Atlas Fallen

In this big open world there is plenty to see, do and experience. Atlas Fallen is full of puzzles and treasures. You can play the game alone or with a friend. The navigation works very organically and if you pick up the game again after a long break, you can find a short and concise tutorial list in your journal. This way you can quickly pick up the adventure without too much hassle. As far as we’re concerned, this game is easy to recommend.

When you break it down, there is nothing in Atlas Fallen we haven’t seen before. Everything it does, someone else has done in another game. That being said, what Deck 13 have done is bring these elements together into a rollicking adventure that hits all the right notes for action fans, tells an engaging (if cliched) story and never outstays its welcome.

In its current state, Atlas Fallen is an excellent showcase of modern gaming that features some exciting mechanics that other action games could benefit from.

Atlas Fallen isn’t a game that will push the action RPG genre forward, but it's so much fun to play it doesn't really matter anyway. The gameplay loop is satisfying and the aerial dash and sandglider mechanics are smooth enough that you'll be happy just exploring the world of Atlas, even if you're not progressing through the main story. Its clunky plot holds a certain charm, and with enjoyable combat and traversal it's worth a look for anyone looking for a meaty adventure before the Fall deluge.

Atlas Fallen isn’t a terrible game by any stretch of the imagination, nor an exceedingly memorable one. Still, I did enjoy the time I spent playing it and think it serves as a decent diversion, if nothing else. I don’t recommend buying at full price, but I could see it being a game one might purchase at a discount later and have fun with. With the shifting of sands and the passage of time, Atlas Fallen can become a pleasant surprise for those who might eventually unearth it.

Atlas Fallen suffers a few mishaps along the way, with enemies able to do cheap shots, modernized fast travel limitations, and a rather empty map. At the same time, there's a fun story here that keeps you moving forward, and combat itself feels visceral without being over-demanding. This is a great entry point for newcomers to the genre. Atlas Fallen has high fantasy alongside simple but intricate combat. It may not make game of the year by any means, but it certainly makes a good impression.

Atlas Fallen might not make any game of the year lists, but its inventive, refreshing combat is worth checking out. It will require a bit of patience, as the opening and closing acts are a protracted slog, in addition to numerous bugs, but the foundation is set for a sequel that capitalizes on the promise of this new IP.

Atlas Fallen manages to mix its constituent elements with a certain harmony. Its sandy world is pleasant to explore and contains a secondary offering that - while not straying from what we have seen in other exponents of the open world genre - expands the hour count in an uncontrived way. The clashes at the center of the experience are satisfying, thanks to the well-constructed combat system. Together with the ups and downs of performance and in terms of artistic direction, the narrative scaffolding is the most sore point of the production, which, net of its rough edges, however, is capable of genuinely entertaining.

I wouldn’t go into Atlas Fallen looking for a great story, but if you’re looking for an interesting world to explore, this might fit the bill. The gameplay is a lot of fun, with foes worth your time to engage, and a fantastic customization system to battle your way. Atlas Fallen fills that old “AA THQ” hole, perfect for what it is.

While this sandy action RPG is somewhat lacking in technical and visual polish, Atlas Fallen is still a strong outing from Deck13, with the outfit continuing to prove it's got the chops when it comes to crafting interesting mechanics and fun combat.

I enjoyed my time with Atlas Fallen and developers Deck13 Interactive positively created their own interpretation of a unique RPG. Sure it has parallels to what makes an RPG an RPG but its overall gameplay and combat is like an alternate Marvel Universe timeline that feels familiar yet different as well.

With Atlas Fallen, Deck13 delivers a fine and highly customizable hack-and-slay-like combat system. There is generally a great gameplay-flow, too. But with its partly blank game world and weak story the game can't fulfill the highest demands for an action RPG.

While Atlas Fallen is a perfectly fine game, fine doesn’t quite cut it in 2023. If you’re dying to hunt down Wraiths, wait for a discount first.

Even though the developers deserve praise for changing gears after The Surge 2, we cannot shake the feeling that Deck 13 aimed a little too high with this one.

Atlas Fallen is far from a perfect game, but the important thing is that it’s still a fun game. Even when it can feel like it’s throwing a kitchen sink at you, there’s always something enjoyable to find in Atlas Fallen, mainly its impressive combat that leads to a lot of challenging, enjoyable battles (albeit with a few that could use tweaking), and its visually striking landscapes that allow for a ton of fun sand sliding. Even with a large coat of jank, there’s still a lot to delight here once you’re successfully able to dig it up, so give it a shot if you like to experiment and don’t mind a little roughness.

Atlas Fallen opens up a huge world and gives you some fun tools to explore it. As you immerse yourself in it and soak in the story, the experience improves, but is consequently stained by repetitive encounters with enemies. A decaffeinated combat, but a perfectly seasoned movement.

What makes Atlas Fallen stand out is its spectacular combat system and nice world. However, in between the combat, the gameplay heavily loses its quality, presenting an uninteresting storyline and unimaginative missions. If you plan to give this game a chance, however, you won't be disappointed by the battles with giants and wielding the power of sand.

