Atomfall Wicked Isle Review - An Island Misadventure

Atomfall let you explore a small slice of alternate history Britain in the late 1950s, and the new Wicked Isle DLC introduces a brand-new zone for you to trudge through. In our Atomfall Wicked Isle review, we'll break down what's good about this new story DLC — and what isn't.

Previously, Atomfall confined you to a walled-off "Quarantine Zone" with four distinct regions and a bunker called "The Interchange" that allowed you to travel between them fairly easily. This DLC introduces Midsummer Isle, a small island that is packed with a lot of history, some new sights to see, and a few too many familiar enemies.

Sailing to a New Zone

Players can make their way to Midsummer Isle by way of Bill Anderson, a boat captain hanging out on the docks of Wyndham Village. Bill wants your help in retrieving something important, and it's later revealed to be a special kind of mead only made on the island. What starts out as the world's strangest beer run soon evolves into a compelling story.

Midsummer Isle is roughly the size of the other zones in Atomfall, and it's about as dense as you'd expect it to be. There are a few points of interest to see on the map, a couple of merchants, and an abandoned B.A.R.D. bunker for you to explore. There's even a new set of garden gnomes for you to smash for an achievement!

There are plenty of interesting overworld locations to visit and several indoor locations with a lot to explore, two of which — the Chemical Testing Bunker and the Abbey Crypt — have mildly interesting puzzles for you to work out.

While there is some novelty to be had in these new places, there's nothing particularly exciting about them. I kept waiting for the Wicked Isle DLC to surprise me with some new mechanic or an interesting story twist and it never quite delivered.

Supply Shortages

I was fortunate enough to be able to jump right into the Atomfall Wicked Isle DLC via one of my old saves, so I had the advantage of having a healthy supply of ammo and all of the best guns that could be found in the base game. Unfortunately, some of the same problems I dealt with in the main game continued to rear their ugly heads in this DLC.

The storage space in the Pneumatic Tube remains at a paltry 100 items which was a disappointment, to say the least — especially since the Wicked Isle DLC introduces a bunch of new items you might want to hold onto just in case. I would have liked to see at least a small expansion in storage capacity for the hoarder types like myself out there.

It's all too easy to burn through most of your bullets exploring one of the tougher locations on the map.

A relatively low amount of storage space is really a symptom of another problem: the merchants rarely carry enough of the items you might need. If you want to stock up on any one particular item, you'll have to spend an hour or more running around the various regions of the map, hoping against hope that you can find everything you need.

Sadly, the new merchants also fail to carry much in the way of ammunition. It's all too easy to burn through most of your bullets exploring one of the tougher locations on the map, like the Harvesting Caves or the Chemical Testing Bunker, and then you'll have to spend another hour running all over the map to buy more for your next serious fight.

More of the Same

Story DLCs will often introduce something new, and the Wicked Isle DLC delivers just that with a few new crafting items, a handful of new consumables, and half a dozen new weapons for you to get your hands on. Unfortunately, all of this new stuff boils down to being more of the same kind of content you'd experience in the main game.

Let's start with the enemies. There are three basic types of foes to fight: Abbey Druids, Lake Bandits, and Aquatic Ferals. These enemies are all essentially palette swaps of the standard enemy archetypes you'll encounter in the base game, sans the Protocol soldiers. There are no new mechanics or tactics used by the bad guys.

The fight against the Beekeeper miniboss was truly a new experience that required a different kind of strategy to win.

The new DLC weapons don't have anything particularly special about them, either. You can get three kinds of knives, a slightly better bow that is a true upgrade to the standard bow, a massive club with a poison effect, and a Blunderbuss, which can't be upgraded. All of these weapons (save for the Midsummer Bow) are sidegrades at best.

That's not to say it was all samey; the Beekeeper miniboss fight was truly a new experience that required a different kind of strategy to win. I also enjoyed learning about the island's monks through the visions brought on by drinking the Angel's Essence; it added to the feeling that you were tapping into the collective consciousness of the "Angel."

Atomfall Wicked Isle Review | Final Thoughts

By and large, the Atomfall Wicked Isle DLC is more of the same. It doesn't introduce any new mechanics of any consequence, nor does it introduce any shocking story hooks. It is simply a new zone with some new characters and a lot of the same great Atomfall gameplay that you've experienced in the base game.

The worst part of this DLC, though, was the moments that felt like padding. One set of Leads requires you to run to the far edges of three of the mainland's regions to retrieve keys to open a door, and opening this door is required for both of the new endings introduced in the DLC. All of this running around felt a bit like padding.

Even the new endings weren't particularly innovative. Spoilers ahead — one ending is effectively a remix of the "steal a piece of the spooky alien meteorite and escape" ending, and the other new ending is a play on the "join the collective consciousness of the alien fungus" ending. This was a missed opportunity to try a new sort of end to the narrative.

All in all, the Atomfall Wicked Isle DLC was serviceable at best. It's worth it if you really loved running around the mid-20th century British countryside and you're anxious for more places to explore; otherwise, I'd recommend waiting to pick it up until you feel like giving the game a new playthrough sometime down the line.

Atomfall Wicked Isle was reviewed over approximately 28 hours of gameplay on PC via Steam with a key provided by the publisher. All screenshots were taken during the review process.