PAX West 2025: Project ATOM - How Much Can We Fit in One Game?

I really didn't know what to expect when I walked up to the Project ATOM booth at PAX West 2025. The booth itself was one of the brightest at the entire show, covered in vibrant yellows and blues with a large gashapon machine filled with big plastic balls set center stage. All around it were disgustingly cute character models ripped straight from an Asian toy market, accompanied by a line of eager convention goers wrapped around the booth waiting for a chance to play. The televisions and monitors showed these wonderful little characters platforming, fighting, and collecting coins. I walked up to the booth and was greeted with some of the friendliest, most enthusiastic people I've seen at PAX this year. I had the opportunity to chit-chat about the game itself while we waited for a station to open up, and I was not prepared for the description I received.

I'm not even sure if I can really put Project ATOM into any neat boxes to bundle and sell, because the game has pretty much everything that makes modern gaming so fun and addictive. There's a campaign with story and narration, along with lighter platforming akin to something like Astro Bot. That campaign is enhanced with a platforming challenge mode, in which I was only 4 seconds away from winning a prize, but couldn't quite get there. There's a full Fall Guys-style party game where you compete with other lovable avatars in progressively more difficult challenges until only one winner is left. There's a battle royale where you are dropped into an arena with other contestants and given a choice of weapons based on which animal sidekick you choose, known affectionately as the "Atomons." If that wasn't enough, there's an entire town-building life sim, where you use the currency earned throughout the different modes to customize a town for your Atomons to live in. Suddenly, the 30-minute slot allotted to me to play Project ATOM felt woefully short when trying to experience everything it had to offer.

Then I got to sit down sith the game, and I am thoroughly impressed at just how well everything in Project ATOM actually works. Thanks to an extremely kind developer from JNG Studio who sat next to me and talked me through it, I was actually able to see pretty much everything that the game had to offer on the show floor. Gameplay moves a little bit slower than some other contemporary platformers, but I assume this is because Project ATOM is going to be fully cross-platform, including being available on mobile. The speed never felt boring, though, and the platforming was really fun to learn. Controls are floaty and fun, with the character models moving exactly like you'd expect them to, given how they look.

All of the different play modes create a real sense of fun as well, with the promise of something new around every corner, keeping things from getting too stale. Sick of trying to best your time on the platform challenges? Jump into a battle royale game and focus more on the combat. Getting frustrated with the battle royale combat because you keep getting your butt kicked? Enjoy some tranquility within the little town you've built and interact with the adorable Atomons roaming about the place. Even the hub world is itself a level, complete with little platforming challenges and collectibles to find scattered throughout.

And what do you do with those collectibles? Well, that's simple; you put it towards the absolute dump truck's worth of customization on offer within Project ATOM. I'm talking about anything you can think of – your character is fully customizable, from the hairstyle and color to the clothes and accessories. You're even able to utilize an AI tool that generates a little button for you to wear on your character wherever you want (I drew a little smiley face, and the AI made me a kitten badge.) Your Atomons are fully customizable as well, whether that means changing up their primary and secondary colors, or giving them some of the cutest damn hats I've ever seen. You can also customize the buildings in your town, giving you full reign pver the aesthetic and vibe you want your town to have. While I'm not always the biggest proponent of AI in video games, using it as a tool for customization like this adds a fun layer that I appreciate.

That's the thing that the dev from JNG Studios really wanted to hammer home with me: Project ATOM is, first and foremost, about fun. The game doesn't have extremely deep mechanics – you're going to spend more time looking at color wheels than you are at weapon stats – but that's by design. She told me that they wanted to make a title that focuses on the social aspects of gaming, giving players the ability to fully express themselves. They wanted to make a place to go and hang out rather than just something to play. If you want to spend hours in Project ATOM, you can, but if you just want to jump in with some friends and mess around for a few games, you can do that too. I haven't even touched on the bonkers narrative, centered on a plague that's devastating the Atomons, which leads them to summon humans in to help.

I was blown away by the sheer scale of the game, and the enthusiasm with which the team supports its vision. It really was a lot of fun to play, and I can see it becoming a regular in the rotation for groups of friends who want to have a low-stakes gaming experience that is entirely their own.

If this sounds like your kind of game, you can wishlist Project ATOM on Steam now.