Atomic Heart

After being founded in 2017, Mundfish is making a strong first impression with its debut game, Atomic Heart. This single-player first-person shooter ...

Although I found the robotic enemies to be creepy and formidable foes, I wish there was a bit more variety in enemy type. Outside of controversial themes and a lack of enemy variety, it’s hard to point out any glaring issues with Atomic Heart. This review is based on a PS5 copy of Atomic Heart provided by the publisher. There is also detailed dismemberment, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I got a laugh out of hacking the limbs off of enemies after clearing a room. I was continuously impressed by the various puzzles that Mundfish threw at me as I attempted to open doors and disarm security systems. In addition to melee and ranged weapons, Major P-3 is equipped with a Polymer glove that lets him harness electricity and telekinesis powers. Shooting feels impactful, and there are a variety of weapons to be discovered and crafted, each with its own unique feel. The tunes give a cinematic feel to battles, and make the quiet moments eerier. You have to constantly be moving and dodging in order to avoid the aggressive robotic enemies, and there are quick-time events that will trigger when your character is grappled or on the brink of death. Atomic Heart puts players in the shoes of Major P-3, a Soviet intelligence agent tasked with getting to the bottom of what caused the USSR’s robot companions to lash out and wage war against their human creators. There’s a wide range of music featured, and it only improves the experience whenever it kicks in. Atomic Heart reminded me a lot of the Bioshock franchise with its alternate historical setting.

Atomic Heart is a first-person action-adventure shooter developed by Mundfish. The shooting, puzzles, and political thriller narrative bring back good ...

Most of the puzzles are locks that require timing to a beat or rearranging dots to unlock, but the real challenge is clearing the area thoroughly to buy yourself enough time to open the door. Protagonist P-3 constantly berates the circumstances he’s in for being lame, annoying, and unimaginative, like repeatedly being sent on fetch quests to retrieve a number of items, his AI companion never shutting up, and things being too conveniently inconvenient. In present-day 1955, the USSR attempts to launch a new device that will allow humans to control robots with their mind, but the plan is sabotaged, causing all robots to turn on the humans. That being said, Atomic Heart often feels like it’s flexing for the sake of flexing, causing the gameplay or story to falter at times, but it manages a positive impression in the end. The boss fights are a spectacle to behold, but even those are easily dealt with by getting in close and chopping away at their legs. The shooting, puzzles, and political thriller narrative bring back good memories of 7th generation FPS big-hitters like BioShock and Call of Duty: Black Ops while using the 9th generation tech to push the gameplay and cinematics to another level.

Atomic Heart is all at once the strangest, most off-the-wall, most bombastic game I think I'll play this year. It's got a self-referential, ...

Now, while the gunplay is a treat in Atomic Heart, all of the trimmings, such as the player’s upgrade paths—for guns, for Charles, and for the agent himself—feel like a bit of a mess. I’ll go so far as to say if your interest in Atomic Heart is mainly from a design standpoint, buy the inevitable art book instead. Atomic Heart’s corridor crawling is the game at its best, and I’ll recall the game’s first handful of hours fondly. The game is a series of overworlds separated by a series of facilities. Granted, they’re as plainly signposted as the story’s many “twists” by obvious arenas, but they’re a thrilling showcase of what the game does best and that’s its combat. Atomic Heart’s biggest sin, in the end, is that it forces us to reminisce about what is ultimately a better game.

Developer Mundfish's first-person shooter about a KGB agent in Soviet Russia features fun combat against robots and monsters on Xbox Game Pass — but to what ...

