Much like other titles, New Game Plus in Atlas Fallen allows carrying over your currency, gear, and progress. You can continue playing at the same difficulty and wreck everything that moves or opt for the new Nightmare difficulty to face more challenging foes. Players can also unlock new armor sets and unique Essence Stones in New Game Plus while exploiting a new mechanic to boost their power further.

Atlas Fallen’s Reign of Sand launches on August 13th for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. Alongside New Game Plus, it adds a new area, enemies, weapons, quests, and more. Head here for more details, and check out our review for the base game here.

How soon it will be before it does, or before it gets announced for the service, remains to be seen, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see the game coming to the service either in August or sometime around that, seeing as that is also when developer Deck13 will be releasing a major update for the game, titled Reign of Sand.

The update, which will be free, is set to be a significant one, bringing plenty of new content in the form of a new location, new quests, enemies, weapons, and more, on top of a new difficulty mode, new voice acting, a New Game Plus mode, revamped progression mechanics, and more.

In our review upon the game’s launch last year, we gave it a score of 6/10, saying, “Atlas Fallen has legitimate strengths in its quick, snappy sand surfing, its fascinating setting and worldbuilding, and deep and flexible progression mechanics, but with clunky movement, inconsistent combat, lackluster storytelling, and just an all-around lack of polish, it ends up being weighed down by far too many issues to be able to live up to its proper potential.” Read the full review through here.

Following its release, publisher Focus Entertainment called the game’s sales “disappointing”.

Atlas Fallen is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

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Coming to Game Pass: Atlas Fallen

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It’s now been confirmed that that update, titled Reign of Sand, will launch for free on August 6. Described as a major overhaul of the game, it will add a new area for players to explore, as well as new enemies, weapons, challenges, quests, and more.

The update also brings revamped progression mechanics, new voice acting (including from Ben Starr, who portrayed Final Fantasy 16 protagonist Clive), a new Nyaal’s Nightmare difficulty mode, and a New Game Plus option. Deck 13 says players will be able to carry over their progress from the game’s current version, but since Reign of Sand is set to replace the base experience as a major, game-wide overhaul, the developer recommends starting an entirely new save.

In our review of Atlas Fallen upon its release last year, we gave it a score of 6/10, saying, “Atlas Fallen has legitimate strengths in its quick, snappy sand surfing, its fascinating setting and worldbuilding, and deep and flexible progression mechanics, but with clunky movement, inconsistent combat, lackluster storytelling, and just an all-around lack of polish, it ends up being weighed down by far too many issues to be able to live up to its proper potential.” Read the full review through here.

Atlas Fallen is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

In its recent published fiscal report, Focus Entertainment has said multiple times that it was disappointed by the sales of Atlas Fallen, which impacted the company’s profitability in the first half of the ongoing fiscal year. The company is also expecting the game to make “very limited” contributions to revenue in the coming months.

That said, Focus Entertainment has confirmed that it will be releasing “an enhanced version and new content” for Atlas Fallen at some point in the first half of the next fiscal year, which means a release window between April and September of 2024.

In our review of Atlas Fallen, we gave it a score of 6/10, saying, “Atlas Fallen has legitimate strengths in its quick, snappy sand surfing, its fascinating setting and worldbuilding, and deep and flexible progression mechanics, but with clunky movement, inconsistent combat, lackluster storytelling, and just an all-around lack of polish, it ends up being weighed down by far too many issues to be able to live up to its proper potential.” Read the full review through here.

Atlas Fallen is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

Under a corrupt god’s oppression, the world suffers, as people are reduced to their occupations. You’re an Unnamed, bottom of the barrel, until you discover a magical gauntlet to manipulate sand and use it as a weapon. Thus begins the journey to rebel and liberate humanity.

Players can surf through the sandy world and shape three unique weapons to battle enemies, including massive monsters. The latter are customized with Essence Stones, while armor sets provide buffs and bonuses. Co-op is also supported and allows for seamless exploration.

Of course, it’s not without its faults, as combat needs more work. Check out our review for more details.

