Fallout fans can return to the Commonwealth in Winter of Atom campaign

Fans of Fallout can return to Commonwealth. Winter of Atom, a new campaign book for Modiphius Entertainment’s Fallout: the Roleplaying Game. Winter of AtomThe tabletop version is built on top of this, and provides tons of encounters within the post-apocalyptic world of Boston. There’s a war brewing in the Commonwealth, and it’s up to your plucky gang of heroes to save the day — or seize power for themselves.

As discerning lore fans may have guessed from the title, the Children of Atom — who show up in both Fallout 3,You can also find out more about the following: 4 — play a prominent role in the campaign book.

“I went to the Children of Atom immediately because they’ve always been one of my favorite groups,” said Donathin Frye, lead narrative designer at Mophidius, in an interview with Polygon. “I wanted to approach it in a way where you can see there are different sects to the Children of Atom, and how they might interact, their different perspectives, how they might disagree with each other’s doctrine — which is something you see in religious history in the real world too.”

Image: Mophidius Entertainment

Children of Atom uses a lot of Christian images and feels the closest to a modern-day religion within the Fallout universe. However, they also worship radiation and nuclear energy, believing that the nuclear explosion is the catalyst of new possibilities and worlds. Some sects are peaceful and benevolent, while others — like the antagonistic Last Son of Atom — are aggressively seeking to convert those to their cause via doses of radiation.

“[He’s] a megalomaniac, narcissistic, possibly slightly out-of-his-mind villain, who’s still very charismatic,” said Frye. “The players fight for the heart and soul of the settlements in the Commonwealth. That’s where I started, and it built itself from there.”

It’s a tricky balancing act to make a campaign book feel like Fallout but not interfere with the main canon. “As licensees, we have to be very careful about what we portray in the books we put out for Fallout,” said Samantha Webb, head of product at Mophidius. “So whether it’s the classic games, Fallout 3,, New VegasOr Fallout 4,In particular, we don’t want Bethesda painted into a corner. And we never want to dictate to people that the Sole Survivor will make this choice, they’ll side with the Brotherhood of Steel and screw over the Minutemen or something.”

Winter of Atom is structured like a Fallout video game — there are quest hubs, key battles, and a main antagonist. Players will have to build up their team and chase The Last Son of Atom in an extensive campaign. Along the way, they’ll aid new survivors — like the ghouls who run the Big Top circus, or the Sisters of the Forge at Mechminster Abbey.

There are three big set-piece battles that test a player’s strategy without feeling like a wargame with miniatures. The player’s choice plays a major role. If the party has made allies in their adventure across the Commonwealth, they can call their new friends in to kick some Atomite ass. All of this culminates into a showdown with The Son. However, the end to a Fallout 3 game is not always clean or simple.

Image: Mophidius Entertainment

“It feels very Fallout as well, that it’s not a simple black-and-white, Here are some of the best guys.,” Webb said. “But we still have a big bad villain to fight and go after — the structure of the book heads towards this boss fight at the end.”

It will take time for players to gain strength in order to stop the villain’s plans, even though he is already set up at the start. “This is a big campaign. It would take most groups, if you play the entire campaign as written, a pretty long time to go through it all,” Frye said. “I wanted it to feel just as big as a Fallout video game, without contradicting anything that comes after.”

It’s a familiar format: main quests, side quests, and big boss fights. Players can retrofit and rework the campaign to suit their needs, by either removing bits that don’t appeal to them, reframing the factions in a new location, or introducing new antagonists and threats. After the stories are concluded, there is a chapter that deals with your choices. The fun isn’t in making choices, but rather the aftermath.

Diamond City, Goodneighbor and the Brotherhood of Steel are some of these Fallout 4, settlements and factions are featured — but players will mostly be concerning themselves with new and original threats. And if players aren’t interested in the Commonwealth, that’s OK too. “There are tools in the book for you to reset it somewhere else,” said Frye. “Take it apart, put it back together the way you want to.”

Winter of AtomPre-orders will open in May. The PDF version will then be made available. In July 2023, physical copies will ship.