While there is a Detective Mode to highlight useful objects, using it forces P3 to move at a snail’s pace, and the items lose their glow the moment you exit the mode. It can all feel a bit simple: a brutal retro shooter with inventory management and crafting and a macho lead character. For a game where melee is encouraged, it’s far too difficult to clock incoming projectiles or flanking enemies. Melee weapons and guns must be built at crafting stations, after scavenging the environment for bits and bobs. And the crumbling Soviet setting, while glorified in the context of the story, seems to have been built spectacularly for an equally spectacular collapse. Divining what the game intends to say (or doesn’t) about society or culture is particularly challenging, considering its creation. But as I barrel into the core of Atomic Heart, I wonder whether this game is what it appears to be — or if it’s something much more interesting. Indeed, Mundfish’s relationship to the Russian state remains [murky](https://www.eurogamer.net/questions-remain-over-atomic-heart-developers-russian-origins). But as I journey deeper, it helps my curiosity that the characters themselves are likable enough. P3’s main job is overseeing security for various facilities run by Sechenov and the government. The game begins with spectacle, peacocking its world, its aesthetics, its technology. Like those utopias, Atomic Heart’s Soviet nation is failing, under leaders plagued by the Icarus complex in which grand ideas come to naught.

Our Atomic Heart Review - for an in-depth, unbiased review of the latest and greatest video games, read on.

On top of the non-stop chatter, other elements feel similarly indulgent; puzzles for the sake of puzzles (on top of the good stuff) and fetch quests that often feel like one or two more of a “thing you need to collect” than there should be. These battles are tense, and as they let the soundtrack do the talking, they are always a lot of fun. The main protagonist is an angry and unlikable cartoon character that sees every obstacle or objective placed in front of them as an affront to their existence. It can be thrilling when you need to manage cameras and repair droids as part of this singular symbiotic robotic threat, but the execution often falls flat due to repetition. Combat itself is challenging, and it has a distinct feel. With the bonus of a melee focus due to ammo scarcity (at least initially), the dodge system adds some up-close-and-personal swings and slices, which is great. It doesn’t help that the big reveals mirror what we’ve seen in other narratives and that these moments come after several hours of little to no character development. This is why the streets are teeming with celebration, and the air is filled with confetti. In the opening, you get to walk the streets and interact with humans and robots while tasting a utopian vision of society. As an unnamed Soviet operative, Major P-3 and his AI-glove CHAR-les, you play the role of a virtual tourist as you explore one of the mega structures in the clouds. Setting aside the poor English dub where American accents betray the art direction or the dialogue, which is both aggressive and juvenile in its overt sexualisation of random elements, it’s relentless. From a visual and immersion standpoint, Atomic Heart’s opening is brilliant.

Today marks the embargo date for Atomic Heart, the bizarre new sci-fi game from Mundfish, which has attracted some manner of controversy given its ...

With an incomprehensible storyline, weightless combat, and frustrating first-person platforming, Atomic Heart is left to stand in the shadow of the video games that so clearly inspired it.” [Twinfinite (4/10)](https://twinfinite.net/2023/02/atomic-heart-review-missing-more-than-a-beat/): “Despite what is a promising combat formula as well as the supporting systems behind it when it comes to skills, crafting, and upgrades, there are also several equally frustrating aspects of it that hold the game back. [GamesRadar (5/10)](https://www.gamesradar.com/atomic-heart-review/): “Atomic Heart has a lot of big ideas, but it doesn't do a good enough job with the basics. And my friend Skillup gives it a big old “Do Not Recommend.” This isn’t just my favorite game of this year, it might be one of my favorites of the decade.” In the broader context of the video game landscape where GOTY contenders hit above 90, studios get bonuses at 85+ and anything under a 60 is an utter disaster, I would declare these scores “fine.” Today marks the embargo date for Atomic Heart, the bizarre new sci-fi game from Mundfish, which has attracted some manner of controversy given its connections to Russia.

Atomic Heart will not include its highly promo'd ray tracing features in the PC version at launch. RT effects will instead come in a later patch.