Take the game’s setting for instance, which is undoubtedly one of its biggest strengths. Set in a fantasy world that is ruled over by Helos, a tyrannical, all-powerful entity, the world of Atlas Fallen, which once used to be lush and gorgeous, now lies almost entirely buried in sand. The landscapes are wracked with sandstorms, monsters and nightmarish beasts roam the lands everywhere, and the population struggles with everything from heat to starvation to any number of other life-threatening problems. It’s an excellent setting that feels unique in the fantasy space thanks to its aesthetic, and it pulled me in right from the get go.

"Atlas Fallen is a solid enough game with its fair share of strengths, but many of its best ideas are let down by an abundance of jank and a disappointing lack of polish."

What also helped was the rich lore and strong worldbuilding Atlas Fallen’s setting boasts. Making your way through the experience and learning more about the world’s history and the conflicts of the past that led to present day remains an engaging experience throughout, and the game does a good job of doling out intriguing new details at a regular clip to ensure that it retains your interest and attention. All of this comes with a few caveats though, as so many things in Atlas Fallen do, because though the game has a fascinating setting with an interesting history, it just doesn’t have the narrative chops to back it up in any meaningful way.

The cutscenes vary wildly in quality, and while some do a decent enough job of showing off the game’s world, others feel choppy and jarringly directed during key moments. The characters are dull and uninteresting with almost no exceptions, and even though some of them do seem like intriguing personalities on paper, they’re frequently let down by shoddy voice acting and rough writing, the latter having a frustrating knack of rushing through things rather than letting characters develop and letting the player sit with major new story reveals. It all feels like a very uneven experience, narratively speaking- even though I enjoy existing in the world of Atlas Fallen, I’m let down by how it tells its story.

Similarly, the gameplay side of things deserves genuine praise for many of its ideas, as well as criticism for how it builds on some of them. Atlas Fallen is all about speed, whether you’re in combat or out exploring its world. The traversal mechanics do a much better job of making good on that promise than most other gameplay elements. Using the powers of a mysterious, fabled gauntlet that you acquire early on, you can shape the sands of the world as you see fit, which allows you to surf through landscapes at blistering speeds (as long as there’s sand underneath your feet, which tends to be the case more often than not). Sand surfing is easily one of Atlas Fallen’s most notable highlights. It feels appropriately quick and snappy, the controls are tight and responsive, and it makes the simple act of going from point A to point B enjoyable on a very fundamental level. The sense of speed and momentum the game conveys while you’re surfing on the sands never stops impressing, even when you’re deep into the experience.

"It all feels like a very uneven experience, narratively speaking- even though I enjoy existing in the world of Atlas Fallen, I’m let down by how it tells its story."

It helps that exploration in general tends to be a lot of fun in Atlas Fallen. The locations the game takes you to are all gorgeously designed, varied, and brimming with awe-inspiring vistas to see, from waves of dust flowing over massive mountains to ancient cities buried beneath an ocean of sand. Mechanically, what you find in these areas is pretty run-of-the-mill, from side quests to loot to crafting and upgrade resources, but that does a decent enough job of rewarding you for your curiosity, even if the visual design of the places you’re exploring does most of the heavy lifting. Best of all, Atlas Fallen doesn’t feel unnecessarily large- rather than throwing you into a massive open world, it sequentially takes you from area to area, scattering multiple large, open environments across the experience, so that the optional content on offer always feels manageable rather than overwhelming.

But again, there’s a catch- sand surfing is a blast, and Atlas Fallen’s world is fun to explore, especially from a visuals perspective, but the core, moment-to-moment movement feel incredibly clunky most of the time. There’s a constant underlying sense of unresponsiveness that pervades through every basic movement you make in Atlas Fallen, and the simplest of acts – walking, running, jumping, dashing – never feel as snappy as they should. That impacts combat as well- in a much more significant way, in fact.

