Atomfall: The Red Strain DLC Review – The Final Verdict
[Music] Adamfall is one of the more charming RPGs to release this year. It’s a distinctively British Falloutlike with a compact scale packed with fun combat and choice-driven dialogue. The first DLC, Wicked Isle, was something of a step back in terms of quality. Sure, it added more weapons and a new area to explore, but the incessant backtracking deflated my enthusiasm for it. So, I went into the second DLC with tempered expectations, but came out nearly as enthused as I was going through the actual base game. The Red Strain isn’t quite a home run, but it’s certainly a step up from Wicked Ale. Let’s break down why. The Red Strain is accessed near the starting zone of the base game inside the Slatten Coal Mines. A previously defunct elevator shaft whisked me away to a completely new area called the Scofful Crag, the base of operations for this specific DLC’s content. Like Wicked Isle, the new location has a single entrance with no interchange shortcuts. That’s not a dealbreaker, but Scoffl Crag’s entry point is far from any interchange notes or major zones, forcing players to trek on foot across long stretches. At least the first DLC started within the hub like Windham Village. While the distance isn’t unbearable, it makes backtracking more tedious than it actually should be. And two expansions in, there’s still no fast travel option. But for the most part, the red strain takes place in the self-contained scoffful crag, a region housing a top secret research campus with a rocket ship of all things nestled within. My introduction to this new region was pleasant. The mysterious loudspeaker and abandoned trainyard reminded me a lot of Gordon Freeman’s entrance to City 17 in HalfLife 2, at least to some small degree here. Exploring the rail tracks and small operator rooms reminded me why I enjoy the environments in the base game so much. There is a level of fine detail and a strong British sense of place here, something I found missing in Wicked Isle. I also enjoyed the linear progression curve of enemy encounters. You start out alone in the trainard, able to peruse at your leisure until inciting the anger of some infected citizens near the local village. I guess I just like that I’m not terribly swarmed right from the get- go. The player gets to ease oneself into the new DLC area, which is nice. Things take a more puzzling turn when leaving the station and the small village. A huge wall with turrets surrounds what is called test site Mariah. Contained within Mariah’s walls are the meat and potatoes of the DLC’s main quest. So, naturally, getting inside should be rather straightforward and clear, right? Well, the opposite was actually true in my case playing. I was led on a wild goose chase that lasted over an hour thanks to misleading investigation leads. The game naturally leads the player to various nodes, dulging how to open the entrance inside Mariah. These nodes tie into Windfall Shipment quest from the base game, a quest which leads to the signal redirectionctor key item. A vast majority of players getting into this DLC will already have the signal redirectionctor in their inventory. Yet, these new leads still mark the windfall quest as ongoing, pointing players in the vicinity of the signal redirectionctor. In short, the leads to get through the gate don’t recognize the completion of a prior quest, encouraging players to backtrack to places already completed. To complicate things further, some journals mention a new signal redirectionctor MK2, which seems tied to the Windfall leads. After wandering all the way to Skmore in search of the Windfall shipment I already retrieved much earlier in the game, I realized I didn’t actually need the MK2 at all. I was just using the MK1 on the wrong control box. So yeah, some of that’s on me, but the quest design could be far clear to be sure. And without a fast travel option, that kind of backtracking does become exhausting. This goose chase is partially on the game for being so obtuse and misleading at times. Once I did realize what I actually had to do in order to open the gate to Mariah, I actually began enjoying the DLC again. The Mariah site has a lot going for it. It’s got great terrain verticality, a host of new opponents to combat, and a tight layout that’s far more convenient than the sprawl of Wicked Isle. Mariah is dotted with a series of facilities in a circle-like configuration with the command center at the far end and a neat underground tunnel allowing for quicker traversal. The interesting vertical geography including a rocket ship of all things centered in the middle of the map just makes exploration all the more fun here. You’re rarely exposed in wide open spaces getting ambushed by common bandits here. The terrain is just too varied and terrace for that and the enemies are almost exclusively unique. You’ll see some common bandits here and there after opening the Mariah gate, but the area is almost exclusively populated by new stuff. Scoff Crag sees the player facing off against a new organic variation of the barred robots, red strain variants of ferals, and my favorite, cute, pesky little drones, which fly out in packs, shocking every non-infected person in sight. The drones, in particular, emphasize your new combat equipment. Well, the new SMGs are perfect for spraying