I’ve asked Mundfish if they have a separate date in mind for the ray tracing update, and have contacted Nvidia for a statement as well. More positively, it already looks great without ray tracing, and it does at least have fully functioning DLSS support, including for the new [DLSS 3](https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/dlss-3-how-it-works-how-it-performs-and-when-you-should-use-it). From an [Nvidia tech demo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5e-GVEqL9A) back to in 2019 to an [RTX-branded trailer](https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/atomic-hearts-latest-trailer-shows-off-its-ray-tracing-chops) released just last month, this souped-up lighting and reflection tech has been a key piston in propelling the Soviet sci-fi FPS’ hype train. I guess it’s better than them being cancelled outright but still, how strange that a game with an Nvidia-approved ray tracing demo four years ago won’t have even a toned-down version of those features ready for when the world can actually play it. [Atomic Heart](https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/games/atomic-heart)’s long development cycle has provided ample opportunities to show off the power of [ray tracing](https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/confirmed-ray-tracing-and-dlss-games). I noticed the lack of ray tracing options in the review build we received last week, and got in touch with the game's press relations team to check if I was missing something, or if they were due to be added via update.

You'd be forgiven for getting stumped right at the start of this first-person shooter, out now for PlayStation, Xbox, and Windows PC. How to use the scanner in ...

For instance, during the “Made in the USSR” mission, you have to find the “voice, the symbol, and the sprout of the Motherland.” Activating the scanner will highlight the three items — a radio, a hammer, and a plant — you need to progress. If you hold the scanner over a specific enemy, you’ll be able to see a list of their resistances and weaknesses, plus a rundown of the loot they’ll drop when defeated. Whatever struggles you’re having while learning how to use the scanner, know that it’s not a bug (probably).

Atomic Heart reviews are extremely mixed, with some praising the game for its reality-bending elements, and others calling it disappointing.

With such a mixed response, it does appear Atomic Heart will be an acquired taste. ‘A simple playthrough of Atomic Heart will take players around 25 hours to beat, which is a solid playtime generally. ‘There are floating Soviet laboratories in the sky, home to a networked artificial intelligence which could signal the evolution of human consciousness; a veteran USSR operative who can’t recall his past, and an army of rampaging robots designating the populace of Facility 3826 as enemy combatants after a software malfunction … It also noted Atomic Heart does little to endear itself to players, and that its storyline fails to do justice to a ‘cool premise’: Others have called the action laughably bad, with the game’s narrative and characters being major sticking points. Some reviewers have praised the game for its eye-catching visuals, unique puzzles, and sleek combat.

Atomic Heart is a new release first-person shooter by Cyprus studio Mundfish. It's a game that lands somewhere between Fallout and Bioshock — an art-deco, retro ...

[Eurogamer Germany](https://www.eurogamer.de/atomic-heart-test-wunderschon-und-doch-ein-klon-wie-atomic-heart-hinter-meinem-wunschtraum-zuruckbleibt) called it “a Bioshock-clone with a confusing, often unsatisfying story and many elements that seem unfinished.” Aussie outlet [WellPlayed](https://www.well-played.com.au/atomic-heart-review/) said Atomic Heart displayed “an impressive command of aesthetics and occasionally gives you the tools to enjoy its world, but an unstable console build, unsatisfying systems and complete misfire of a script prevent these atoms from achieving the necessary fusion.” [Press Start](https://press-start.com.au/reviews/xbox-series-x-reviews/2023/02/20/atomic-heart-review-achy-breaky-heart/) gave it a rare 6.5, saying “Atomic Heart is an exercise in excess. [PCGamesN](https://www.pcgamesn.com/atomic-heart/review) said that though the game has some “cringeworthy moments and occasional design missteps, … Of the 59 Atomic Heart reviews collated by Metacrtic across all three platforms, 40 of them are considered positive (75 or above), 17 are considered mixed (74-50), and just two are outright negative. It has some clear strengths, like its first in class art direction and gunplay, however these are far outweighed by the game’s faults.” [AusGamers](https://www.ausgamers.com/games/atomic-heart/review/) was even less impressed, awarding it a 5.8 score, saying “There’s a school of thought that when it comes to a review, you should discuss the content of a game versus what it doesn’t have. Atomic Heart launches today, February 21, 2023, on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X It’s also on Game Pass, so you can try it yourself. The logic is sound, if all criticism comes from a place of unmet expectation, that would be unfair. Across its three platforms, Atomic Heart reviews pulled in Metacritic averages of 78 on PC, 74 on PS5, and 72 on Xbox. The game drew immediate comparisons to Bioshock for the way its protagonist weilds their various powers, unleashing devastating elemental attacks upon unsuspecting foes. The positive [GamersRD](https://gamersrd.com/atomic-heart-review/), which gave Atomic Heart a 10/10, excitedly calling it “no less than a masterpiece of art.” [Hardcore Gamer](https://hardcoregamer.com/reviews/review-atomic-heart/437633/) also gave the game glowing praise, calling it “an incredible adventure into the retro-future history of a Russia that never existed.” [GamingTrend](https://gamingtrend.com/feature/reviews/atomic-heart-review-kollektivly-incredible/) felt it was an early game-of-the-year contender. It’s a game that lands somewhere between Fallout and Bioshock — an art-deco, retro futurist universe with a man and his superpowered robotic left hand at the centre of it.

