ATOM RPG: Trudograd Review
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Introduction
ATOM RPG: Trudograd is a post-apocalyptic RPG inspired by such venerable classics as Wasteland and Fallout, but with a Soviet coat of paint. The game was originally envisioned as a standalone expansion for the similarly post-apocalyptic ATOM RPG that launched back in 2018. However, following an extended early access phase, Trudograd became more of a full-blown sequel that will take you somewhere in the vicinity of 30 hours to complete.
And if you'd like to know where exactly Trudograd fits into the Fallout family of RPGs, you can now check out our review below.
Story and Setting
The previous game ended with a sentient mushroom warning you about a massive asteroid, that may or may not be an alien spaceship, on a collision course with Earth. Yes, it is that kind of wasteland. Should this asteroid arrive unmolested, it's predicted to wipe the human race off the face of the planet for good.
The proposed solution for dealing with this thing is to shoot it out of the sky with the biggest gun available. Your character, who just happens to be the star agent of the Soviet take on the Brotherhood of Steel, gets the first crack at finding that gun.
Your quest for this ultimate tool of overcompensation leads you to Trudograd, a bustling by post-apocalyptic standards city that somehow managed to avoid getting bombed back into the stone age. When you arrive, Trudograd merely has to deal with the harsh realities of nuclear winter, the complete lack of a functional government, and the looming threat of a barbarian invasion.
As a result, instead of managing your radiation levels, you'll be dealing with Trudograd's inhospitable weather, which translates into stacking cold resistance, spending some time by the fire, and consuming an occasional alcoholic beverage. All of the above isn't particularly challenging and mostly serves as a bit of flavor that helps sell the game's setting. And combined with the visuals and some really chunky audio effects, it really gets the job done.
Trudograd's two other major problems are translated into an overarching story where in order to get your hands on the coveted railgun, you'll have to join one of the game's squabbling factions. There may be some other means of reaching the city's walled-off area where you can find some clues for your quest, but the two main paths you can take through the game consist of you working with either the police force or the revolutionaries to further their conflicting agendas, and in return be granted access to the otherwise restricted areas.
As you progress through this story and engage in some other activities on the side, the game paints you a fairly intriguing and immersive picture where seemingly random occurrences are later revealed to be connected, powerful outside forces all have their representatives inside Trudograd, and in general, you get this impression of sitting on a powder keg that's just about to blow.
As a result, you're treated to a cool urban adventure in a city that gradually descends into chaos, and you get the front row seats.
The one thing that's a bit clunky about the game's overall structure is that if you do the RPG thing and go on a side quest binge before getting around to the main story, you will have visited most of the game's locations by then. As such, you'll know exactly where to go and who to talk to, and the whole thing will feel like a bunch of unnecessary backtracking.
Still, I was impressed by the game's broad strokes and the way it masterfully creates an illusion of this one city being a part of a bigger living world.
I was way less impressed by the actual moment-to-moment writing. The game, by the looks of it, was originally written in Russian, and its English version is far from great. Although, it can be argued that the clumsy wording can actually make the whole experience feel more authentic.
Less forgivable are the very basic typos that could've been avoided with some proofreading. Things like quite instead of quiet and to instead of too don't really need to exist in a commercial product.
But all of that pales before what I consider to be the game's biggest flaw – the complete and utter lack of stylistic consistency.
While on the surface it may seem like a simple case of overindulgence in pop culture references that makes Fallout 2 seem tame in comparison, Trudograd's issues go deeper than that.
You'll be talking to some academic type, having a more or less serious conversation, when he'll all of a sudden switch into an urban thug mode, and then, after you're done scratching your head in confusion, finish you off with a few sentences lifted straight from a valley girl's vernacular.
Say what you will, but I firmly believe that in the whole history of the Soviet Union, not a single "hella" or "teehee" has ever been uttered. So when its post-apocalyptic counterpart fully embraces such expressions, it just kills any semblance of immersion faster than a critical hit to the eyes.
Now, I'm not sure if over time I simply grew numb to this nonsense, or if the game's writing actually gets better the further you get, but that's certainly the impression I got from it. While the opening sections make you wonder how it's even possible to develop a video game without a single adult on the team, the later parts are significantly more palatable and even make you want to experience more of this unique and crazy world.
The one thing that seemed a bit odd to me was how the game didn't really need to be connected to the original ATOM. Pretty much the entirety of it revolves around the city of Trudograd and its many problems that are in no way connected to Earth's impending doom. And only after you've completed that story, you're given the keys to the kingdom and a quick final dungeon that allows you to complete your original mission.
Hopefully, at some point, we'll get another ATOM game, one where the aliens actually land and we can deal with the glaring, literally, problem once and for all.
Systems and Gameplay
Seeing how Trudograd was originally planned as an expansion, it allows you to import your high-level ATOM character. Alternatively, if you don't have a save file or are looking for a more challenging experience, you can create a new agent. If you decide to go that route, you'll start the game at level 15 with some basic gear to see you through the opening sections. You'll also need to answer a few questions related to some of the major choices from the previous game.
Either way, the game's roleplaying system should feel familiar to anyone who's played Fallout before. The game's attributes don't follow the SPECIAL system to the letter, but they're still pretty much the same thing.
