Shane
You are equipped with an ancient gauntlet, imbued with powers many want to have, being able to tame the sands at your disposal.
But there’s more to this gauntlet than anyone else realises.
Atlas Fallen is an open world RPG from Deck 13 and Focus Entertainment where you build and customise your character and begin an epic adventure.
You start out as one of a group of survivors, ‘guarded’ by ruthless sentries that although they are meant to keep everyone safe, are almost as bad as the creatures they are meant to protect you from.
Your closest ally is an older lady known as the Tracker.
It’s not too long before you rally the other survivors together and try and set in motion a mutiny of sorts against the guards.
This doesn’t quite go as planned and you’re put out in to the open world on your own to track down a thief.
With nothing to protect you and The Watcher seeing everything you hear a voice and that leads you to a relic of immense power, the gauntlet.
The gauntlet has the spirit of an ethereal character called Nyall.
Nyall has little memory as to how he became trapped inside the gauntlet, but he will assist you and guide throughout.
The gauntlet can be upgraded and to do this you’ll need to find ‘Shards’ or Catalyst Pieces’ to further stabilise it.
The more you use the gauntlet in combat you’ll work up ‘Momentum’. Once this reaches a certain build up you can unleash a special attack.
There’s additional armour and weapons you can pick up or buy at a Merchant and your character can wield a maximum of two melee weapons at a time.
Your character as well has a wealth of upgradeable abilities that you’ll learn, earn and adopt.
The power of the gauntlet will also see you raising structures and hidden goodies around the endless sand-scapes.
As with all adventure RPG games it really does pay to explore.
The sheer size of your environment is massive so you can lose hours upon hours deviating from your current quest just searching for hidden treasures.
You’ll encounter a lot of NPCs, some in the most random of places, and more often than not, they will have something they need to you to do for them.
Pickups can be used, such as herbs, or you can sell them to a Merchant.
Atlas Fallen also has co-op mode, if it’s getting a bit tricky and you hand.
Given the vastness of most areas, it can be easy to get lost. You do have a compass on your HUD which displays the direction to your primary objective. There is also a map you can access with fast travel.
Atlas Fallen is a fantastic fantasy action adventure RPG and a game you can literally lose yourself within, soaking up hours looking for collectables, enacting some of the most larger than life combat sequences and a quality story that slowly unravels as you go from deserts, villages, ruins and more.
If you’ve been looking for an excellent play-worthy RPG that’s larger than most before it, bury yourself in the sands of Atlas Fallen.
Released: August 2023
Rating: M
Platforms reviewed: PlayStation 5
Genre: RPG
Developer: Deck 13
Publisher: Focus Entertainment