10 Things to Know Before Playing Atomic Heart
Technical Breakdown
In the world of Atomic Heart, the Soviet Union is leading the charge as one of the most technologically advanced global powers on Earth thanks to the breakthroughs of Professor Dimitri Sarge Suchenov. Between the years 1936 and 1955, Dimitri’s inventions lead to the creation of his own extensive underground laboratory known as Facility 3826, and along with the introduction of robotics and automatons as well as various other interests such as interstellar travel and advancements in medicine and botany, Dimitri is putting the finishing touches on his latest creation that will neurologically link humans and robots called “Thought”. However, upon the system's initiation, Thought malfunctioned - because these things never work - and caused all the robots to rebel against their creators, leading to untold death and devastation of this once Utopian society. It's now up to the player to find the cause of the glitch and put an end to the uprising.
Upgraded Combat
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Going up against a mechanical army is no easy task, but thankfully the player character P-3 is no pushover either. Augmented with cybernetics as well as a metal skeleton, P-3 can give just as good as he gets. Thankfully, just as the androids grow stronger, so can P-3, as Atomic Heart features a robust upgrade system that allows players to completely customize and augment not only their weapon loadout but their playstyle as well. Another welcome feature is the ability to simply vacuum up resources instead of systematically opening each drawer and cabinet to search for valuable components. The world of Atomic Heart and Facility 3826 is nothing if not efficient.
Robot Uprising
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With the robot revolution in full effect, there’s no shortage of mechanical monsters bent on sending you to the scrap heap. Robots have taken over most manual labor tasks for the civilians of Facility 3826 and likewise are designed to handle any number of tasks assigned to them. It’s in these designs however that many of their features have been easily turned against the player such as MFU68’s buzzsaw attachment now becoming its primary weapon. Other more advanced automatons like the VOV-A6 is the most human-like in its abilities aside from the odd face laser. There’s also the central AI to contend with that’s always watching you through its many cameras like an omnipresent Big Brother who also won’t hesitate to send out a fresh batch of foes to your location should you miss disabling one of its many watchful eyes.
Open World-ish
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While the world of Atomic Heart is very large and varied with each area of Facility 3826 being dedicated to the designs associated with its research, Atomic Heart is not open world in the sense that you can’t walk from one end to the other unimpeded. Instead, developer Mundfish is focusing on maintaining the narrative as players explore the world rather than giving players points of interest to investigate. So while the laboratories and housing hidden in the Kazakhstan Mountains are quite large, the world is instead broken up into territories the player is free to explore and discover the many secrets hidden throughout, but still contained to that specific area until it’s time to move on. Another aspect the team is especially proud of is the lack of loading times in the game, so going from one section or facility to another is a completely seamless experience never breaking the immersion.
Tuned Up
Music plays such an integral part in any medium that some pieces of music have become synonymous with their respective projects. And as anyone who has played the recent Doom 2016 reboot and its sequel Doom Eternal will know, those titles' blood pumping soundtracks make slaying the demons of hell all the more thrilling. Now composer Mick Gordon is bringing this same energy to Mundfish’s Atomic Heart, and just from the numerous trailers that have been released so far, his original soundtrack for the game using a blending of metal and techno tracks is reminiscent of his previous work but also wholly original and fittingly sets the mood of the alternate Russian timeline the game takes place in.
Elemental Loadout
In addition to the standard and experimental weapons P-3 will have access to, by far one the most important and versatile gadgets in his arsenal is undoubtedly the Glove. This attachment turns P-3’s left hand into an all-purpose elemental weapon that can produce shock and freeze attacks as well as allow him to use telekinesis to lift and slam the many mechanical menaces in his way. He’s not the only one with access to these abilities however as many of the VOV-A6’s can use various electrical attacks and abilities such as generating a shield to nullify the impact of your attacks. Combining these elemental attacks with your firearms, which also have access to elemental attachments such as incendiary rounds, is what keeps the combat engaging as the player is forced to constantly change tactics depending on the type of mechanized monstrosity they’re facing.
A Puzzling Shooter
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One of the more surprising elements of Atomic Heart lies in its abundance of puzzles the player will have to solve in order to progress. Developer Mundfish claims some of these can take mere minutes to solve while others can span entire sections of the facility and take up to an hour to overcome. Many of these puzzles revolve around the Glove and its numerous elemental capabilities such as electrifying a section of the room to raise or lower a specific section and unlock the next area. While none of these are overly complicated brain teasers in order not to hinder the pace of the game, these areas will offer a nice reprieve from the constant threat of robots relentlessly hunting you throughout the world of Atomic Heart.
Techno Brawler
While Atomic Heart at its core is still a first person shooter, developer Mundfish is also putting a significant focus on the game’s melee combat. Atomic Heart pits the player against any number of automaton adversaries and resources such as ammunition are finite in the robot uprising so you’re eventually going to have to get your hands dirty. Even though P-3 is a cybernetically enhanced wrecking machine, he’s not completely invincible, especially in the game’s early hours, and finding the right combo of attacks using both your standard weapons and melee options can mean the difference between life and death. These melee weapons can be upgraded much like any other piece of the player’s arsenal such as the Zvezdochka which sends whirling blades out that automatically attack nearby enemies.
Not Your Daddy’s Bioshock
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Upon Atomic Heart’s initial reveal, many wrote the game off as another Bioshock clone. As the years of development continued however, Atomic Heart has done its best to distance itself from its obvious inspirations with its unique and detailed alternate history world and …okay fine, there’s still a lot of similarities, but Atomic Heart still manages to improve on the formula with its deep crafting system, open world-ish approach to exploration, impactful melee combat and not to mention explosive and often arena filling boss battles. While comparisons to the genre defining Bioshock are undeniable, developer Mundfish is taking a kitchen sink approach to Atomic Heart and filling it with as much as they can to keep the player constantly engaged and never without something new to discover in its impressive and sometimes horrifying robot apocalypse.
The Basics
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Although long in development and suffering numerous delays after first being revealed over 5 years ago, first time developer Mundfish’s passion project Atomic Heart will finally be released on February 21st, 2023, for PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox Series consoles as well as Xbox One. Through a partnership with Microsoft, Atomic Heart will also be a Day 1 release on Xbox Game Pass and there are currently plans for at least four additional DLC packs sometime after release. Powered by Unreal Engine 4, this dedicated team of mostly first-time designers from all corners of the world came together to bring their original vision of an alternate history Russian robot apocalypse to life.