Atlas Fallen is not surprising and its open world falls within repetitiveness, but the gameplay itself is fun and the combat system is interesting.

Atlas Fallen is a decent action-RPG that, with all its merits and flaws, attempts to emulate God of War with a fun and dynamic combat system. Unfortunately, in addition to the challenging confrontations with the imposing desert creatures Deck13 Interactive's game does not have much to offer from a quality standpoint. An unsteady frame-rate, along with some problems related to enemy lock-on, prevent the developers from taking the next step after the good results achieved with the two chapters of The Surge.

It’s a shame that Atlas Fallen isn’t a little more polished – it’s clear that it’s a title very much held back by its budget – but it’s enjoyable nonetheless. While you’re not likely to be captivated by its story or wowed by its presentation, its combat and exploration, both buoyed by the skills granted to you by your mysterious gauntlet, are likely to keep you playing. Provided you make it through the game’s off-putting opening, that is.

Atlas Fallen only falters when it feels as if it's slowing down its flow, as with an ill-considered sidequest that requires you to carefully follow wildlife to their buried treasures. The faster the game moves, the better it plays, whether that’s in combat or as you traverse a sunken city, occupied swamp, or desert ruin. Stick around past the sluggish first act and both the gameplay and plot get the hint, speeding ahead with the most enjoyable kind of recklessness.

Perhaps the best words to summarize Atlas Fallen is this: I can’t wait to see what Deck13 does next.

Atlas Fallen is a solid if unspectacular addition to the much-loved open world RPG genre.

Atlas Fallen is a solid open-world action RPG with plenty of platforming and large monsters to fight. Putting aside its weak story and the console versions’ gritty graphics there’s a hidden gem of excellent combat, robust exploration, and surprisingly deep customization to uncover in the sinking sands of its arid wilderness. It’s slightly disappointing that co-op is online-only with no cross-play, but thanks to solid technical performance, it sticks in my mind as one of the better worlds I’ve explored with a friend lately.

Atlas Fallen is a valiant effort from Deck13 Interactive that will go down as its best game so far. With fantastic traversal and a fun, engaging combat system, the developer has nailed the gameplay in every sense. What holds the experience back, though, is a lack of polish to iron out the technical issues and potentially long load times. It's disappointing to come up against a few too many flaws, but when Atlas Fallen is on form, its marriage of movement and fighting shines through.

It's a story that will give you a few hours of fun, but won't be too memorable either.

If you are looking for something new and fresh, Atlas Fallen might just be the game for you. It has an intriguing world design and ways of traversing it, as well as interesting fighting mechanics. Unfortunately, the rest of the world building relies on boring characters and a story that will hardly keep you entertained for a long while, which is a shame since the rest of the game has some real potential.

Atlas Fallen does several fun and interesting things, such as sand surfing and deepening combat with the Momentum meter. At the same time, the gameplay feels a bit stiff and graphically there are some issues that stand out. The battles can also get a bit monotonous, but at the same time the game really does offer everything you expect from an open world action-RPG, which is fine.

Atlas Fallen can be a welcome palate cleanser in the midst of large-scale releases, with resemblances to older action games. There’s a sort of nostalgia here for crowds who desire these experiences. However, while the exploration and sense of discovery are outstanding, most other elements, like the story, character writing, and excess customization, make it fall short, crafting a passable, if forgettable, experience.

Atlas Fallen has plenty of neat ideas but the execution is mediocre at best.

From the outside Atlas Fallen has all the pieces of an open world fantasy epic, but if you look a little more closely you'll see the cracks.

Showing good ideas with poor execution, Atlas Fallen is an action RPG with flaws, strange decisions and an underused universe in many ways. It is a better experience when enjoyed cooperatively, but just a decent game nowadays.

It's a shame that Deck13 new IP it's so generic and confusionary, because there are also bold new ideas in it. Nonetheless, as it is at the time of writing, Atlas Fallen is a by-the-book action RPG with a problematic targeting system and just a handful of open maps to explore, with so much better choices on the market.

I wish that I could call Atlas Fallen an overlooked gem from an overstuffed year of games, but it doesn’t quite reach that bar. It’s not an unsalvageable project and with some refinement in the gameplay, a stronger script, and some better performances this could be a solid action RPG. I didn’t even have a chance to try out the game’s co-op, which could potentially go some ways to opening up the game’s RPG elements. That doesn’t change that what is there is a fine attempt at something new but one that never fully rises to the occasion.

All the ingredients of a great open-world RPG are here, but the lacklustre combat, bugs, and blink-and-you’ll-miss-it story leave an unpleasant taste. [Issue#32, p.86]

With Atlas Fallen, Deck13 tries to expand their audience by trying their luck to the open world genre. Unfortunately, it's in no position to offer anything truly memorable, ending up as an amalgamation of derivative design, gameplay, traversal etc.

The beginning of Atlas Fallen is simply awful but later, when the story unleashes the player on the open world, the adventure becomes more interesting. The game features a clever character development system, dynamic combat and very enjoyable exploration, but the developers forgot to polish all the other elements, which sadly represent the level of lower-budget sandboxes from a decade or two ago.

