MMO Fallen Earth – Atmosphere Check Review (Closed And Open Beta)

I want to show you a few impressions of the upcoming post apocalyptic MMORPG called Fallen Earth regarding the atmosphere. I’ve been in the closed Beta (which is now open) for a while.

This article is about the atmosphere of the Fallen Earth MMO but a few short notes about other aspects of the game have to be made:

Fallen Earth Overview

- Fallen Earth is a Sci Fi MMORPG computer game
– Fallen Earth features a combat system which incorporates FPS style combat. You  have to aim to hit. There is no target-lock like in Tabula Rasa or Neocron.
– You can switch into first person or third person modes.
– Fallen Earth is a MMO with a quite complex crafting system. You can build kinda everything.
– It does not feature giant raiding like World of Warcraft.
– It is quite slow paced and smooth. It is not a game to log on for 20 minutes and roxxor.
– It does remind me of Anarchy Online in terms of game pace and depth.
– It does, as of today, not have a complex PVP system. This is planed tho afaik.
– The zones are really huge.
– You can distribute AP’s and build your character/avatar like you want.
– You can gimp your character by spending your AP’s wrongly.
– The game features shotguns, rifles etc. but also something like magic which is called mutations.

Fallen Earth And Fallout Online

First off, when speaking of Fallen Earth, I often hear the term Fallout Online. This is valid because those two games share a post apocalyptic setting. Modern societies that were thrown back in evolution, due to catastrophes caused by humanity (and not by evil gods or monsters (yawn)).

However, the background scenario of Fallen Earth is quite different if you look closer. The Fallout pre-war society  was a  fictional atom happy society (everything is fused with atom power even radios and cars) with a 50′s touch. It was  a naive, happy living society that was bombed into the apocalypse. Regarding the mind setting of the pre- war societ in Fallout, it is quite realistic compared to the real 50′s mainstream society. The cultural but especially the technological evolution was quite different in Fallout than in reality. Basically it was more advanced and outdated at the same time. They got advanced floating robots and computers like C64 at the same time.

The Fallen Earth background is a more realistic and modern one. You see laptops and modern (but broken and rusty) cars as remains of the pre-catastrophe society. It looks more like the late 90′s society that was lead into the apocalypse. Fallen Earth looks more realistic and looks more like if our real world was affected by an apocalypse.

However, it looks more unspectacular to me because being more realistic means being more common and normal. And common and normal may not be as interesting as a stylised fictional and very emotional society, which invites me to look closer and discover things of the past (i.e. architecture, items, books, speech, attitude, mood, emotions).

The vibe of the setting of Fallout and it’s society was more emotional and touched me more than the somewhat sober vibe of Fallen Earth. But this is of course subjective.  And:  Fallen Earth has a lot of fictional elements as well and it does invite the player to slip into a world that wants to be explored, too, no doubt.

Fallen Earth Atmosphere (World Design, Graphics & Sounds)

In general Fallen Earth is moody. It delivers a post apocalyptic feeling quite well. You can almost feel the heat of the dry wastelands coming into your computer room because of the world design, the graphics, the atmosphere sounds and the music.

You can even apply a special filter to the graphics that makes the world look even more wasted, dry and hot. Basically it colors the world into more brownish tones and takes a bit saturation away. It is not every one’s taste but it is optional, so it is good.

The graphic engine features shadows that move along with the sun, which is very moody. It also features a long view distance, which also helps to bring up that “omg I am a poor fella in a huge post apocalyptic world ” feeling.

The graphic performance is mediocre. It has been improved a lot but there are some areas – towns mainly – that should perform better. But the developers are on it. Generally, I want to say about the graphics, that if you take your time to configure the graphics, the game looks really good. Far better than the general saying of people.

There are wide dried out areas, the classical wasteland, areas with green nature, abandoned areas, dead areas, alive areas. You will see an abandoned and rotten theme park and huge satellites inside craters who fell from the sky and people collecting scrap from it. Tho variety is there, the post apocalyptic feeling is present kinda everywhere, compared to the MMO Earthrise, which also features areas that do not have post apocalyptic elements at all.

The world and society design has a lot of depth and variation. You meet a lot of different npcs and factions with different points of views about things. Points of views which are present and important (more than ever) in our real life society as well. You got turbo capitalists, destructive anarchists ( tho it is a bit cliche, that they are so unproductive and destructive), people caring for others, people not caring for others, geeks, people focusing on nature and they all argue about how humanity should move on. It’s good, it’s deep, it’s exactly what I expect good games to be. Entertaining but with depth and topics connected to real life.

The atmo sounds (i.e. wind) are good and deep. They are however not very detailed and as good as of the Fallout titles. There should be more variations and the sounds could be more emotional and powerful.

Music wise it is also good. It features smooth and deep music. Thank god, no orchestral mainstream hollywoodish crap. But again, the music can not touch the music of Fallout (1 + 2). It is not produced with so much focus on details and optimization of it’s elements.

Conclusion

There could and should be written much more about this deep and impressing game. But for now, that’s it. I hope I could provide a few impressions that may help you in deciding if you want to spend time to try the game out or not. All in all, I can recommend checking out Fallen Earth regarding the atmosphere but also regarding all the other game elements. If you are tired of superficial games with no depth like Runes of Magic and like science fiction, then go for it!

www.fallenearth.com

Thank you for reading

Colorsync (Polignostix)