Atomic Heart is an upcoming first-person shooter video game developed by Mundfish, a Russian game development studio. We got an early look - here is the ...

The enemy variety is limited, and after a while, the combat encounters can start to feel a bit too familiar. The game features a blend of retro-futuristic design and Soviet-era aesthetics, creating a truly unique and captivating world. The game also features a captivating story, with several twists and turns to keep players engaged. One of the strengths of Atomic Heart's enemy design is that each type of enemy requires a slightly different strategy to defeat. The game features RPG elements, allowing the player to level up and upgrade their abilities. The player can use a variety of weapons, including guns, melee weapons, and even their fists.

A prominent Nvidia RTX showpiece, the long-awaited Atomic Heart, launches on PC without any ray tracing graphics options whatsoever.

[reviews of Atomic Heart](https://gamerant.com/atomic-heart-review/) haven't been all that positive. [Atomic Heart supports DLSS at launch](https://gamerant.com/atomic-heart-denuvo-drm-dlss/), however. [Atomic Heart showed off 4K RTX gameplay](https://gamerant.com/atomic-heart-4k-rtx-gameplay/), hyping its graphics as one of its most exciting features. The lack of ray tracing is sure to disappoint some players, but the feature's prominence in pre-release materials comes as a bit of a guarantee that it should eventually be made available in-game. While the game is bound to find an audience with its Bioshock-like combat and plenty of content — according to the early reviews — some of the features that PC players might've been eagerly anticipating won't be available on day one. While the game has had a long and troubled production, having initially been announced back in 2018, its remarkable graphics have always been one of its most notable features, and developer Mundfish even collaborated with Nvidia to produce in-engine RTX showpieces years ago.

Atomic Heart isn't nearly as accommodating as most first-person shooter. Beyond just the best starter skills and weapons, this advice should help you start ...

Also, you’ll worry less about the fact that you can only save at save stations. By holding down L1/LB, you can freeze enemies in place for a short time with a steady stream of ice. But you’re restricted in how many consumable supplies — med packs, ammo, that sort of thing — you can cart around. There is no penalty for resetting, either: Sometimes you might have to solve a multipart puzzle, but in backing out, the game will acknowledge that you’ve solved the first part and start you at the second. It’s not always easy to gauge whether or not you can make a jump, but there’s one simple tell that works 100% of the time: If your hand is held outward (as seen in the screenshot below), you can make it. If you’re stumped on one specific puzzle, you can back out, then immediately jump back in to get a randomized variety of the same puzzle.

Atomic Heart's dazzling world design, extraordinary production values, and fast-paced fights make for a solid campaign, but the derivative plot and often ...

