Radio Times‘ Gaming Writer Alex Raisbeck had a smashing time with Atomfall, as can be read in his review, and while we welcome the news that the game is available to many this far into the ninth console generation, we were a little surprised to see the Xbox One and PS4 get the Atomfall treatment.
If, like us, you want to know why, then you’ve come to the right place!
Why is Atomfall on Xbox Game Pass?
For Kingsley, Xbox Game Pass acts as a means to get the game into as many players’ hands so that Atomfall’s reach grows organically.
“What I find about Game Pass is that it allows you to reach a broad audience and sort of spread the word for the game.”
It’s a trick that’s worked for Rebellion Developments’ latest title too.
“It’s gone very well for us on Sniper Elite: Resistance recently. But it means that people can try the game that they might not have immediately wanted to try, because they have to spend money on it.”
A lot of this is down to tapping into a subset of gamers who wouldn’t usually pick up a game like Atomfall, as Kingsley goes on to explain.
“And you go, ‘Oh, you know, I’ll give this a go,’ ‘I don’t normally like this kind of action adventure exploring game.’ And then you play it for a bit, and you go, ‘Actually, I do really like it.’ I’m… you know, this is good. I’ll keep going. And there’s no barrier. There’s no barrier to entry, in a way.
“And that spreads the word. And what we found is that these sort of systems, like Game Pass and Sony’s equivalent, actually spread the word.”
Crucially, this can let players do a lot of the legwork that an expensive marketing team would do, with Kingsley noting, “You actually get more people noticing the game, because more people are playing it.
“And what I think is… especially for an indie like us, you know, we don’t have the millions and millions of pounds to market a game, but word of mouth is hugely valuable to us.”
This word of mouth can then translate into sales, not just people trying it on Game Pass.
“If somebody plays a game and says to their friend, ‘You should play this game, I got it on Game Pass,’ and they go, ‘I don’t have Game Pass,’ and they go, ‘Buy it then,’ and that personal recommendation is incredibly powerful.”
Ultimately, Kingsley is “a huge believer in getting as many people to play our games as possible, whatever way they want to”, hence why Rebellion Developments has been so keen to work with Microsoft.
Why is Atomfall on PS4 and Xbox One?
Atomfall isn’t just the prestige of current-gen consoles, as players still on eighth-generation systems (sans the Nintendo Switch) can get in on all the fun.
Those players owe it to Kingsley, as he believes it’s “really important to use the older, the legacy platforms” as they still have large player bases.
This isn’t without peril, however, as Kingsley points out: “It does add complication, because it means you’ve got five or six different skews, different platforms to work on, and it means you’ve got five or six times the quality assurance.”
This has the added benefit of Atomfall being Steam Deck Verified. In our preview, we thought that Atomfall would be a great fit for the portable PC, so it’s great to know that it is fully supported.
Kingsley notes, though, that “there will come a time in the near future where most people have moved to the new platforms”.
What about upcoming platforms like Switch 2?
Here, Kingsley is a little more coy, and tells us “we get awareness of new hardware before the general public – usually – [because] we’ve got to work on games”.
Instead of addressing the Switch 2 directly, Kingsley gives the example of when Rebellion Developments was working on Battlezone, a VR reboot of the classic 1980s title that initially released for PlayStation VR in 2016.
“We got the headsets very early. Obviously, we have to be very careful. We can’t talk to anybody about them. We have to deny all knowledge of it. We can’t even say we can’t talk about it. We have to. We’re not allowed to.”
Kingsley continues by adding, “We are intrinsically a technology company, a creative technology company. So new technology is always exciting, but it always brings with it challenges as well, because it’s new hardware.”
Reading between the lines, Rebellion Developments is most likely in possession of a Switch 2 development kit, but as Kingsley points out, companies have contracts that prevent them from talking about that.
We won’t have very long to wait, though, as the Switch 2 Direct is nigh upon us!
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