Atlas Fallen: Reign of Sand

Atlas Fallen was released in August last year to a lukewarm reception. Exactly one year later, it got a big update that came with the subtitle Reign of Sand. And a month later from that, the game arrived on Game Pass, giving me a chance to play this cool-looking yet not that well received title from Deck13.

Coarse action-adventure

Their last three games had been soulslikes but Atlas Fallen is straightforward third person action. I'm not sure if it's action roleplaying or action adventure -- I've lately been confused where the difference lies -- but it's definitely action -- action with problems. The problems are not apparent from merely looking at it; actually playing the game reveals that the often-weightless combat doesn't feel entertaining. I think that tends to be the result in games when you can take off the ground so easily but not actually fly. You lose some imagined concrete touch there needs to be with the game world.

The Darksiders games straddle the line but usually your air time ends with the final swing of the attack chain. In Atlas Fallen, you will stay in the air as long as you keep hitting something. Getting knocked down in the air sends you straight to the ground and getting back up on your feet takes many seconds -- annoying every time. There's a hook attack to get you to a target but it feels unresponsive: often it isn't snappy and sometimes doesn't go off at all for some reason. And you do have to take off the ground in order to hit some parts of the bigger enemies -- and flying enemies, of course.

The body part system seemed like a leftover from The Surge games. Allegedly you have a higher chance for loot drops if you destroy unarmored parts but that seems tedious considering that doing so deals no damage to the total health of the enemy -- Wraiths, as they're called in the game.

In combat, camera zooms out to make battles a spectacle. With all the flashy abilities, you'd think it would be cool and entertaining but it just isn't so. Maybe it's because of the game's momentum system. Assuming you didn't just end another fight, you begin all encounters with an empty momentum gauge. Later on, you do get bit of a boost from a perk but still have to work to activate level 2 and 3 of the gauge.

The system has to be one of the most contrived skill systems there is. You can slot one active ability shard and three passive shards for each momentum level. Even the passives are enabled only while the gauge is filled up to the corresponding level. In every fight you have to first build up the momentum gauge to be able to use all your stuff: it's repetitive. There's a shatter finisher move that also resets your momentum. That is annoying if there are still enemies left: a reset mid-combat. Shards and armor bonuses can allow you to retain part of your momentum after shattering -- more a fix to a design problem than an interesting addition. The large number of different shards there is feels wasted on a system that allows so few to be active at the same time.

With a bland story

The world of Atlas is ruled by an oppressive deity Thelos. Some people are more oppressed than others: your character is of the bottom of the barrel stuff as one of the Nameless. You happen to stumble upon a magical, talking gauntlet -- though technically Nyaal isn't the gauntlet, merely communicating via it -- and your rise to freedom and fame can begin. There is a definitely-new quest chain across the game to deepen the lore of Thelos and Nyaal. Those quests also have the best boss fights: they utilize the game's sand surfing, and parrying feels the most effective.

I believe the Reign of Sand reworked the story of Atlas Fallen in general. I don't know how it was earlier but the current version isn't the most engaging one. I suppose it mainly lacks characters you'd care about. A lot of the writing is basic, especially in the side quests. The dialogue is formulaic and has unnecessary repetition.

There were at least four bigger third person games with a talking accessory last year. By Atlas Fallen's release at the start of fall, people may have already gotten tired of the gimmick after Forspoken and Atomic Heart. Although the final one of the year, Lies of P, did then turn out to be best of the lot. Lies of P is also the only one of them with a silent protagonist.

I heavily disliked Nyaal's moaning: very odd voice direction there, I would say. I started quickly looking for an option to get rid of the irritation and there indeed was one to reduce (but not completely remove) at least the constant gameplay hints. I saw some clip of the original release of Atlas Fallen and noticed Nyaal had a different voice. I would have preferred the original: much more tolerable. I think I saw Alex Jordan credited as Nyaal -- the in-game credits seem to be the only place one can find the new cast written down.

Evidently Deck13 replaced about the whole cast for Reign of Sand. Maybe they needed new voice lines for the reworked campaign and it was easier to get completely new people. The new cast does seem to have bigger names, though, like Ben Starr as the male voice for the player character. Captain Morrath I recognized as Anthony Howell. When looking for confirmation, I was initially confused due to being served the original credits when googling: had they really found someone who sounds just like him? But that was not the case; it was Howell.

I don't know if New Game+ was in the original release of Atlas Fallen but it's certainly there in Reign of Sand. The mode appeared to offer new armor, upgrades, and challenges. I didn't feel like playing the game anymore and I had already 100%'d it on the first run anyway (despite playing just on Game Pass on which I rarely go for perfect completion). There are a couple of slightly trickier Wraith kill achievements but otherwise the ordeal involves merely finding everything there is in the game.