Fallen Earth

Fallen Earth Review

By Marc Marasigan

The year is 2156. Humanity has survived the apocalypse and the world as we know it has ceased to exist. What remains of our once mighty civilization is now under threat from armed mercenaries, bandits, raiders, violent mutants, and rampaging monsters. In Fallen Earth, players take on the role of clones tasked with helping humanity overcome threats to their existence.

Waking Up

Being a clone doesn’t mean that players run around the game looking exactly like each other. The game allows players to customize their characters looks with a variety of options. Players are given a mixture of options for their character’s face, hair, clothes, and even their piercings and tattoos. The game gives players plenty of options but, without the sliders found in other MMORPGs, characters still end up looking pretty much the same as the next one. Players can only create one character for free per account, two if they buy an additional slot from the cash shop. So, make sure you’re happy with how your character looks since you’ll be stuck with it for the duration of the game.

After creating their characters, players wake up deep below Hoover Dam where a short prologue gets players up to speed on what’s going on in the post-apocalyptic world and why you’re helping out humanity in the first place. The prologue takes around fifteen minutes and also serves as the tutorial. The tutorial can be skipped by picking “SKIP TUTORIAL” from the first terminal the player encounters. Since the prologue is part of the story, I would recommend going through it at least once. After the prologue, players are treated to a quick cut-scene. The subtle humor and sarcasm injected into the game’s dialogues is one of the things that I liked about this game and this cut-scene really had me cracking up.

The Life of a Clone

After the cutscene, players choose from one of three starting locations: Clinton FARM, Boneclaw, and Midway. Each of these starting zones rewards players with different starting bonuses but is in no way a life or death decision. The starting zones are pretty close to each other and can be visited at any time. Just hop on your horse, open your map, and ride out into the sunset. Just in case you’re wondering about the horse, gasoline is hard to come by, not to mention very expensive, in the post-apocalyptic world so it’s the Wild West all over again.

The Grand Canyon… 140 Years Later

The entire game is set in a 1000 square kilometer, geographically accurate, sandbox area around the American Grand Canyon. The environment is well-made, detailed, and really gives you the feeling that you’re walking around a post-apocalyptic world, complete with ruins, rusty abandoned cars, abandoned crash sites, and makeshift guard towers. The developers definitely put a lot of work into the environment and it looks absolutely awesome, which is more than I can say for the character models which seem to have been made using an old game engine. The character animations also seem a bit clunky and awkward, this includes the NPC’s and mobs. The soundtrack is also nothing special and the sound effects are just plain unrealistic. The game contains a few noticeable bugs, such as an ER patient standing on a makeshift bed or the character clipping walls. If you’re the type of player who likes to wander around talking to random NPC, you won’t be disappointed. The dialogues are well-written, and as I mentioned earlier, is laced with a bit of humor which is often good for a quick laugh.

Helping Humanity a.k.a. the Local Townsfolk

Fallen Earth, like other MMORPG’s before it, will have players helping out the local townsfolk with various tasks, from killing knife-wielding bandits to delivering mail Pony Express style. Quests reward players with Chips, the main in-game currency, experience points, and books used to learn new skills. Players can take on any quest in any area as long as they meet the quest-giver’s level requirements. The quests tend to be a bit repetitive though, especially the killing quests, which can pretty much be expected in any MMORPG.

Unleashing Your Potential

As a clone, players are given the ability to freely customize their characters using skills and abilities that fall into four categories: Attributes, Skills, Mutations, and Tradeskills. Attributes, or Stats, give players permanent bonuses much like how stats work in other MMORPGs. Skills are special abilities that give players temporary bonuses such as a temporary speed boost or an attack that deals Damage Over Time on an enemy. Using Active Skills drains a player's Stamina. Mutations are additional skills that come in both active and passive forms—they drain a player's Gamma, or mental powers, instead of Stamina and are used to complement a player’s combat style. Lastly, Tradeskills determine a character’s ability to craft and fix items in the world from rifles, vehicles, and computers. Whether you want to become a Master Crafter, Sniper, or axe-wielding Melee expert depends on getting the right combination of skills. Players start out with basic skills like regeneration, first aid, and combat proficiency. Stats, Skills, and Mutations are improved by spending Ability Points (AP) that characters gain when they level up. Tradeskills, on the other hand, can be improved by simply using them and crafting items.

Crafting

In a post-apocalyptic world, things that we often take for granted, like cars, computers, guns, and bullets, can be a little hard to come by. This is where the player’s Tradeskills come in. As early as level 1, players will be taught how to craft their own ammunition and weapons through Tradeskill books that can be acquired as quest rewards or bought from merchants or other players. Crafting items, like other MMORPGs, requires that the player have the necessary ingredients or items which can be gathered from nodes scattered around the game world. Crafting happens in real-time and players are free to roam about, go on quests, and even logout while crafting is in progress. Crafting is serious business in Fallen Earth and it’s not unusual to find characters solely devoted to mastering the art of crafting and of course selling the fruits of their labor to make their way in the world.

