Atomfall: The Wicked Isle successfully makes the quarantine zone even creepier - but I have mixed feelings on it

The entirety of the first-person role-playing game Atomfall has a slightly unsettling vibe. From the mysterious voice on the end of the telephone, or the protocol soldiers occupying Wyndham, to the gloomy, decrepit tunnels and corridors in the Interchange or the fanatical druids in Casterfell Woods, there are plenty of reasons to be on edge while exploring the quarantine zone.

Wicked Isle takes this vibe and permeates it through the entirety of Midsummer Isle, the brand-new region this DLC (downloadable content) introduces.

Head to the western dock in Wyndham and you'll find Bill Anderson, a boatman who offers to ferry you over to the island. You'll be greeted with an ever-present thunderstorm, an ominous ruined abbey atop a hill, and nary a friendly soul in sight.

Midsummer's residents

Midsummer Isle doesn't shake up the Atomfall formula much, if at all. Where Slatten Dale has bandits, Skethermoor has protocol, and Casterfell Woods has druids, here you'll find two new types of foe by name, but not by much else. Lake bandits are your bog standard bandit in disguise, while abbey druids - no prizes for guessing where they mostly reside - are the same as the druids on the mainland, albeit with slightly different beliefs.

Atmosphere goes a long way, though, so with the constant rainfall and slightly moodier hue throughout, Wicked Isle gives you the sense that you're being watched. You're not, of course, unless you count the voice in the ringing red telephone boxes, but if I'd reached the end of Wicked Isle and it turned out I'd been stalked the entire time, Slenderman-style? I wouldn't have been surprised.

Ferals also make a return, albeit in a new aquatic form. This is because a not-insignificant amount of Wicked Isle features water, and these aquatic ferals have the ability to scare the heebie-jeebies out of you by being a true jumpscare. They pop up out of the water with no prior warning, so while you'll learn to be on your toes in flooded areas henceforth, the first time it happens is a moment.

A new investigation

There are two core threads to follow in Wicked Isle, thanks to the DLC offering two new methods of escaping the quarantine zone (also known as finishing the main story). I'll keep this as spoiler-free as possible, but in essence, one is focused on Bill Anderson, the boatman, and ties in directly to the abbey druids, while the other is with the lake bandits and their leader, a trader named Jean Hamer. Believe it or not, when you're in the lake bandits' headquarters, they're not hostile, which makes a change from the mainland.

The druid-adjacent investigation is by far the most interesting, with the game introducing flashbacks in the form of visible memories to hundreds of years ago. You can see monks from a bygone era discuss carefully laid plans via memory fragments, and you can essentially become part of their cult in the current day. Meanwhile, Jean Hamer tasks you with killing a key character in the base game in exchange for her assistance.

Both investigations take you back to previous regions to complete various tasks, but as is the case with the base game, the endings leave a lot to be desired. Sure, you can side with different people, but that still doesn't change anything beyond the action you take when you get to Oberon and the place you return to when you escape the Interchange.

It's painfully obvious this DLC was intended to be part of the main game, so it's a real struggle to recommend to anyone who has finished the base game already. There's plenty to explore on Midsummer Isle, and geographically, it's the most interesting region the game has to offer, but having to play through the main ending of the base game again, which is already a slog and the weakest part of Atomfall, isn't worth your time.

If you're yet to jump into Atomfall, or you haven't beaten the story yet, Wicked Isle is a terrific - albeit very spooky - time, but I've a bitter taste in my mouth after having to slog through a few hours of repeating the same things I've already done just to experience a few new lines of dialogue at the end.

If there's more coming in the way of story DLC for Atomfall, please let it take place after the events of the main game. Treat one of the endings as canonical - or multiple of them, as any ending that truly lets the player escape would do the job - then use that as an opportunity to experiment and offer a new story. I don't have the resilience to play through the Windscale part of the game anymore.

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