Atlas Fallen is a new action role-playing game created by Deck13 Interactive and published by Focus Entertainment. Set in a dystopian world and ravaged by monsters known as Wraiths, you, an unnamed slave, are tasked to track down a thief that fled from a camp after stealing something for the head guard.

Instead, you find a mysterious gauntlet that speaks to you, empowering you to fight against the Wraiths. The gauntlet belonged to a God of the old time, and as you help them regain their memory, they help by making you strong enough to change the world as you seek allies from across the land to help you put an end to the Wraiths. Atlas Fallen does support single-player and online co-op, but sadly, does not seem to support crossplay connection.

As you progress in the game, you can unlock new skills and abilities like sand surfing, which allows you to travel quickly across the vast land, air dashing to soar short distances and get to high points of interest, and of course, new combat skills that can be found in the world, either collected from chests or as rewards from quests known as Essence Stones.

There are quite a few side quests that are thrown at you early into the game, but they are worth taking the time to finish as they unlock some pretty amazing skills that I kept on for the longest time. At first glance, you may expect the game to be short with how quickly you can earn the Essence Stones and level up the gauntlet to equip them, but it is just an early reward system to have players change up the styles of attacks and skills they can use.

As mentioned above, there are quite a lot of quests available, with many being simple fetch-style quests that send you to find “X” and bring it back, or go look for this person and report back, but there are also some amazing side quests that have a great story behind them that feature alongside the main story arc, which is amazing. You will meet a range of characters, from other unnamed slaves to knights of the old days, and they each have a story to tell that ties into the world and the choices you will be forced to make.

The world of Atlas Fallen is stunning, even though the majority of it is a sand-covered land. The forest segments and the cities you will come across are a work of art, and my only iffy moment with the graphics came down to talking with characters, as 90% of them didn’t move while delivering dialog.

For example, after beating a giant Wraith at the gates of a city and saving everyone, a lone guard stands there with his arms crossed the whole time, and while he sounded thankful and relieved, the body language didn’t give off that impression.

You can transmogrify your armour or use the various dyes that can be found around the world to change the colours for a suit you’d be proud to show off, and I did like that each Wraith came in different sizes and types, from the basic four-legged hellhound-like creature to giant crabs, and you’ll come across a lot of other lesser versions in the world, and as you get stronger, they will just be a quick interaction to deal with.

The controls for the game are very familiar to an action-adventure game that took me a while to place, but the more I played, the more it reminded me of Darksiders. Being able to string together different attacks in a flowing motion and throw out the heavy-hitting skills once the momentum bar was filled the combat was a major plus, and nothing felt out of place input-wise.

The audio covers a lot of lore in the story, and while you are out exploring the world, you can find books that will start an automatic audio log that details the zones or something you may have just come across for the first time, and when you dive deeper into the story, it will start giving details about major characters and things that have happened to them, reflecting on how they are in the current state of the world.

The god in the gauntlet will also let you know of any key items that may be nearby, so you can’t avoid finding hidden treasures that help with progression. The difficulty doesn’t really spike much, and when you are coming up to a Wraith, you’ll see its power level, so if you are rushing a red-numbered enemy you will have a challenge ahead.

Atlas Fallen is an amazing adventure to be tackled, either solo or with a friend, turning the tide of battle and fighting back against the monsters of the land and becoming more powerful with each victory. Honestly, there are not many negatives I can think of with Atlas Fallen. It has been another great release during a great year for games. I have loved every second I have spent exploring the world and all the fights I have encountered. If you are looking for a great action adventure RPG to play, this is highly worth checking out.

Written by: Shane Walsh