Survival of the Fittest

In post-apocalyptic scenarios with limited resources, conflicts are bound to arise. Fallen Earth is no different. But unlike other survival/post-apocalyptic games like Day Z, players can’t just kill any player they find on the spot. Only certain areas are designated as PvP Zones where players are free to attack other players, even their teammates. Sure, it draws away from the realism of a post-apocalyptic world where every breathing moment is a struggle for survival, but PvP in Fallen Earth is not just about surviving and killing other players. The game forces players to cooperate to complete certain goals and missions such as capturing and defending Conflict Towns—much like the race-wide missions found in Planetside 2. Sure, killing other players plays a big part of it, but at least you don’t go killing off other people for no reason. However, you are still free to do so if the urge comes along. Also when players die in PvP they resurrect in safe zones far from the battle unless they’re revived by their teammates. This lends PvP an element of teamwork where players need to work together to achieve common goals which is always a good thing in my book.

Money, Money, Money

Fallen Earth offers players a choice of subscribing or playing the game for free. Playing for free, however, comes with a few drawbacks such as a 25% reduction in everything gained except for experience points which paying and F2P players receive in full. The game also offers premium items for sale in exchange for G1 Coins which players can buy using real-world money. Like premium items in other F2P MMORPGs, or other F2P games for that matter, they give players willing to spend a little extra cash a bit of an advantage over the free playing community but not too much that it breaks the game.

The Final Verdict: Good

Fallen Earth is a pretty good game but doesn’t really offer anything new compared to other games who decided to ride the survival genre bandwagon. The flexible character progression and open class system along with the game’s in-depth crafting system is definitely one of the game’s selling points. However, the character models could use a bit of an overhaul. The massive open-world sandbox is also a nice touch. Overall, this game is definitely one that’s worth checking out if you’re into post-apocalyptic games.

Fallen Earth Screenshots

1 2 ... 5 ►

Fallen Earth Videos

Fallen Earth Links

Fallen Earth Official Site
Fallen Earth Wikipedia
Fallen Earth Wikia [Database/Guides]

Fallen Earth Requirements

Minimum Requirements:

Operating System: XP SP3, Vista SP1, Windows 7
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8 GHz or Athlon 64X2 2.4 GHz
RAM: 2 GB for XP, 3 GB for Vista, 2 GB for Windows 7
Video Card: nVidia GeForce 6600 or ATI Radeon X1300
Hard Disk Space: 10 GB

Recommended Requirements:

Operating System: XP SP3, Vista SP1, Windows 7
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.40 GHz or equivalent
RAM: 3 GB for XP, 4 GB for Vista, 3 GB for Windows 7
Video Card: nVidia GeForce 8800GTS, ATI Radeon 3870
Hard Disk Space: 10GB

Fallen Earth is Mac OS X compatible.

Fallen Earth Music

Coming Soon!

Fallen Earth Additional Information

Developer(s): Reloaded Productions (Formerly Icarus Studios and Fallen Earth)
Publisher(s): K2 Network

Game Engine: Icarus Platform

Alpha Release: August, 2008
Closed Beta: February, 2009
Open Beta: August 17, 2009

Release Date: September 22, 2009
Steam Release Date: September 22, 2009
Free To Play Date: October 12, 2011

Shut Down: October 14, 2019

Relaunch Date: Oct 28, 2021 (Fallen Earth Classic)

Development History / Background:

Fallen Earth was developed by North Carolina based developer Reloaded Studios (formerly known as Icarus Studios and Fallen Earth). In a June 2008 press release, the developers announced that Fallen Earth had reached feature-complete status. In October of the same year, a report on the game's website indicated that Fallen Earth's content had been completed. A beta release of Fallen Earth for Mac OS X was distributed on March 10, 2010. It uses Wine technology (an open source compatibility layer software application) and requires an Intel-based Mac system to operate. In June 2011, Fallen Earth was acquired by Reloaded Productions—the company that also owns APB Reloaded and Hawken, and distributed by GamersFirst. At the same time, it was announced that Fallen Earth would adopt a free-to-play model, implemented on August 1, 2011. Fallen Earth received the Best-Online-Only Game of 2009 from Game Industry News and earned a runner-up-spot for Best New MMO of 2009 by Beckett Massive Online Gamer. The game was shut down on October 14, 2019.

A 'Classic' version of Fallen Earth relaunched on October 28, 2021.