A video game inspired by the Windscale disaster is set to launch in just a few days’ time.
Atomfall, created by Rebellion, has remained highly anticipated since it was first announced at last year’s Xbox Games Showcase event.
Earlier this month we were lucky enough to play a two-hour preview of the game, during which, we spent most of our time obsessing over the references made to Cumbria and the Lake District.
Desperate to know more ahead of the game’s launch, we today spoke with Ryan Greene, the game’s art director.
We quizzed Ryan on everything from designing exploding sheep to what it’s like to re-create an authentic version of the Lake District in a video game.
We’ve heard you took trips to the Lake District early on in the game’s development, can you tell us more about this?
Several teams were sent to the Lake District early on in the game’s development to take photographs for reference content to be used in its design.
Ryan, originally from Seattle, was in one of first teams to be sent five-and-a-half years ago.
He said: “I came on the team just out of the prototype phase and they talked it through with me and said ‘Hey, yeah you’re going to need to get to know the Lake District.’
“I had no clue what it was, so basically, I got a very quick introduction to driving in the UK.
“We visited in a massive SUV with all our kit and equipment in it on those little Lake District roads with the drystone walls on the side and everything.
“So that was tons of fun and terrifying at the same time.”
What places did you visit for inspiration in particular?
Ryan said teams have visited the area several times over the past few years but that their first tour was the most comprehensive.
He is also planning to visit Ambleside properly (this time, as a tourist) with his family after the game launches.
He said: “We did a kind of potted tour of the Lake District, so we stayed in Ambleside, went over Hardknott Pass, over towards Sellafield and the plant itself.
“It was a quick tour around everything where we tried to introduce our international team to the Lake District as a whole.
“We set up at Coniston and then just kind of scattered in every direction each day to look for different kinds of things.
“We looked at Coniston for lakeside type stuff and we went to Chapel Style, Townend was a big one for us, Hawkshead, Ambleside, Buttermere, Grasmere, Threlkeld, Troutbeck, Rydal Caves, you name it, we pretty much saw it and did it.
“We also hiked up The Old Man of Coniston and saw the quarry stuff and you’ll see a lot of that in the game.
“Then we just tried to break down the inspiration we got to find the distinctive bits of the Lake District.
“You’ve got the lakeside stuff, the high fells and the woodsey areas, trying to break down those key things and then making sure we represent those in the game, that was our goal.”
We’ve never seen Cumbria used as the inspiration for a video game before, what inspired Rebellion to choose our area?
Ryan said it was a desire to stand out from competitors that drove their decision to choose the Lake District as a source of inspiration.
He said: “That was kind of a critical thing at the early phase. Jason Kingsley, our owner, is a big fan of the Fallout post-apocalypse genre.
“But he was like why is it always dry, desert-y and in America, why can’t we do a British one that is green and glorious?
“It just seemed like a really distinctive area. It’s the stone cottages, the striking vistas, the lakes and waters and vegetation dripping off of everything that make it stand out.
“I’m sure the pub owners will be happy we made this game, but I’m worried that locals will be like ‘it seems even worse now!”
What was the process of creating the Windscale plant in-game like?
Ryan said that on some of the team’s first trips they ended up accidentally causing a security incident while taking reference pictures of Sellafield.
He said: “They didn’t think about it, they just thought ‘oh, we need references!’ And then suddenly they had cars pulling up saying ‘hey let’s don’t do that’.
“Obviously in the game we’ve taken real stuff and then given it a little twist, the site in real life is in a big flat area, which isn’t super interesting.
“For us on the art side, it was about getting the most dramatic stuff we could get from the area and smashing that all into the game.
“We tried to look at things historically as much as we could as our game in based in 1962, but we took artistic liberties here and there.
“I think most people who have seen the site and saw it at that time would take a look at what we’ve got in the game and say yep that seems very familiar.”
What was it like transforming the Lake District into a video game environment?
Teams made use of several tools to capture the Lake District and bring it into the video game world.
One of these things was ‘photogrammetry’ which involves taking photos of objects to create 3D models or textures or materials for use in game.
He said: “Big things we did with the photogrammetry included capturing things like rock material you see in the fells or slate quarries.
“That stuff is actually complicated to make by hand, so we wanted to make sure we got that.
“It’s not the most glorious stuff and honestly, as a local, you might see that stuff all the time and not really notice it.
“But it’s that base fabric to what the whole biome is made of.
“It was something we needed to lay down just so that at that most fundamental level we’re really hitting those key visual points so you immediately say that looks like the Lake District.
“For buildings, we’d go and get pictures of stone and then we’d make a digital material out of that we could use.
“Then we’d also capture also cute little awnings and door frames and make them into a digital kit that we could snap onto our buildings to create our own world.”
We noticed a lot of little references to Cumbrian things during our play-through – can we expect more of that?
During Cumbria Crack’s play through, we got a thrill out of spotting things like hedgehog crossing signs, a poster referencing Cartmel and road signs referencing places like Kendal.
Ryan said we could expect to see a lot more references in the game.
He added: “There’s a tremendous amount of that stuff. If you keep digging, you will keep finding things.
“It was really fun to do that, and it was fun for me to get educated on that kind of stuff.
“It was all about what makes it of the era and British to reinforce all the other stuff we’re doing.
“There are a lot of London games but rural Britain is something special and different.”
Was there a favourite part of the game you worked on?
Ryan said it was a combination of creating dense woodlands and a specific farmhouse level that he enjoyed working on the most.
He said: “I really love our woodland level. Dense woodland rolling into little streams and stuff you’ll find it feels very Lake District to me.
“Doing a lot of trees is also a very scary thing in a game on the performance side, they’re costly and difficult to get right, but we did it.
“There’s some really good bits of our farmland level, if you get to meet Nora, I would highly recommend it, it will really remind you of a Lake District farm.”
We managed to bump into exploding sheep and angry blue hornets in our play-through – what was it like designing enemies that suited the Lake District environment?
Ryan said drawing up an idea of what their version of the Windscale disaster did to the Atomfall world was a key part of their story building.
He said: “We want the player to be careful. We want them to be aware of what’s going on. We want you to smile and go ‘oh it looks nice out here’, but just because it looks nice doesn’t mean it’s nice.
“Looking at Windscale plant, there’s blue shimmery stuff coming off everything affected by it.
“Part of our story looks at how that our version of the disaster has affected the world around it.
“You may hear whispery voices or plants or animals that look or behave differently.
“The way I think of it is some things have responded better to it than others, so obviously for the sheep, it didn’t go very well.
“You’ll see some birds and stuff, they might be okay, or they might not be, there may also be people that are not quite right and that’s part of the fun.”
So, how are you feeling ahead of launch?
Ryan said that overall, teams are really excited for the game’s official launch next week.
He said: “It’s super exciting, we’ve been on this thing for a while now and seeing our weird little Cumbrian baby come to life is just going to be a beautiful thing.
“I can’t wait for people to see and experience something we’ve been working on for so long and it’s just such a big and diverse world that you can explore and find new things.
“I think that exploration is one of the big strong points of our game and that sense of detective work and trying to uncover everything, there’s just so many layers to it.
“I think people are going to have a great time with it, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how people play it.
“I do want to get a copy at home and see how my family will play it, it’s super cool.”
- Atomfall launches next Thursday, March 27.
