Deck13 dishes out a brand-new experience that is filled with fantastic stylish combat but gets bogged down by poor pacing and a not-so-memorable story. Read on for our Atlas Fallen review.

Atlas Has Fallen to the Gods

The human race is on the brink of extinction, as the world of Atlas Fallen has been ravaged, nearly destroyed by the Sun God known as Thalos. Enslaving humanity, he seeks to drain the world of essence, grains of resources that contain what is known as eternity, which is life itself. With humanity thinning in numbers, few can stand against Thalos as he unleashes watchers, massive beasts, upon the world to maintain the harsh grasp he has over it. 

It’s here that you, an unnamed slave, finds a mysterious gauntlet that seemingly holds the powers of a god. With your newfound abilities, you take up arms against Thelos and his forces, seeking answers to the mystery of the gauntlet and how you can use it to save humanity from the clutches of an all-powerful god. 

While the world of Atlas Fallen offers richness in lore and mysteries, with abundant collectibles and side-quests to be found, the main campaign itself is as forgettable as it can get. 

You’ll be tasked with collecting shards for the gauntlet early on, which grant you god-like powers that can lift massive structures. Along the way, you’ll meet several characters that, despite reoccurring, hardly leave any impact. They exist to move the plot forward, with no real meat regarding their character development. You may share a common goal with them, but there’s little reason for you to care for these characters. 

Perhaps this may boil down to the fact that shard collecting is the main objective throughout the campaign. You’re given a good chunk of exposition between sections of the story, only to be thrown back into the world to have to collect three shards over and over for the next story checkpoint. 

Sure, there are bosses, but they’re not exactly what I would say are the most memorable, especially since they eventually get reused in later encounters. 

As mentioned, there are side quests and other activities that you can do in the world of Atlas, which I found more engaging than the main plot itself. They’re short stories, and you’ll learn more about some of the main NPCs you encounter during the campaign by doing them. Mind you, many of these quests are rinse and repeat, go here, kill monsters, collect an item, and so on. I did, however, like that they altered the world itself. Some side quests would need us to take down massive towers that brought vicious sandstorms. Destroying one of these towers would rid the storms and restore the wildlife that had previously occupied an area, bringing back the land’s beauty. 

Sadly, this dynamic system seemed to be in vain, as once you reached a certain point, the game would take you to a different map. The world isn’t a single seamless open world but rather massive zones that are strung together by the campaign’s progression. It made the effort to restore these locations pointless, as I wouldn’t have a reason ever to go back to them (if you could even at that.)

Still, I kept at it, but only because the gameplay was so darn fun. 

Sand Surfing and Monster Slaying With a Friend

If you can look past the story and some of its repetitiveness, then I’m sure you’ll have an absolute blast playing Atlas Fallen because I know I certainly did. The combat feels great, and it reminded me of some of the classic hack-and-slash games from the golden era of the PlayStation 2, or more so recently, that of the Darksiders franchise. It’s fast, fluid, and flashy, as you can assign several move sets, giving you an arsenal of abilities. 

These come as Essence Stones, stones that grant the bearer unique abilities. There are three tiers of these stones that you’ll unlock, with tiers having four slots each. Tiers run on a momentum system, which has a meter that fills up as you attack enemies. The more attacks you hit, the more it grows and the higher the tier abilities you can use during combat. If you get hit, you begin losing momentum, so in some ways, it’s sort of like a combo meter. 

This was an interesting approach to combat that did take a while for me to get used to at first, but once you do, the number of combos you can chain and abilities you can pull off, it all works superbly well. Couple that with the easy-to-use parry system, and you got yourself one hell of a good time. 

Players can also collect armor sets. It’s not the deepest armor system, as it’s only full sets rather than individual pieces of gear, but there is an upgrading system tied to them and the essence stones. There are lots to explore with the combat, perks, and essence stone system that I’m sure many will enjoy tinkering with.

Outside of combat, there’s platforming and traversing. The platforming is, for the most part, alright. It’s there, and it doesn’t feel frustrating if that concerns anyone. I found it to be pretty forgiving and straightforward. I would have loved to see more out of it, specifically more elaborate puzzles, but I’m not complaining about what was provided. 

