The heavily Fallout-inspired ATOM RPG has been on my “play more” list for almost a year, since I enjoyed a few hours of it but was distracted by something else. It is my fault. I am very distractable. Happily its developers, AtomTeam, have just released a standalone expansion called Trudograd. It entered Steam Early Access on Monday (or you can get it on GOG, if you prefer).If you’ve not played ATOM, Trudograd is a surprisingly welcoming place to start, but my advice is to give it a while longer in the oven. I have a feeling it’ll be worth the wait.

The setup of ATOM, and in fact an awful lot of what it does, will be familiar to anyone who’s played the original Fallout games. America and the USSR nuked each other, and the remnant of a semi-legitimate military/scientific organisation sends you out into the wasteland many years later to explore. You’ll wander a dusty geigerworld fighting mutants and grumpy men in makeshift armour, visiting settlements and talking to many people, discovering a sinister plot along the way. Character levelling works similarly, with a high emphasis on core attributes like strength and intelligence, which are directly tested in dialogue, and skills like medicine, lockpicking, and crafting having a drastic effect on what your options are when it comes to resolving fights and subplots. (more…)

There’s more than a smack of Fallout around new post-apocalyptic RPG Atom RPG (yes, “RPG” is part of its name), and that’s an inspiration the developers are unashamed to declare. Atom’s an open-world RPG with turn-based combat, set in a post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland – this time in the irradiated ruins of the Soviet Union. Look at a screenshot and hey, if you’ve played either of the first two Fallout games you’ll instantly know what’s up. But enough about Fallout! I’ve read good things about Atom, and now it’s actually properly out following a Kickstarter in 2017 then a stretch in early access. This wasteland is now appropriately wasted, the ruins finally finished ruination.

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