Atomfall’s Record-Breaking Launch Proves Brits Survive Better with Cricket Bats Than Tea

Rebellion’s Atomfall smashes studio records with a wildly British apocalypse, 1.5 million players, and a criminally low national tea count. We investigate.

Atomfall’s Big Bang Moment

It’s not every day a game lets you survive a nuclear-adjacent apocalypse in rural 1950s Britain while wielding a cricket bat like Thor’s very posh cousin. But Atomfall, from the creators of Sniper Elite, has done exactly that—and it’s smashing records in the process.

Developer Rebellion recently announced that Atomfall has hit 1.5 million players since its late March release, making it the most successful launch in the studio’s history. That’s right—even more successful than any time Karl Fairburne lined up a slow-mo testicle shot in Sniper Elite.

Considering Atomfall is basically what would happen if Fallout, The Archers, and a BBC budget horror film got into a bar fight, this milestone is no small feat. Especially when you consider it also managed to do this without drowning in triple-A marketing dollars—unless you count pasties as currency.

An Apocalypse of Pasties, Tea, and Cricket Bats

Let’s talk stats. No, not the kind that help you survive radiation zones—but the very British metrics that truly define success in Atomfall:

• 4 million pasties consumed
• 3.7 million kills via cricket bat
• 300,000 cups of tea brewed
• 316,000 players decided to kill the scientist at the start

Now, we need to address the elephant in the room—or the teapot, in this case. Only 300,000 cups of tea? That’s barely enough to get through a particularly gloomy Tuesday in Yorkshire. By British apocalypse standards, that’s borderline treason. Where’s the national pride?

Granted, 4 million pasties were devoured, and that’s a stat we can get behind. It shows the true survival instincts of a population trained on Greggs. But still… tea is sacred. Was there a shortage? A bug? Or has the collapse of civilization driven people to coffee?

And about those cricket bat kills—3.7 million of them. That’s more than enough to fill every seat at Lord’s Cricket Ground… a few hundred times. Forget lasers and plasma rifles; the real end-of-the-world MVP is apparently a well-swung chunk of wood with a noble sporting past.

A Very British Apocalypse

Atomfall isn’t your average post-nuclear survival game. It ditches American wastelands and mutants named Randy for quaint British villages, eerie government cover-ups, and NPCs who might offer you a scone or shiv you behind the bakery. The game is set in a fictionalized take on 1950s rural England, where a mysterious event known as “The Protocol” has turned the countryside into a place where paranoia, radiation, and occasional polite conversation coexist.

And that setting? It’s working. Whether it’s the familiar postboxes, classic phone booths, or the ever-present mist that screams Doctor Who serial from 1972, Atomfall taps into nostalgia and national identity with the subtle power of a tea-fueled fever dream. It’s quirky. It’s grim. It’s got charm and the kind of eerie undertones that make you think twice before trusting a man in a tweed hat offering directions to the “safe zone.”

Game Pass Power + Word of Mouth = Boom

So how did Atomfall achieve such a big debut? While marketing certainly helped, there’s one massive boost worth noting: Xbox Game Pass. The game dropped on PC Game Pass and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, essentially giving millions of subscribers instant access. In a world where trying a new game often means dropping 70 bucks and a prayer, Game Pass is the digital version of “fancy a go, mate?” And clearly, a lot of people said yes.

But it’s not just exposure. The game delivers, at least for those willing to push through its clunky opening. Critics and players alike praised Atomfall for its tight survival mechanics, eerie narrative, and surprisingly effective cricket bat physics. Eurogamer’s own Tom Orry gave it three out of five stars, noting, “If you can get over a difficult start and fancy a lean take on the survival genre, Atomfall delivers an intriguing tale worth discovering.” Translation? Stick with it, and the weird pays off.

What’s Next for Rebellion?

With Atomfall breaking internal records and dominating Game Pass dashboards, it raises the question: what’s next for Rebellion? Sure, they’ve made a name for themselves with Sniper Elite’s bullet-cam brilliance and a fair share of Nazi-zombie-shooting mayhem. But Atomfall proves they’re not afraid to experiment—and more importantly, that players are here for it. Whether that means future expansions (we demand a Tea Time DLC), quality-of-life updates, or an even bigger dive into British weirdness, one thing’s for sure—Atomfall isn’t going anywhere.