, we may begin including our thematic twists.
Early within the challenge, the staff took fairly just a few journeys as much as the English Lake District for reference gathering and to seize photogrammetry content material. For a number of of the non-Brits on the staff (myself included, as an American) this was extremely unique. For anybody who hasn’t been there, it’s a particularly numerous space of excellent pure magnificence and variety. It’s simply so moist and inexperienced, with lakes and streams in all places, and great stone formations topping the excessive fells and hilltops. Your entire space is simply dripping with greenery, ferns, and moss.
As I used to be new to driving within the UK, I discovered these tiny Cumbrian roads terrifying! There are slate stone partitions on one edge, and steep drops right into a lake on the opposite. However the journeys have been very instructional, and the views have been sensational. By the top of the journey, we had a ton of unbelievable reference, fabulous photogrammetry content material, and have been assured that we may floor the sport visually within the north of Britain.
Subsequent up, have been the twists. How may we make our world completely different from a typical vacation journey to an exquisite pure vacation spot? How may we layer in an older period, and warp issues a bit extra?
We began storytelling centered on folks horror, sci-fi, and old-school British imaginative fiction for inspiration. Movies like The Wicker Man, The Blair Witch Challenge, Annihilation, and Midsommar have been nice to have a look at. Then in fact we’ve got BBC programming like Physician Who, The Prisoner, and The Quatermass Xperiment, in addition to books by John Wyndham, who has so many splendidly bizarre tales.
We needed the participant to really feel that they’re moving into an older period. The true Windscale nuclear accident was in 1957, which is when the quarantine started in our sport. As we have been desiring to be a interval piece, how may we impress that right into a pure space? This was a tricky one, and we had a number of conversations about it. I imply, particularly within the woods, the place bushes just about would have seemed the identical in 1957, 2024, or 1066.
We started asking ourselves who was dwelling on the market, past the comforts of village life? How would they survive with no manufactured assets?
The reply was fairly easy in that these outcasts would survive simply as they’d in archaic occasions. We’d regress them even additional again and have them use what was at hand. Wattle (and daub) development grew to become our go-to architectural type. Thatched roofs, woven branches and vines, and dry-stone constructions additionally appeared to suit. Although many of those conventional strategies of development can nonetheless be seen within the modern-day, they’re actually historical and overseas to many people who grew up elsewhere.
Then, making an allowance for our inspirational media reference, and our need for extra Britishness, we started layering much more symbolic imagery. Historic markings, effigies, and wickermen, all intermingled with extra conventional maypoles and bunting to provide robust pagan non secular overtones.
We predict you’re going to love exploring Casterfell Woods and discovering the secrets and techniques that it holds when Atomfall is launched on March 27 for Xbox Collection X|S and Home windows PC, and day one with Recreation Cross. We are able to’t await you guys to get your palms on the sport.
Atomfall
Revolt
A survival-action sport impressed by real-life occasions, Atomfall is ready 5 years after the Windscale nuclear catastrophe in Northern England.
Discover the fictional quarantine zone, scavenge, craft, barter, combat and speak your approach by way of a British countryside setting stuffed with weird characters, mysticism, cults, and rogue authorities businesses.
From Revolt, the studio behind Sniper Elite and Zombie Military, Atomfall will problem you to unravel the darkish thriller of what actually occurred.
Participant Pushed Thriller: Unravel a tapestry of interwoven narratives by way of exploration, dialog, investigation, and fight, the place each alternative you make has penalties.
Discover this Inexperienced and Disagreeable Land: The picturesque British countryside, with rolling inexperienced hills, lush valleys, and rural villages belie the risks that await you.
Search, Scavage, Survive: You’ll have to scavenge for provides, craft weapons and gadgets, and combat desperately to make it out alive!
Determined Fight: With weapons and ammunition scarce, every frenetic engagement will see you mix marksmanship with vicious hand-to-hand fight. Handle your coronary heart charge to carry a gradual purpose and guarantee you’ve gotten the vitality you want to attain to your cricket bat and land the killer blow.
Inexperienced and Disagreeable Land: The picturesque British countryside, with rolling inexperienced hills, lush valleys, and rural villages belie the risks that await you. Navigate cult-controlled ruins, pure caves, nuclear bunkers and extra as you discover this dense, foreboding world.
Reimagining Windscale: A fictional reimagining of a real-world occasion, Atomfall attracts from science fiction, folks horror, and Chilly Warfare influences to create a world that’s eerily acquainted but utterly alien.
