Long before Bethesda took the reins of the series and Walton Goggins donned ghoul make-up for his captivating role in its adapted TV show, Fallout was an isometric action RPG viewed from a bird’s eye perspective. It’s this classic style of wasteland-wandering that the upcoming Survive the Fall appears to be emulating, at least based on the first few hours of gameplay I experienced. This deadly post-apocalyptic tale of survival builds on the original Fallout’s template – quite literally in the case of its robust camp development system – and its squad-based combat and scavenging help it craft an experience that feels fresh, even if the somewhat static story presentation prevents its personality from totally shining through.
Unlike many other post-apocalyptic settings, the ruined world of *Survive the Fall* wasn’t caused by nuclear negligence. Instead, it was a comet collision with Earth that led to the demise of a significant portion of the world’s population. This event left a smoldering crater that emits a toxic mist called Stasis. Survivors either avoid this mist like a plague or embrace it, absorbing its otherworldly power to mutate into stronger forms at the cost of their humanity. Throughout *Survive the Fall*, your growing squad of scavengers must build bonds with various factions scattered across its three biomes to survive and thrive, from the Stasis-huffing Shroomers to the mysterious cult known as the Sighted.As I undertook each new task from Survive the Fall’s numerous quest-givers, I quickly grew fond of its squad-based setup. Navigating your party of up to three survivors through the sprawling national park that sets the stage for the story's beginning, you can manually search through abandoned chests for chemical compounds or chop down trees for lumber, or simply delegate these tasks to your cohorts with a button press. This approach feels more natural and speeds up the process of ransacking each settlement. The only downside is that the screen can become cluttered with button prompts when interactive elements are too close together, though these instances were rare.
Combat in Survive the Fall is also team-based. I approached encounters with marauders and ghouls with stealth as a priority, given the scarcity of rifle and shotgun ammunition in the early stages. Each infiltration of an enemy camp felt like a careful stalk through Commandos: Origins – hiding in long grass, throwing stones to create distractions, crouch-walking around enemy vision cones, and finally slitting throats before ordering a teammate to hide the body. There are also satisfying environmental hazards to exploit, from explosive barrels to dangling cargo pallets that can be dropped onto patrolling guards with a well-timed shot.
Survive the Fall - Preview Screens
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Clearing out clusters of cultists was satisfying, but when my cover was blown, combat became a bit fiddly with firearms. I suspect a mouse and keyboard would offer more precision, but with a controller, aiming with the lasersight was challenging, leading me to rely more on melee attacks and dodging in close quarters. Thankfully, the ability to pause the action and direct squadmates to focus on specific targets – reminiscent of systems in Wasteland or Mutant Year Zero – helped manage encounters, allowing my team to wear down tougher enemies while I dealt with support units.
After a day of mutant-murdering and loot-harvesting in the deadly badlands, Survive the Fall shifts into a base-building management sim back at your camp. Documents found in the world can be researched to earn knowledge points, which can then be invested in a sizable technology tree to unlock crafting options for everything from bunk beds and kitchen areas to water filtration systems or an armoury. Resources like timber can be crafted into planks and assembled into frames for new structures such as plant boxes or gates to fend off nighttime raiders. Foraged herbs or meat from wolves and deer can be prepared into meals and packed into the backpacks of your next expedition team. There’s considerable depth here, and I can see myself spending a lot of time transforming my settlement from rusty rubble to a cozy haven in the finished game.
Outside of my base, I discovered numerous intriguing areas to explore. From a crashed passenger plane converted into an enemy fort to a farmstead crawling with Stasis-infected ghouls, Survive the Fall offered distinct locales in every direction. The impressive level of detail in some areas, like the luminescent mushroom clusters in the Mycorrhiza swamplands, was occasionally marred by a volatile framerate and game-breaking bugs. I encountered issues like getting stuck in inventory screens or building menus, but with another month before Survive the Fall’s release, developer Angry Bulls Studio has time to optimize performance.
Survive the Fall offered distinct locales in every direction I explored.“That’s probably not quite enough time to add voice acting, though, and that’s a slight shame because interacting with your squad or NPCs feels a bit flat with onscreen text only. While I did enjoy some humorous moments, particularly from a character named Blooper who called the Stasis smog “fart wind,” most conversations simply served to cue up the next fetch quest rather than leaving a lasting impression of each faction member.
Perhaps the bonds will deepen over the full journey, and we won’t have to wait long to find out. Survive the Fall is set to release on PC this May and is brimming with post-apocalyptic potential. If the existing rough edges in controls and performance can be smoothed out by then, this could well be a survival-based action RPG worthy of your hard-earned bottlecaps.