down drone flyers, and electric grenades are even more effective for their wide blanket effect. Now, as far as the larger robots go, you have a new heavy machine gun and flamethrower that tears them to shreds. I didn’t find much use for the new suppressed weapons, but it’s cool they at least added them in the game. All in all, I never felt too overwhelmed by enemy encounters, and there’s enough variety here to keep the gameplay feeling fresh and different from the core game and its first DLC, Wicked Isle. Once more, you can even use robots and turret systems against foes with the handy new signal redirectionctor MK2. Just hack away at the applicable robots, and they’ll patrol and shoot down anyone threatening you. It’s especially handy to hack turret systems for those erratic and unsuspecting drone swarms. There’s also some new skills and items that I won’t spoil here. Suffice to say, they’re actually more or less in line with what Wicked Isle brought to the table. Unfortunately, all the new gadgets and weaponry has to be frugally managed in your increasingly limited inventory. That’s because there’s been no expansion to the inventory or tweaks to the core gameplay systems related to its whatsoever in this DLC. Now, it’s surprising because one of the core issues since the base game’s release was actually how clunky inventory management was. Manually scrolling through each individual unsorted item in storage is made even more tedious here due to the additional items and loot. And with no increase in the item cap size, constantly selling off or discarding stuff is a necessity here. At least there’s a lot of storage tubes populating this new zone. I can’t imagine how tedious it would have been to have to backtrack all the way to the interchange just to store and retrieve your loot. The DLC requires you to fill your inventory with a myriad of key items necessary to advance the main quest. And without any kind of inventory expansion, collecting all the new year becomes stifled. One of the key items you’ll be lugging around are brains. Yes, that’s right, brains, which are in jars. Your main objective is seeking out five or so jar brains hidden within the various facilities of the Mariah campus. The facilities each fulfill a specific function of the operation, much like the different wings within the interchange. There’s not as many cool gimmicks or interesting thematic level design here as the interchange, but the effort to differentiate the buildings is still noticeable. But let’s get back to those jar brains. Inserting each brain into the command facility unlocks access to new facilities and unravels more of the mystery of the red strain virus infecting everything in the zone. It’s a nice narrative conceit that pushes the player forward both in terms of new locations and story revelations. And each brain has a unique personality, too, adding some characterization to an otherwise pretty lonely quest. The story dispenses lore and world building via the numerous notes and journals left by prior inhabitants and heck, even sometimes the jar brains. It’s more or less the same style of world building as the base game and the first DLC. The main Oberon plot is also tied to this DLC as expected. I mean, you didn’t think a viral outbreak named the red strain wouldn’t have any connection to the Oberon artifact, did you? Speaking of Oberon, this DLC includes two new endings. Both endings involve backtracking to the final quest of the main game to complete. So, in other words, there’s no new final dungeon or anything like that here. You must do the same Oberon journey from the base game’s ending, albeit with the added backtracking to the new zone afterwards. I wouldn’t mind ending it at Oberon again, but having to hoof it back to the Mariah facility is pure tedium. Again, the game desperately needs some kind of fast travel option, it would help. The same slideshow style endings are present for both endings of this DLC. While the endings aren’t any more flashy than the core games, they do at least provide thought-provoking decision-making between the two opposing questgivers. There’s quite a bit of moral reasoning and questioning to digest within the story’s endings, which I do appreciate. The Red Strain is a pretty notable improvement from the Wicked Isle DLC. The new zone is much more interesting to explore, and the added enemy types and fresh weaponry is more dynamic and fun. And while some old woes remain unchanged here, there’s at least far less backtracking this time around. So, if you only have the budget to pick up one DLC for Atomfall, the Red Strain is definitely the better option of the two. So, what are your thoughts on this? Go ahead and share them in the comments below. And if you like this video, please subscribe to the channel and enable all notifications by clicking the bell icon to get new video updates. We upload every day and would really appreciate your support. Thanks for watching.
Atomfall Red Strain is a pretty notable improvement from The Wicked Isle DLC. The new zone is much more interesting to explore and the added enemy types and fresh weaponry is more dynamic and fun.
And while some old woes remain unchanged here, there’s at least far less backtracking this time around. If you only have the budget to pick up one DLC for Atomfall, The Red Strain is the better option of the two.