Long before Bethesda took the reins of the series and Walton Goggins donned ghoul makeup for his captivating performance in its TV adaptation, Fallout was an isometric action RPG viewed from a bird’s eye perspective. It’s this classic style of wasteland exploration that Survive the Fall seems to emulate, at least based on the initial hours I spent with the game. This deadly post-apocalyptic survival story builds directly on the original Fallout's foundation—quite literally with its robust camp development system—and its squad-based combat and scavenging create an experience that feels refreshingly new, though the static story presentation somewhat hinders its full personality from shining through.
*Survive the Fall*'s ruined world isn't the result of humanity's nuclear folly. Instead, it stems from a cataclysmic event akin to the one that doomed the dinosaurs: a comet collision that decimated a large portion of the global population. This disaster left a crater that emits a toxic mist known as Stasis. Survivors either shun this deadly fog or harness its otherworldly power, transforming into stronger, mutated beings at the cost of their humanity. In *Survive the Fall*, your growing squad of scavengers must forge alliances with the diverse factions scattered across its three biomes—from the Stasis-addicted Shroomers to the enigmatic cult, the Sighted—to survive and thrive.I quickly grew fond of Survive the Fall's squad-based mechanics while completing the game's numerous quests. Navigating your party of up to three survivors through the expansive national park that sets the stage for the story's beginning, you have the option to manually search for chemical compounds in abandoned chests or chop down trees for lumber. Alternatively, you can delegate these tasks to your AI companions with a simple button press, allowing you to focus on other activities. This division of labor feels intuitive and accelerates the process of scavenging each settlement you encounter. The only minor annoyance is the occasional clutter of button prompts when interactive elements are closely grouped, but such instances are rare.
Combat in Survive the Fall also relies on teamwork. Given the scarcity of rifle and shotgun ammunition in the early stages, I prioritized stealth when confronting marauders and ghouls. Approaching enemy camps felt akin to navigating the strategic missions in Commandos: Origins—crouch-walking through tall grass, using stones to create distractions, avoiding enemy vision cones, and silently taking down foes before instructing a squad member to dispose of the bodies. The game offers satisfying environmental hazards, from explosive barrels to strategically positioned cargo pallets that can be dropped onto unsuspecting guards with a well-timed shot.
Survive the Fall - Preview Screens
14 Images
Clearing out clusters of cultists was rewarding, but when stealth failed and combat ensued, the experience became somewhat cumbersome with a controller. Precision targeting felt challenging, often leading me to rely on melee attacks and dodging to whittle down enemies in close quarters. A mouse and keyboard setup might offer better control. Thankfully, the ability to pause and direct squadmates to focus on specific targets—similar to systems in Wasteland or Mutant Year Zero—helped manage encounters, especially against tougher cult leaders while I handled their support crew.
After a day of battling mutants and gathering resources in the deadly badlands, Survive the Fall transitions into a base-building management simulation at your camp. Documents found during exploration can be researched to earn knowledge points, which you can invest in an extensive technology tree. This allows you to unlock the crafting of various items, from bunk beds and kitchens to water filtration systems and armories. Resources like timber can be transformed into planks and used to build structures such as plant boxes or protective gates against nighttime raiders. Foraged herbs and meat from hunted animals can be prepared into meals to sustain your adventurers on their next expeditions. The depth of the base-building system promises hours of engaging development, turning your settlement from a heap of rubble into a thriving community.
Beyond my base, I discovered numerous intriguing areas to explore. From a crashed passenger plane converted into an enemy stronghold to a farmstead overrun with Stasis-infected ghouls, Survive the Fall consistently offered unique locales in every direction. However, the detailed environments, such as the luminescent mushroom clusters in the Mycorrhiza swamplands, occasionally led to performance issues, with a volatile framerate and some game-breaking bugs. These technical hiccups, including getting stuck in menus, marred the experience, but with the game's release still a month away, developer Angry Bulls Studio has time to refine its performance.
Survive the Fall rewards exploration with diverse settings in every direction you choose to venture. Unfortunately, the lack of voice acting contributes to a somewhat flat interaction with your squad and NPCs, with conversations often serving merely as triggers for the next quest rather than deepening character development. While a quirky character named Blooper provided some comic relief by calling the Stasis smog "fart wind," much of the dialogue felt utilitarian.
As the full game unfolds, these character interactions may become more meaningful. Survive the Fall is set to launch on PC this May, brimming with post-apocalyptic promise. If the developers can smooth out the existing rough edges in controls and performance, this could become a survival-based action RPG worthy of your hard-earned bottlecaps.