But the coolest thing, without question, was the sand gliding. I’m sure you’ve all seen the trailers and gameplay videos of it, and it’s as much fun as it looks. Something about it made me feel cool as I surfed around the map wearing badass gear. Unfortunately, it’s non-upgradable, with a perk being the only thing that can boost its speed during use, and even then, you need to pick up flowers that seem rarer (even if you upgrade the spawn rates) than they should have been. It looks cool and feels good, but at the same time, it also feels a bit slow for its base speed. 

Air dash is also an ability you’ll unlock in the game, which comes in handy for reaching some of the high and far places in the world. It’s also very useful during combat, offering I-frames when needed most. 

All this works well for the solo experience, as I beat the game from start to finish with no help whatsoever. However, for my second playthrough, I decided to play with my friend, and I have to say that Atlas Fallen works excellently as a cooperative experience. It’s the same fun, only double the amount since you’re fighting alongside a friend. I’ve always wanted to play a hack-and-slash of this kind with a friend, and Atlas Fallen delivers on it in every way I’d want it to. The full campaign is playable from start to finish in co-op, and it’s just hours of endless fun experimenting with different builds and abilities with a friend. 

A Gorgeous World, With Some Technical Issues

Visually speaking, I love what Deck13 has gone for with Altas Fallen. It’s not completely aiming to be realistic, which lets them get away with some of the textures, but I did feel that certain areas were rather breathtaking upon seeing them for the first time. Despite being themed around sand, Atlas Fallen has a lot of variety in its environment, as you should expect lush green forests, cool, damp, and dark caverns, and many unique locations throughout. 

It’s visually gorgeous, even if the NPCs aren’t always the best-looking ones we’ve seen. 

Sadly though, some technical issues were a bit disappointing to see, especially considering that Atlas Fallen isn’t releasing on last-gen (PS4 and Xbox One) platforms. The PS5 version (and most likely the Series version) features a performance and quality mode. Quality mode aims for 4K at 30fps, while performance is 60fps at what I assume is dynamic resolution. I played using performance mode, which at first felt like a locked 60fps, but as I progressed further, I noticed more and more dips. Mind you, it’s not to the point where it’s unplayable or detrimental to the overall experience, but you will notice dips, regardless if you’re in or out of combat. 

There are clear noticeable pop-ins, too, mostly around vegetation. Again, it’s not all that major, but it can be a bit distracting at times. 

I would like to point out the load times too. I’ll say I’ve been spoiled by what this generation has to offer for load times, with games being nearly instantaneous, but with Atlas Fallen, you can expect to see load screens between fast traveling, loading between different map sections, and respawning from death. They’re not bad by any means, with maybe around 20 seconds being the longest I’ve ever had to wait, but they’re there, which sort of came as a surprise to me as I’ve gotten so used to instant loading. 

To be fair, these aren’t issues I would say are a cause for concern, but I always include a section around performance and such in my reviews, and I do think that players should always know what to expect going into a game when it comes to that. 

What matters the most, in this case, are the bugs, and Atlas Fallen is relatively bug-free, with an expected day-one patch addressing several issues I never encountered. Of course, experiences will vary from person to person, but for the most part, expect a fairly polished experience. 

Verdict

There’s a lot of potential in Atlas Fallen that, sadly, feels heavily bogged down by its forgettable and, at times, repetitive story. If you can look past that, you’ll find Atlas Fallen has much to offer. It’s a great callback to classic hack-and-slash titles, filled with hours of senseless, monster-slaying fun that can be enjoyed with another player online. It’s not without its faults mind you, but it does build a great foundation, one I’d like to see built upon with potential sequels.  

Score: 7.5/10

Pros:

• Fun gameplay that offers deep customization with combos and abilities. 
• Gorgeous visuals. 
• Side quests and world exploration are well worth doing. 
• Fully playable in co-op from start to finish. 

Cons:

• The story has pacing issues, but even then, I wouldn’t expect something deep.
• Repetitive mission structure that sets in quickly. 

Atlas Fallen review code (PS5) was provided by the publisher. You can read MP1st’s review and scoring policy right here.