Atomfall’spost-apocalyptic world is a unique one. Rather than a gray wasteland or a high-tech city, the game takes place in the rural English countryside — a fictionalized version of Cumbria. Players explore rolling fields, mysterious moors, and quaint villages to learn about what happened during the deadly Windscale incident. Another unique element ofAtomfallis that it features no currency; instead, the quarantine zone has adopted a barter system that forces players to consider the value of various resources within the game’s world.
Game Rant spoke to Rebellion head of design Ben Fisher about the development team’s decision to implement a barter system inAtomfall.Fisher explained that bartering was chosen to enhance the game’s focus on survival, encourage unique interactions between the player and the various NPCs they can trade with, and discourage the farming of currency and low-level resources by players in the early game. The lack of a currency system alsoemphasizes player freedom, as they can choose what to trade away or to keep for themselves.
Bartering Encourages Careful Resource Management And Judgment Calls
“Inthe quarantine zone, survival is everything,” Fisher explained, “and concepts like money have become rather meaningless.” He described the bartering system within the closed-off area as “medieval-like,” and stressed the characters' focus on “essential goods to get by.” However, Fisher clarified that not every NPC will put the same bartering value on the same resources, encouraging players to “make interesting judgment calls…about what might be considered valuable.”
Players must carefully observe the many NPCs and factions they can interact with inside the quarantine zone to learn about which resources are valued by which individuals. Only by careful “observation and planning” will players be able to make good bartering deals that will allow them to acquire valuable resources such as weapons and health restoration items. Bartering will be a key mechanic inAtomfall,especially if players wish to obtain amelee or ranged weapon— and, in the case of the aforementioned ranged weapons, to keep it stocked with extremely scarce and valuable ammunition.
The Barter System’s Goal Is To Eliminate Resource And Money Grinding
While researchingpopular survival gameswhile developingAtomfall,Fisher and the Rebellion team noticed a trend in which players grind low-level resources and currency early in the game to keep a stock of necessary money and items. They did not want that to be possible inAtomfall,as the goal was that the player would always be experiencing pressure to stay alive and well-stocked. Fisher explained how the bartering system effectively eliminates that possibility:
“Bartering allows us to lean into the mechanic of observation and planning and avoids such economic problems as players grinding low-level resources to harvest currency. Given the digestible scope of our game, we wanted to avoid power creep over time to keep the play experience focused, and bartering is a really interesting way to do this.”
The bartering system is one of the many waysAtomfall’sdevelopershave ensured that every play-through is unique. No two players will experienceAtomfallthe same way, and a large element of that is which NPCs they choose to barter with, which resources they horde, and which ones they willingly trade away. It also keeps up the pressure to survive as players are unlikely to find themselves in a situation where they have a surplus of what they need; instead, they must keep a constant lookout for resources that others value so they will always have something to barter with should they need to do so.