Combat in Atlas Fallen is all about speed and momentum, with the focus being on being aggressive and keeping up a constant flow of attacks against your enemies so you can build up your Momentum Bar. The more you build it up, the deadlier you become, from your attacks dealing more damage to being able to utilize the active and passive abilities of your equipped Essence Stones to even your weapons changing shape and becoming larger. At the same time, having a fuller Momentum Bar also means you take more damage, and this risk/reward mechanic means dodging and parrying attacks is key. In combat encounters where you’re fighting multiple enemies of different kinds at the same time – which happens frequently – remaining quick and agile is critical to survival.

"There’s a constant underlying sense of unresponsiveness that pervades through every basic movement you make in Atlas Fallen, and the simplest of acts – walking, running, jumping, dashing – never feel as snappy as they should. That impacts combat as well- in a much more significant way, in fact."

But again, the movement mechanics don’t back that up. Attacks often feel sluggish and unresponsive, and are crippled often by issues such as shoddy hit detection and the game failing to register inputs. Aerial combat feels clunky, because moving around when airborne is even sloppier than moving around on the ground. Simple actions like dodging and locking on to enemies never feel as precise as they should. There’s a general lack of polish that accumulates chip damage with dozens of tiny slashes, all of which comes together to make Atlas Fallen’s combat a frequently frustrating affair. Add to that sudden spikes of difficulty during some boss fights, and things become even more problematic.

Some of that is curbed to some extent by the game’s impressive suite of progression and customization mechanics. The build variety that Atlas Fallen boasts is perhaps its one strength that I would praise without any qualifications whatsoever. That largely revolves around crafting and equipping Essense Stones, but there’s a surprising amount of options here, and more importantly, a surprising amount of options that feel meaningfully valuable. Finding the Essense Stones that suit your play style and tailoring your build to the way you want to approach combat feels very rewarding due to the flexibility the game affords. It’s disappointing that that’s let down by the inconsistent combat, but those looking for complex RPG systems will be impressed by what Atlas Fallen has on offer nonetheless.

On the technical side of things, anybody who’s played Deck13’s games before will likely not be surprised in the slightest that Atlas Fallen is as unpolished and janky as it is. Rough character animations, texture pop-in, UI glitches, inputs not being read properly, the occasional freezing issue here and there- there’s a level of jankiness to Atlas Fallen that burdens the experience in a number of ways, even if there aren’t too many issues that single-handedly feel game-breaking. It helps that the game’s gorgeous art design is what helps it stand out on a visual level rather than any technical achievements.

"Thanks to its setting, worldbuilding, traversal and exploration, and the deep progression systems, Atlas Fallen is still a game worth a look in spite of its issues. But it does have issues, and they’re numerous, and not easy to ignore, especially when they add up the way they do."

In the end, Atlas Fallen is about what I expected it to be- a solid game that deserves legitimate praise for some of the things it does, but one with more than a few rough edges, all of which combine to prevent the game for ever managing to reach its potential in disappointing ways. Thanks to its setting, worldbuilding, traversal and exploration, and the deep progression systems, Atlas Fallen is still a game worth a look in spite of its issues. But it does have issues, and they’re numerous, and not easy to ignore, especially when they add up the way they do.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.

Another new trailer has now also been released, though this one takes a different approach. Rather than diving into the game’s nitty gritties, Atlas Fallen’s newest trailer is a part-live action, part-gameplay affair that shines the spotlight on the game’s traversal mechanics.

Set in an apocalyptic fantasy setting that’s buried under an ocean of sand, Atlas Fallen will put as much of an emphasis on speed and momentum in traversal as it will in combat, with abilities like sand surfing taking centerstage, and that’s exactly what’s highlighted in this newest trailer. Check it out below.

Atlas Fallen launches on August 10 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. On consoles, it will run at either 4K/30 FPS or 1440p/60 FPS. You can also check out the PC version’s system requirements through here. Fore more details on the game, make sure to read our interview with Deck13 managing director and Atlas Fallen creative director Jan Klose.

A divine gauntlet will serve as your primary tool in Atlas’ Fallen’s combat, and with its ablity to transform sand into different shaped, will give you access to three different weapons, of which you can have two equipped at any given time. Those three weapons will be a massive and versatile dune cleaver, a long range-focused sand whip, and the up-close-and-personal specialist knuckle dust. As you progress through the game, you’ll also be able to evolve and power up weapons, making them larger and deadlier.

