"Atlas Fallen sees Deck13 make a mostly successful leap to a bright and bold semi-open world that's jam-packed full of excellent combat and some surprisingly slick platforming action. Yes the story is bland, the voice-acting is poor, there are some lock-on niggles and sand-surfing needs work, but ferocious battles, tons of swappable skills and well-designed Metroidvania and platforming elements more than make up for most of the failings here. This is the studio's best game to date for our money, and if you've played The Surge series you'll know that's saying something."
"With exploration enhanced by fun traversal, a progression system that doesn't tie you to levels, and combat that never gets boring with flashy abilities and fast-paced movement - Atlas Fallen is definitely worth your time."
"Atlas Fallen's superb combat, intruiging world, and fluid traversal make up for a play-by-numbers narrative. Thankfully, simple things like surfing the sands of a ginormous desert wasteland and taking on behemoth beasts mean I can enjoy the game for what it is instead of what it could have been."
"While this sandy action RPG is somewhat lacking in technical and visual polish, Atlas Fallen is still a strong outing from Deck13, with the outfit continuing to prove it's got the chops when it comes to crafting interesting mechanics and fun combat."
"Atlas Fallen is a valiant effort from Deck13 Interactive that will go down as its best game so far. With fantastic traversal and a fun, engaging combat system, the developer has nailed the gameplay in every sense. What holds the experience back, though, is a lack of polish to iron out the technical issues and potentially long load times. It's disappointing to come up against a few too many flaws, but when Atlas Fallen is on form, its marriage of movement and fighting shines through."
IGN (7/10)
"Atlas Fallen is a solid open-world action RPG with plenty of platforming and large monsters to fight. Putting aside its weak story and the console versions’ gritty graphics there’s a hidden gem of excellent combat, robust exploration, and surprisingly deep customization to uncover in the sinking sands of its arid wilderness."
"Like in their earlier games, Deck 13 Interactive is definitely punching above their weight. If this results in some moments of unexpected awesomeness, it also results in some rough patches and missing polish."
"Mindless, pointless, and mind-numbing are all probably descriptors that sound too harsh for Atlas Fallen because, again, it's mainly good old simple fun. Sure, it takes itself way too seriously and the loot chase can get monotonous, but everything outside of the monster-slaying is just an excuse to get right back to the monster-slaying."
"It's proficient in some respects, adequate in others, and manageable at worst. But that leaves a creative void in its world and the way you interact with it that calls into question the value of the whole endeavour."
"Atlas Fallen is at its best when you're fighting huge enemies with your carefully constructed (by trial and error) build, but when you're repeatedly fighting the same enemies, when the story falls flat, and the environments blend into one, it starts to get dull and frustrating quickly."
"Within an hour of playing Atlas Fallen, the game’s strengths and weaknesses all become clear. It’s a smaller release punching above its weight class. That’s endearing, but ambition only gets you so far. Though even when a game disappoints like Atlas Fallen, you can still often excavate some innovative ideas from them. I just had to do a lot of sifting in order to find the gold in a sand sea of other issues."
At the time of writing, Atlas Fallen has a score of 64 on Metacritic and a 68 on Open Critic, so it's certainly sounding like a mixed bag so far. We're at the higher end on that scale here at Pure Xbox though, and we definitely think Atlas Fallen is still worth a shot if you like your budget action RPGs!
