Today’s advent calendar hails, in both setting and make, from the RPS homeland of the United Kingdom. Which means, like most of RPS, it’ll probably spend Christmas predominantly unconscious, driven into a coma by a combination of tiredness, pigs in blankets overreach, and acute exposure to King Charles. Best play it before then, eh.

It’s Atomfall!

In hindsight I think we, myself included, did Atomfall a disservice by pelting it with comparisons to other free roaming shooters. It does have free roaming, and shooting, but one of its most endearing qualities is that it still feels unique, even when it’s wrapping itself up in familiarities.

Jokes aside, the Lake District surroundings are a part of that. There’s a delightful, deeply British irony in framing Atomfall’s grim survivalism against the rolling hills and curtain-twitching parish villages of 1960s Cumbria. Its best trick, though, is revealing itself as a detective game – and a really rather good one. Atomfall trusts you to dig up its secrets yourself, with progress measured in mysteries solved rather than bodies dropped. There is regular gunplay, of the slow and ammo-scarce kind, and more than a little scavenging and crafting. But ruffians with misappropriated cricket bats are really just obstacles to be removed so you can rifle through their things, in search of lost keys or scribbled notes that might clue you in on where an investigation goes next.

And you’ll want to know, because Atomfall is equally skilled at piquing your curiosity and throwing up its share of surprises. Half the population seem to hide terrible secrets, slips-of-the-tongue by bored neighbours being enough to set you on their trail, and the other half are willing to lie, scheme, and murder their way into the enigmatic (and possibly cursed) ruins of the Windscale power plant. You’re free to trust who – if any – might make good on their promise of reciprocal help, a choice that may become easier or harder depending on how deeply you poke around.

Go in expecting Fallout: Oop North, and Atomfall’s focus might disappoint. Meet it on its own terms, and it’s a likeably cerebral take on first-person wandering.

Head over to the RPS Advent Calendar 2025 to open another door!