Summary
Rebellion Developments' recent title,Atomfall, brings players into a retro-styled world filtered through a heavy dose of British culture and history. Its plot is based on the Windscale Power Plant nuclear fire that occurred in 1957, branching off from known reality into an alternate timeline where the reasons behind the accident are far more mysterious.Atomfallblends FPS action, RPG and survival elements, folk horror, and sci-fi to create a compelling experience where players must uncover the truth behind what actually befell Windscale.
Meanwhile, Obsidian’s highly-anticipated RPG,Avowed, was released back in February and garnered a good reception from fans and critics. It marked something of a return to form for the studio as a dark fantasy FPS RPG set in theworld of Eoraestablished in the two precedingPillars of Eternity CRPGs. And though they may be said to share some general similarities in terms of design, there is a deeper story aspect that ties them closely together in their presentations and major themes, creating an interesting parallel between the two games.
Atomfall’s Oberon and Avowed’s Sapadal Are Strangely Two Sides of the Same Coin
Avowed’s Sapadal and the Dreamscourge
Avowedexpanded the series' lore in a big way, revealing that theLiving Lands' forgotten god, Sapadal,had been trapped by the newer pantheon for centuries. Its tortured throes in its attempts to escape were the root cause of a plague known as the Dreamscourge that was altering the Lands' flora and fauna. The player character, the Envoy, is revealed to be the chosen of Sapadal and can either embrace and restore the trapped god or destroy it.
Atomfall’s Oberon
The source of the explosion at the heart ofAtomfall’s Windscale Facilitywas due to the experimentation on a massive meteorite that fell to earth in the 1600s. Given the name Oberon, the meteor was the catalyst for the scientific collective known as BARD being able to produce items like atomic batteries and autonomous robots. However, when Oberon’s core was breached, it awoke a biological hive mind-like entity, causing the catastrophe and resulting in the quarantine zone and its population being affected and changed by its alien influence.
How Atomfall’s Oberon and Avowed’s Sapadal Represent Similar Themes
Thesimilarities between Sapadal inAvowedand Oberon inAtomfallare apparent in their presentations and natures. In both, the world is being warped by their respective influences. This is reflected in their visual designs, with exotic fungal growths and clouds of spores rendered in striking and vibrant color palettes covering their landscapes and creating an otherworldly look to the environments.
Both entities are also able to communicate telepathically or through dreams with humans who come in contact with the above. And though Sapadal and Oberon aren’t necessarily intentionally malevolent, their effects on the populations gradually erode and change them, twisting their mental state and physical appearance. Some have found ways to resist, holding onto their personalities while still displaying the physical changes. But those who have been overtaken completely and driven to a feral state are described and named as “thralls” in both titles and often must be dealt with violently or avoided altogether.
On top of their above shared traits, there is a strong environmental aspect and cautionary message contained in both titles' representations, with one viewed through a fantasy lens and the other being sci-fi. In both cases, the reasons that their alien/nature gods lashed out were due to outside forces imposing their wills on them.
Avowed’s Sapadalwas acting out of self-defense and a desire to escape imprisonment. InAtomfall, it was the reckless actions of a few who decided to continue experimenting and drilling into Oberon without heeding their fellows' warnings and disregarding the potential consequences, with a disastrous result. Both make for compelling case studies, and provide fans with philosophical and metaphysical food for thought while being satisfying experiences unto themselves.