Players will also have a Momentum gauge to contend with. Every attack you land successfully will fill up the gauge a little bit, granting you powerful abilities, attacks, and special effects. There will, however, also be a risk/reward mechanic at play, because though your weapons will become more powerful as your Momentum increases, you’ll also become more vulnerable to damage.

Beyond the moment-to-moment action, Atlas Fallen will also allow players to dive into the weeds with their character’s build. There will be multiple different armour sets to collect, each with their own unique stats, while each will, of course, also be upgradeable. There are also over 150 Essence Stones to find and equip, each offering everything from special attacks abilities to buffs, debuffs, and more. There will also be perks, stat upgrades, and more.

The trailer also offers details on the many different kinds of enemies you will face, from smaller foes to large and fearsom bosses, and touches on how, similar to Monster Hunter, players will be able to specific body parts when fighting against monsters to incapacitate them in different ways, make them drop unique loot, and nullify specific attacks tied to those body parts. Check out the trailer below for more details.

For more on Atlas Fallen, make sure to check out its recent extensive gameplay presentation and a gameplay trailer that focuses on customization and armour, or read up on how much content the game will have on offer. You can also learn more about its setting, combat, how it will approach difficulty, and more in our recent interview with Deck13 managing director and Atlas Fallen creative director Jan Klose through here.

Atlas Fallen launches on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on August 10. It will run at 4K/30 FPS and 1440p/60 FPS modes on PS5 and Xbox Series X. You can check out its PC requirements through here.

Each armor set has different stats and bonuses, like the Knight’s Plate “greatly” slowing enemies for one second if they hit you. There are two slots each for Fabrics and Plates and a slot for accents, with dozens of dye options available. You can also attach cosmetic items like shields, helms and more.

If you like the stats of an armor set but not the look, use Transmogrify to change the outer appearance alone. Of course, you also have Perks and Essence Stones for modifying your gameplay style, while there are resources to collect, treasure maps to find and lore items to discover.

Atlas Fallen is out on August 10th for Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and PC. Check out our interview with the developer and the latest gameplay presentation here.

SETTING AND STORY

Atlas Fallen is set in a unique fantasy world that is languishing in the shadows of a cataclysmic event that happened a long time ago. Once ruled by all-powerful beings, these entities became corrupted and they unleashed their powers on the land, much of which now lies buried beneath an ocean of sand. In this buried fantasy land, players step into the shoes of a nameless protagonist, who must rise up and fight against the corruption of Thelos.

COMBAT

Atlas Fallen is emphasizing speed and style above all else in its gameplay, and combat is one of the areas where that seems to be most prominent, with the focus being on combining your abilities and fast attacks with combos, aerial attacks, dodges, parries, and the like. During skirmishes, your primary tool will be a magical gauntlet, which has the power to shape the sound around you into any weapon you want. Three weapon classes are available in the game, with a a large gauntlet, a battle axe, and a whip-like sword, of which you’ll be able to have two equipped at any given time.

ESSENCE STONES

Another crucial component of the combat system are the Essence Stones, which you’ll find scattered throughout the game’s environments. Each stone provides unique passive or active buffs and abilities, and with over a hundred of them to find, it seems players will have plenty of flexibility in how to build up their character.

MOMENTUM

Using Essence Stones’ abilities will also tie in with the Momentum mechanic. As you dish out attacks and basic combos, you’ll gradually fill up your Momentum bar, which will come with a unique risk/reward mechanic- though you’ll be more vulnerable against incoming attacks, the higher the bar fills up, the more (and better) Essence abilities you’ll be able to unleash. Fill it up to a certain point, and you’ll be able to use a special ability tied to whichever weapon you have equipped.

THE WORLD

Atlas Fallen isn’t going to be an open world game, but Deck13 is promising a large and expansive adventure nonetheless, and says the action RPG is the biggest game world it’s ever created. The world will be divided up into multiple open areas, and across these areas, players will be exploring castles, forests, oases, mountain ranges, caves and much more.