Skills are a bit different. There are 16 of them in Trudograd, and out of those, only 6 are weapon-related. The rest allow you to become better at talking, trading, sneaking around, and so on. As you raise your skills, you'll be unlocking various threshold bonuses that vary from slightly more damage to permanent attribute increases.
What's even more impressive is the sheer number of skill checks you'll get in this game. And not just their number, their variety too. For example, when dealing with random encounters, you can use your Speechcraft, Stealth, or Survival skills to avoid them. And as an aside, given the frequency of such encounters, you should strongly consider developing at least one of those.
Beyond that, frequently the game will give you a shot at passing its checks even if you don't possess the necessary skill. This doesn't mean that any character can do everything here, but let's say your Tech skill is too low but you still want to fix some broken-down truck you find during your travels. If your character is smart or attentive enough, instead of a Tech check, you can figure out a way to MacGyver the thing with a plastic bottle and some duct tape.
When creating your character, you can also select up to two distinctions that act as Trudograd's traits, permanently altering your character in some major way. And finally, instead of perks, you have this big ability wheel that allows you to unlock various powerful bonuses, like being immune to withdrawal effects or having more action points at your disposal.
It's a rather deep system, but the thing is, starting the game even at level 15, probably more if you're importing a character, pretty much makes the entire thing irrelevant. With the amount of skill and ability points you start the game with, your character can only go from good to better. And if you ask me, it's not exactly satisfying to start an RPG journey from a position of strength.
If you don't import a character, early on you'll have to deal with ammo shortages and a lack of good weapon and armor options, but before long, you'll have more ammo and money than you'll know what to do with.
On top of that, seeing how everyone you meet also has extremely high skill levels, the game's turn-based combat, which can best be described by the word Fallout, basically turns into fishing for crits, because pretty much every shot will at least connect.
And sure, Trudograd has four difficulty levels, but a game like this, where you have a high-level campaign that has to account for both imported and new characters, is pretty much impossible to balance right. Which once again makes the game's strong connection to the original ATOM seem weird. I think Trudograd would've been much better if it was a completely standalone adventure that started at level 1 and was balanced accordingly.
Another victim of Trudograd's expansion origins is its limited companion pool. Unless I missed something major, you get one of your old companions from the previous game and one unique new companion depending on which faction you choose to support.
Moving on to the game's new features, the crafting system was greatly expanded and you now can customize your weapons in a variety of ways. In fact, the highly customizable nature of custom-made weapons makes them highly desirable even for a character with zero investment into crafting. You just need to procure a crafted weapon from one of your enemies, unlock the ability that makes it so weapons like that don't jam for you, and invest a few skill points on one of your companions so that they can install all the mods you find. This will get you a weapon that's better than all but the top-of-the-line guns you can find in the game.
The game's inventory screen is now much easier to navigate and doesn't feel like such an artifact of a bygone age. Annoyingly, you still have to manually equip a key if you want to open a door, though.
When dealing with merchants, you can now sort your stuff based on their preferences, which allows you to sell the right things to the right merchants more easily.
A somewhat weird addition are the items that increase the number of skill points you gain per level. As a result, you can track your experience gains, wear a bunch of those items before leveling up, and then put all your regular gear back on after you've gained a level. I'm not really sure why something like this even exists in the game.
And if you get tired from all the adventuring, you can unwind by playing the new card minigame that's a bit like Magic: The Gathering but without the collectible aspect.
Finally, last but by no means least, at some point, you can get your hands on a set of power armor. As opposed to its Fallout counterpart where power armor is just good armor, here, it has a few unique systems associated with it.
For starters, it needs fuel to work. And it has a number of active skills that either cost a certain amount of fuel or increase your fuel consumption over time. You can also find several upgrades to customize your armor, and there's even a special quest chain related to upgrading it.
Wearing a suit of power armor also gives you access to a few unique weapons and allows you to reach some otherwise inaccessible areas.
And that's all fine and dandy until you realize that while you get to wear power armor, pretty much no one else does, and in general, the game's challenges aren't built around you having it. And when you remember that with you being Brotherhood of Steel, the game's lore appropriately has its own Enclave, you realize what a shame it is that you don't actually get to fight those guys here.
Technical Information
From a certain perspective, playing a game by AtomTeam is a pretty depressing affair. Not because their games have some glaring faults on the technical side of things, but because they remind you that it is indeed possible to create a game using the Unity Engine and not have it be a slow and clunky resource hog.
During my playthrough, the closest thing to a bug I've encountered were some bodies clipping through the ground. Other than that, the game ran perfectly smooth with no slowdowns or technical issues. Saving and loading was pretty much instantaneous.
The game's visuals are a clear improvement over the original ATOM, and some of the new sound effects, limited voice-acting aside, are particularly impressive. You can even freely tilt the camera, something few games allow you to do these days.
The one thing that's a shame about the game's options menu is that you don't get to manually adjust all the settings, and instead are saddled with a bunch of presets, but at the end of the day, it's a minor annoyance.
Conclusion
ATOM RPG: Trudograd makes a good case for looking at the forest instead of the individual trees. While some of the game's quests, characters, and lines of dialogue leave a lot to be desired, they exist side by side with great ideas, RPG mechanics, and yes, other quests that are much better.
And if you manage to not fixate on the game's shortcomings, you will more than likely be able to get lost in its weird, unique, and very much intriguing world with plenty of stories to tell. And so, in the end, I can't help but recommend the game to anyone in the mood for some Fallout-inspired adventures.
