One of the most anticipated new releases of this month, according to the Steam service, was the Russian game Atomic Heart (“Atomic Heart”), which comes out on February 21st. The action-packed first-person shooter will be available for console and PC players in three editions – Standard, Gold and Premium. Russian users will be able to purchase the novelty only on the VK Play playground. Why Atomic Heart was worth the wait and how domestic developers can surprise – understood Izvestia.
But in the Soviet Union…
The shooter was primarily inspired by Soviet science fiction and the era of space exploration in the USSR, as well as the role-playing Japanese action Bloodborne. When discussing Atomic Heart, foreign media also often compare it with the iconic Half-Life, DOOM, Fallout and BioShock. With the latter, especially often – the plot of both games flows from a peaceful life to an uprising of robots. But the shootouts inside the game world portal IGN called a cross between the “village shootouts of Fallout and faster battles in Call of Duty.” In general, I consider domestic development to be quite promising.
Screenshot from the game Atomic Heart
Photo: Mundfish
A retrofuturistic gaming universe awaits players – Atomic Heart tells the story of an alternate reality of the 1950s. The development of robotics and technology during the Second World War not only directed society along a new path of development and got rid of routine work, but also created new threats. The main character, intelligence major Sergei Nechaev, for whom gamers will have to play, is sent to a top-secret facility – the 3826 enterprise, the connection with which has been cut off. The secret service agent will have to fight against rebellious machines and dangerous mutants, as well as find out the price of the dream of a utopian society.
The gameplay involves various ways of passing – from stealth to avoid reinforcements from the nearest auto factory, to dynamic skirmishes with mutant monsters, which were experimented on by Soviet scientists. Options for pumping weapons also depend on the taste of the player, and the choice of battle tactics depends on the abilities of the enemy. Gamers will have to combine defensive abilities and attacking skills and interact with surrounding objects in order to survive in the game world.
Screenshot from the game Atomic Heart
Photo: Mundfish
By the way, you can get acquainted with the abilities available to the antagonist right now, the developers have released several cartoons in retro style, where they demonstrate what superpowers Sergey Nechaev can use. So, the skills “Telekinesis”, “Cold” and “Polymer jet” were shown, which will allow you to destroy enemies from afar by hitting the ground, freezing them or, conversely, pouring flammable gel on them.
The developers promised that in the shooter you can rob all the NPCs around and even view the insides of the friendliest robots. At the same time, the general tone of the narration, as is often the case with Russian games, is quite humorous, sometimes even satirical, but as the plot develops, it becomes more gloomy and dramatic.
With the world on a string
At the time of its announcement in 2018, Atomic Heart had been in development for a year, while the story and lore of the game had been created by Artem Galeev for several years – sketches of some characters were drawn back in 2012. The Russian division of the Cypriot studio Mundfish took up the implementation of the idea. The developers set a goal to make a game that could stand on a par with such legends of the gaming industry as BioShock and Fallout.
Screenshot from the game Atomic Heart
Photo: Mundfish
In the summer of 2018, the American Nvidia, known as one of the world’s largest manufacturers of graphics processors, wanted to cooperate with an ambitious project. Thus, Mundfish got access to a special version of the Unreal Engine 4 and modern graphics technologies. By the way, in the same year, the studio has already released Soviet Lunapark VR, which takes place in the same universe as Atomic Heart. Several layoffs within the company have been linked to the game, and they have created a wave of rumors about poor management and problems in the development of the main product. Mundfish denied the information.
Screenshot from the game Atomic Heart
Photo: Mundfish
The development of a massive Atomic Heart with a vast (but not open) world and the ability to act non-linearly required a very significant budget. In January 2021, Mundfish announced that it was raising funds to develop the game from three partners at once – Tencent, Gaijin Entertainment and GEM Capital. On September 7, 2022, the developers of Atomic Heart announced that the title had found a publisher for players from Europe and the United States. They became the company Focus Entertainment. On November 2 last year, it became known that the release of the game will take place on February 21, 2023, and on January 25 – that Atomic Heart is ready for production for sale.
On February 1, the studio released an overview game trailer for the shooter, which showed the plot, main characters, combat system, and weapon upgrades.
Screenshot from the game Atomic Heart
Photo: Mundfish
The game will be available for play on Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. Russian PC users will be able to purchase it exclusively on VK Play. Buying Atomic Heart on Steam, even using bypass payment methods, will not work. There is also no information about the release of the game on discs in Russia. It will also be unavailable with an Xbox Game Pass subscription, but in this case, the developers advised changing the region. The average passage of Atomic Heart will take gamers about 25 hours.
Minimum Requirements
Operating system: Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10 (64-bit).
Processor: Intel Core i5-2500 or AMD Ryzen 3 1200.
Video Card: GeForce GTX 960 or Radeon R9 380.
RAM: 8 GB.
Disk space: 90 GB.
Recommended Requirements
Operating system: Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10 (64-bit).
Processor: Intel Core i5-7600K or AMD Ryzen 5 1600.
Video Card: GeForce GTX 1080 or Radeon RX 5700 XT.
RAM: 16 GB.
Disk space: 90 GB.
In-game tourism
Atomic Heart has received a lot of positive feedback from publications and journalists who managed to play the demo, and is firmly on the list of the most anticipated games of this year. So, in March 2022, at the annual LUDI Awards, organized by the Russian websites Kanobu and Igromania, the project took second place in the Most Anticipated Game category. Ken Levine, the creator of the aforementioned BioShock and BioShock Infinite, to whom Atomic Heart is most often compared, noted on his Twitter that the game “looks amazing” and he even showed it to his team.
Screenshot from the game Atomic Heart
Photo: Mundfish
Modern video games will often include an element of virtual tourism. In this regard, the vast locations of Atomic Heart naturally attract the Russian audience. On the screenshots presented on the Web, you can recognize the building of Moscow State University, known even outside of Moscow, or shots from VDNKh.
Against this background, users compare what they see with other games. The first thing that comes to mind is the Metro series, the action of the first parts of which takes place in post-apocalyptic Moscow, and in Metro: Exodus stretches to the east of Russia. Characteristic Khrushchevs, industrial wastelands and villages with birch groves played a role in the popularity of the project.
Screenshot from the game Atomic Heart
Photo: Mundfish
By the way, the plot of Rise of the Tomb Raider, which Izvestia talked about earlier, takes place in cold Siberia. And although the developers did not go too far into the reliability of the locations, Lara Croft nevertheless walked through the abandoned Soviet factories and even fought with Baba Yaga and the hut on chicken legs.
The story of one of the heroes of Assassin’s Creed Chronicles takes place in post-revolutionary Petrograd. And although the theme of Russia has not yet been given a hotel part of the series, fans of the cult game have the opportunity to play as a member of the Russian Brotherhood of Assassins.
Screenshot from the game Atomic Heart
Photo: Mundfish
You can already walk around virtual Russia in the online shooter Escape from Tarkov. And even though the battles between the troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, UN peacekeepers and private military structures take place on the territory of the fictitious Norvinsk economic zone in the city of Tarkov, all the same abandoned factories, dilapidated churches and empty offices are familiar to every citizen of the CIS.