TRAVERSAL

Moving through the sandy world of Atlas Fallen is going to be central to the experience here, with players have access to a variety of unique abilities that will (hopefully) turn traversal into a quick and thrilling affair, from air dashing to sand gliding to the good, old double jump. Traversal abilities will also be upgradable, while players wil, of course, also be able to use them in combat.

EXPLORATION AND OPTIONAL ACTIVITIES

With traversal being one of Atlas Fallen’s key gameplay pillars, and with its focus on fast movement, its world has been designed a bit differently than what you’d expect from Deck13’s games- which, in a nutshell, means larger and more open areas to move across and explore. According to the developer, each of the game’s areas will offer “hours of content”, some of which will supposedly be the most challenging content in the game, for those not satisfied by the difficulty of the main quests.

RAISING BURIED OBJECTS

Exploration won’t just be a simple matter of moving from point A to point B in Atlas Fallen (though surely we can still expect plenty of that nonetheless). From time to time, players will also come across objects or environmental elements that will be buried beneath the sands, which you can raise from their sand-filled graves to open up new gameplay opportunities, from a newly opened path to hidden areas that couldn’t be explored previously.

CHOICE AND CONSEQUENCE MECHANICS

Though choice and consequence mechanics won’t be the main focus in Atlas Fallen, you can expect them to be at least an ancillary part of the experience. Primarily, these will come in the form of dialog choices, and the decisions you make will at times have major consequences, including whether or not certain characters die. That said, Deck13 has said that though there might be some diversions and tonal changes to the story based on your choices, the larger, more important story beats won’t be too heavily impacted.

PROGRESSION AND CUSTOMIZATION

Atlas Fallen is, of course, billing itself as an RPG, which means there will be plenty of focus on customization and progression mechanics as well. Plenty of that will be down to the previously mentioned Essence Stones, but in addition to that, players will also be able to able to equip different armour pieces, upgrade gear, and mess about with cosmetic customization options (not to include a character creator at the outset of your journey).

LENGTH

Clearly, there’s going to be plenty to do in Atlas Fallen, but how meaty of an experience will it be exactly? While Deck13 has yet to offer details on what the runtime of the game’s main story is, the developer has said that for those who seek out all of the game’s content, it will be roughly 25-30 hours long, which is a decent length (to say the very least). Of course, just as important will be how compelling that content is.

DIFFICULTY OPTIONS

Deck13’s previous games in recent years have prided themselves on the level of challenge they put up, being Soulslikes, but Atlas Fallen is casting a much wider net, which means it’s approaching difficulty in a different manner. On top of just being less gruelingly as it is, the game will also offer three different difficulty levels for players to swap between.

CO-OP

Deck13 says that Atlas Fallen was designed first and foremost as a single player experience, though those looking to go through the entire game with another player will have the option to do so, thanks to the inclusion of 2-player co-op. When playing co-op, both characters will also be present in all cutscenes and conversations with NPC, while the game’s difficulty will also be differently tuned.

PERFORMANCE AND FRAME RATE

Atlas Fallen isn’t going to be a cross-gen title, and it seems like it’ll be looking to leverage the more powerful hardware it’s running on with its frame rate and performance targets. On PS5 and Xbox Series X, the game will feature a quality mode, which targets 4K and 30 FPS, and a performance mode, which targets 1440p and 60 FPS. On Xbox Series S, on the other hand, only one mode will be available, with the game running at 1080p and 60 FPS.

PC REQUIREMENTS

Meanwhile, for those who intend to play on PC, the game’s requirements aren’t too demanding (at least on the lower settings). On minimum settings, you’ll need either an Intel Core i5-6600K or an AMD Ryzen 3 1200, along with either a TX 1050 Ti or an RX 470 (with 4 GB VRAM), and 8 GB of RAM. Meanwhile, on recommended settings, you’ll need either Intel Core i7-9800X or an AMD Ryzen 5 3600, along with either a GTX 1070 Ti or an RX 5700, and 16 GB of RAM. On either setting, you’ll also need roughly 35 GB of free storage space.