Category: Games

Atomfall: How Rebellion Created Its Most Accessible Game to Date

Cari WattertonAccessibility Designer, Rebellion

Last month, we released Atomfall, and it quickly became our most successful launch in the over 30-year history of Rebellion. But today, we wanted to shine a light on something else we’re proud of – how Atomfall is also Rebellion’s most accessible title to date.

Atomfall might offer challenges for those that want them, but it shouldn’t be difficult to physically play. With that in mind, we want to showcase some of the standout accessibility features we’ve built to help everyone explore the mysteries of the Quarantine Zone.

We’ve included features across motor, vision, audio and cognition, with many becoming accessibility firsts for the studio – including additional audio cues, directional indicators on subtitles, and more. We hope that the host of features, both in and outside of options, helps welcome more players to the Quarantine Zone.

Playstyle

We’ve built a world full of choice and we want players to be able to play their own way. So, instead of difficulty, Atomfall provides a choice of Playstyle.

There are five preset Playstyles to choose from, including Investigator for those seeking more survival gameplay, Brawler for a combat-focused experience, and our default Atomfall experience in Survivor. Sightseer, on the other hand, is a preset which will allow more players to explore and enjoy the Quarantine Zone. It lessens combat and survival aspects and provides a boost to exploration to help you through the expansive Lake District and all its mysteries.

Rebellion is known for expansive customisation of difficulty, and this applies to Playstyles in Atomfall – each preset can be fully tailored to provide an experience that suits you, and it can all be changed at any time during your playthrough.

Navigating Leads

A huge part of Atomfall is investigation; meeting the survivors in the world and following leads they give you. To help with reading and cognitive load, the Exploration section of Playstyle allows you to enable features like Navigational Hints, Flagged Leads and Waypoint Markers.

We want the player to get wrapped up in the different threads and explore at their own pace without pressure to complete the main story, but we also recognise this isn’t for everyone. Turning on the Flagged Leads option will highlight the main story quests, and Waypoint Markers also assists with this, giving the option of markers on the compass to follow to your objective, if you enjoy that extra level of guidance.

Lastly, Navigational Hints provide short, clear hint text which summarises a lead, reducing overall reading and complexity of language.

Contrast & Text Scaling

Atomfall includes options to boost the contrast of UI and gameplay elements, as well as expansive text scaling up to 104px at 4K resolution, in line with Xbox’s Adjustable Text Size accessibility feature tag. These tags have been key for us in finding impactful areas to work on for our players, as well as ensuring they can search for the features they need with confidence.

For extra contrast with the UI, Atomfall offers several options for you to change the colour of UI elements, like the crosshair, and a backplates option allows you to set the opacity of backplates behind all text and UI in the game.

For gameplay, you have options to turn on extra UI for traversal points, high contrast icons for enemy threats, and can set the colour of the outline of interactive objects in the game. There is also an NPC highlights feature, which allows you to set a strong colour overlay on all hostile and non-hostile NPCs in the game, to give extra visibility for players who need it.

Directional Indicators

As well as full subtitles and a host of customisation options like subtitle colour, speaker name colour, size and background, our subtitles in Atomfall include an option to enable directional and distance indicators. These indicators show an arrow which points towards the source of the dialogue and an approximate distance to the source. This will help anyone playing with reduced audio to locate who’s talking – especially in combat situations, where enemies may shout from behind your character.

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Alongside this, players can turn on the enemy icons option to show in-world icons above enemies, to assist in locating them visually.

Informative Audio

Atomfall has a lot of informative audio by design, such as distinct audio for pick-ups and unique shouts or cues for when an attack is incoming to the player.

On top of this, Atomfall features additional audio cues for in-game interactions and to assist with combat. A layered set of features allows players to turn on snap aiming with cues, to know when they are snapped on to an enemy; aiming cues, which offer signals that help guide a player to their target using pitch and frequency; and passive NPC sounds, which provide spatialised audio for all NPCs, allowing engagement in melee combat through audio alone.

Controls and Remapping

Atomfall features remapping for both Keyboard and Controller and includes presets for one-handed play, made possible using our automated movement features and adaptive hardware.

By default, Atomfall’s control scheme can be set to have no holds using expansive toggle options, affecting actions like aim, and short holds for interactions.

All interfaces are also fully usable with a mouse or through button presses, giving players choice to use what is most comfortable for them.

We’re so proud of what we’ve achieved with Atomfall, and we hope that these features help more people to play and enjoy the game. But, with accessibility, we can always do more – if you have feedback, please get in touch with us on Twitter @AtomfallGame or through our Help Centre, or join the conversation on our Discord.

Atomfall is out now for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC, and cloud. It’s also available with Game Pass. And with Xbox Play Anywhere, play on Xbox consoles, Windows PC, and cloud with full cross-entitlements and cross-saves.

Atomfall

Rebellion

☆☆☆☆☆ 439

★★★★★

$59.99

Get it now

PC Game Pass

Xbox Game Pass

A survival-action game inspired by real-life events, Atomfall is set five years after the Windscale nuclear disaster in Northern England. Explore the fictional quarantine zone, scavenge, craft, barter, fight and talk your way through a British countryside setting filled with bizarre characters, mysticism, cults, and rogue government agencies. From Rebellion, the studio behind Sniper Elite and Zombie Army, Atomfall will challenge you to solve the dark mystery of what really happened. Player Driven Mystery: Unravel a tapestry of interwoven narratives through exploration, conversation, investigation, and combat, where every choice you make has consequences. Search, Scavage, Survive: You’ll need to scavenge for supplies, craft weapons and items, and fight desperately to make it out alive! Desperate Combat: With weapons and ammunition scarce, each frenetic engagement will see you blend marksmanship with vicious hand-to-hand combat. Manage your heart rate to hold a steady aim and ensure you have the energy you need to reach for your cricket bat and land the killer blow. Green and Unpleasant Land: The picturesque British countryside, with rolling green hills, lush valleys, and rural villages belie the dangers that await you. Navigate cult-controlled ruins, natural caves, nuclear bunkers and more as you explore this dense, foreboding world. Reimagining Windscale: A fictional reimagining of a real-world event, Atomfall draws from science fiction, folk horror, and Cold War influences to create a world that is eerily familiar yet completely alien.