Atomic Heart Review

We live in a complex world. It may have always been that way, but the connection between the entertainment industry and the political or moral concerns of their creators is becoming more and more of a problem. That is why clouds have gathered over Atomic Heart and, in particular, the developer Mundfish. The denial of allegations of Russian data collection, possible funding from Russian investors, and Mundfish's seeming reluctance to directly condemn the invasion of Ukraine have sparked much controversy. Which of these is true and which is false? Should these allegations influence your desire to play Atomic Heart? Perhaps everyone should decide for himself. As for our review, in the future we will only talk about a game with great ambitions, which found itself in a difficult situation.

Bioshock? I think no

Atomic Heart is a first-person role-playing game that (and the authors did not deny) the developer was inspired by the BioShock franchise. The prologue of the game takes place in a city located in the sky, which can be regarded as the twin brother of Columbia from BioShock Infinite. If Infinite told an alternative history of the United States, then Atomic Heart was inspired by the patriotic zeal of the post-war USSR. The action takes place in 1955 in an alternative universe in which the USSR has become a leader in the development of technology. The cities of the Union soar in the sky. Intelligent robots do the work of humans. Automation is everywhere. The first few minutes of Atomic Heart are an example of detailed, impressive world building. The prologue even has a guided tour, kind of like the extended intro that Rapture had in the original BioShock, but with more storytelling.

Focus on combat, puzzles and exploration

To develop the narrative, Atomic Heart's gameplay is based on combat and puzzles related to interaction with the environment. Your opponents are often Sechenov's robots - from small flying "Bees" and upright laboratory assistants to more complex mechanized systems (bosses). The open world of Atomic Heart is located in the middle of the forest, where various complexes of Enterprise 3826 were built. There are a lot of enemies, and in addition to robots, Agent Nechaev will encounter infected people.

To resist the enemy, the protagonist P-3 has a wide arsenal of weapons and a Khraz polymer glove, which is associated with various supernatural (although quite familiar to this world) skills such as freezing, electric shock, and so on. From the weapons at first you will have the usual ax, shotgun and Makarov pistol, but later energy variations will appear up to the rail gun. To unlock new weapons, you have to look for recipes. The same situation with upgrades, which require both blueprints and resources during installation. A glove is used to collect resources, so you won't have to interact with each individual item.

Some inaccuracies...

However, such a diverse and interesting combat system seems unnecessarily twitchy. In particular, there are "inaccuracies" in hand-to-hand combat. Hitting the skull of a laboratory assistant with an ax is another task. The situation is similar with any other weapon in the game. The situation is much better with energy and firearms, Hraz's abilities. The platforming elements look awkward at some points. Often, jumping to the next crossbar at the training ground (already the tenth in a row), I simply, for some unknown reason, fell down. And I had to start all over again...

Atomic Heart is crammed with different systems, but the game does not explain what is used and where. After running for more than 30 hours, I still did not figure out where and what resource to look for, what it is for, and so on. Don't get me wrong, the game has a scanner that you can use to inspect the robots to determine what parts they drop. But it was much easier for me to put a “bolt” on all this, go on another outing across the open world, kill a hundred enemies, search a lot of containers, and then return to Eleanor, sort out unnecessary things and buy 2-3 upgrades for each weapon used .

It also seemed strange to me that the game seemed to be unable to decide for itself what it wants to be - a gloomy allegory about socialism, capitalism and technology, or a satire. Take Nechaev. At some moments he throws out boyish jokes, at others he shows excessive seriousness. There are other oddities, too, like the Eleanor terminal, which prints weapons and gives out a continuous stream of unambiguous sexual innuendos.

What the developers have done amazingly is the visuals. Only because of them is it worth plunging into this wonderful world of the alternative USSR. Despite the fact that most of the landscape is decorative, it makes an incredibly powerful impression. Like Rapture or Columbia, the world and Enterprise 3826 itself crumble under the weight of an unruly genius turned despot. The excellent music by Australian composer Mick Gordon is a mixture of classic synth sounds, orchestral textures and patriotic compositions of the time.

Conclusion

Leaving aside the ubiquitous Soviet imagery that pops up in the game during the challenging time period we're all going through, Atomic Heart is for the most part an impressive game with a lot of different systems, mechanics, and not enough elements that they all had to be connected to. Atomic Heart is able to surprise, confuse and upset at the same time. And all this will happen in a few minutes. Atomic Heart is a classic, entangled in an excessive amount of (albeit good) ideas that could not harmonize with each other.