Atlas Fallen is a proposal with little flavour because of its good ideas for combat, but overshadowed by the lack of variety of enemies and a simple narrative that fails to engage.

Atlas Fallen is at its best when you’re kicking seven shades out of enormous crabs and snakes, and unfortunately has little else that lives up to these moments. Whilst the traversal is solid, going back and forth through a treacherously dull wasteland doesn’t particularly inspire replayability, and when you’ve done it thirty times, you don’t want to do it again. Rent for the combat, then return it and there’s a chance you’ll probably never think about it again.

If you want to have a great time with a friend while playing an action RPG, Atlas Fallen’s co-op mode is an ideal choice. However, if you intend to embark on a solitary adventure out in the dunes, you may find it becoming too monotonous at times when you’re just sliding across the desert in circles.

If action games are at their best when experienced in a flow state, then Atlas Fallen's attempts to harness and bottle this magic are a creditable experiment. It's just a pity it sacrifices so much in pursuit of this ambition. [Issue#388, p.112]

While the game had its high points, there’s a lot of unexplored potential on the table. I found it hard to care about the people of the world, frequently becoming bored. I couldn’t buy into the story and immerse myself into the game as I’ve done with other games. Atlas Fallen isn’t a bad game — it’s just not an excellent one, either.

Atlas Fallen has legitimate strengths in its quick, snappy sand surfing, but with clunky movement, inconsistent combat, and just an all-around lack of polish, it ends up being weighed down by far too many issues to be able to live up to its proper potential.

It's hard to know on which foot to dance with Atlas Fallen. The title of Deck13 brings very good ideas, but either it does not go to the end, or it sins in the execution. After an exhilarating boss fight, you can find yourself loading a game because of a huge bug or struggling on the next confrontation because of imprecise targeting. Getting around in the open areas is nice, but there's so little of interest to see that it's frustrating. Finally, to have a great time on Atlas Fallen, it's not all up to you. All the planets must be aligned and the many pitfalls of the game must not immediately bring you back into quicksand. And that's far too rare.

Atlas Fallen layers interesting and engaging combat systems onto a lacklustre world and frustrating camera controls making for an uneven and forgettable fantasy action outing. Deck13 continues its work of innovating the genre in interesting ways but there’s just a little too much going on for Atlas Fallen to ever find solid ground.

Atlas Fallen is a solid but uninspiring open-world fantasy RPG with brilliant movement and traversal but not much else. In a crowded field of fantasy RPGs, it doesn’t have the level of finish, characters, and story to make it a truly memorable experience.

Atlas Fallen is a game from another era, and it lacks a more expressive face and more ideas to succeed. Nevertheless, it at least offers fun fights and pleasant movement around the world. But it's a bit low from experienced developers.

Good ideas that fail when they are not properly implemented. Atlas Fallen is not a gameplay flop, but leaves a lot to be desired.

Atlas Fallen is perhaps best summed up by one of the later powers you add to the gauntlet. You are given the ability to raise ancient structures, the capacity to uncover a lost world, its towering buildings and long forgotten relics. You spend the next few minutes pulling empty boxes and planks of wood out of the sand. Want to raise all of the history from the mythical siege of the gods that lies beneath your feet? We’re going to go metal detecting for pennies down the local field instead…Such letdowns underpin a game that I initially really liked and quickly grew weary of. There’s fun to be had, and co-op may open up the enjoyment even more. But heed the warning; most of Atlas Fallen’s positives are tapered by the sense it hates its players and isn’t willing to give back on the effort put in.

Atlas Fallen kinda reminds us of Forspoken, in the most negative way possible. It is a shallow, open-world adventure that doesn’t bring anything revolutionary or innovative to the table.

Atlas Fallen had promise, but nothing that this game strives to accomplish ever lands very well or feels fully realized. Between a lackluster story filled with generic and soulless voice acting and a combat system that loses its momentum well before the credits roll, there is rarely a moment where this game feels memorable or worth the time to finish. There is some good stuff on the surface of Deck13’s new IP, with its beautiful vistas and interesting world-building and aesthetic, but digging past the surface of Atlas Fallen shows that it is mostly hollow underneath.

Atlas Fallen is at its best when you're fighting huge enemies with your carefully constructed (by trial and error) build, but when you're repeatedly fighting the same enemies, when the story falls flat, and the environments blend into one, it starts to get dull and frustrating quickly.

If you were asked to imagine a truly average open-world action-adventure in 2023, you'd likely come up with something like Atlas Fallen. If very little here is actually dreadful, not much more is original, or imaginative, or genuinely entertaining either, nor is it even especially polished. You've likely seen it all before, in other words. And if you haven't, there are better places to start.

A combat-heavy action RPG with fun fights and spectacular landscapes, that’s brought down by glitches, fiddly navigation, and an over-reliance on fetch quests.

Atlas Fallen is a hard game to recommend. Between janky controls and a really rough-feeling platforming system, it feels like it fights you every step of the way.