On the one hand, Atomic Heart is a good game on its own merits. Sadly, the best writing is hidden in the various terminals throughout the game, which contain most of the worldbuilding and connect other characters to one another. His interactions with the sexually frustrated crafting machine are especially painful, and the rest of the cast isn’t much better. Battles are both dangerous and satisfying, and the diversity of opponents keeps combat engaging. Instead of stealth, hacking, and environmental traps, Atomic Heart demands faster and more reactive shooting to curb the attackers’ superior numbers. The player assumes the role of Agent P-3, an operative under the command of Soviet genius Dr.

Atomic Heart offers a variety of skills and upgrades, though some quickly prove to be more valuable than others.

Combined with Sponge Effect, this skill allows you to soak a hit, destroy the attacker, and use your Energy weapons to focus on other nearby foes. Given the power of Energy weapons in this game, you can easily justify running a shield for this skill alone. Melee/Energy is a viable combo for most of Atomic Heart, so this skill soon proves to be worth its weight in Neuropolymers. As the only “defensive” ability in Atomic Heart, you may be tempted to pass over Polymeric Shield in favor of other options. This incredible skill allows you to lift “heavyweight” enemies with your Mass Telekinesis ability. One of the best AoE abilities in the game, Mass Telekinesis allows you to handle multiple enemies at once with relative ease. I’m not sure why that isn’t just part of the base ability’s functionality, but you will want this skill as soon as possible. Atomic Heart allows you to assign two abilities to your “Ability Slots,” and Frostbite is by far the most useful of those slotted, optional abilities. This skill allows you to acquire additional resources from defeated, frozen enemies, which means you’ll want to unlock it as soon as possible. So while you can eventually gain access to many of the skills in Atomic Heart, the better approach is to constantly change your skills around based on what the situation calls for. It doesn’t hurt that a properly upgraded Shok ability also happens to be one of the most useful overall abilities in the game. You didn’t come here to hear that, though, so let’s look at some of the best ways to upgrade your character in Atomic Heart and the kind of character build you’re ultimately aiming for.

Mundfish's 'Atomic Heart' launched without ray tracing, even though Nvidia has bragged about its RTX options since 2018.

Even on an RTX 3060, performance with DLSS Quality mode and the Atomic preset averaged over 100 fps at 1440p Atomic — though not in the opening sequence, where it was in the 50–80 fps range. We did a quick test of the game running on and Even 1440p remained playable, with the indoor areas in the early part of the game staying well above 60 fps — 4K dropped to about 40 fps, though. "Atomic Heart is a fantastic looking game and we are very pleased with what Mundfish was able to accomplish," Nvidia's director of global PR, Bryan Del Rizzo, told Tom's Hardware. 9, Mundfish founder and Atomic Heart director Robert Bagratuni said the game, which takes place in a alternate universe Soviet utopia, that "consoles will not support RT for now, but we strive to give our players the best and most optimized visual experience possible." Mundfish's Atomic Heart is releasing today, but without a feature that the developer and Nvidia have been pushing for years: ray tracing.

Some Xbox Game Pass for PC players encounter an unusual game-breaking bug that makes it impossible to complete Atomic Heart's introductory mission.

[Xbox Game Pass](https://gamerant.com/xbox-game-pass-games-february-2023/) users on PC are still seeing it even after the download is completed. [Atomic Heart is a "Shock-like" first-person shooter](https://gamerant.com/atomic-heart-system-shock-2023-shocklike-games/) set in an alternate universe where a Soviet scientist developed a substance called Polymer in the 1930s. Even discounting this major annoyance, Atomic Heart hasn't been off to a perfect start. However, when players get close enough to interact with the door, a small message appears showing a padlock and saying the content is only available in the full version of the game. Players would reach a point in the quest, "No Rest for the Wicked," where the game instructs them to get into a car. An unusual bug prevented some Xbox Game Pass users from completing the intro to the newly released Atomic Heart.

From inflexible combat to the lack of easy saves, Atomic Heart is a frustrating game. The fix? Play on Peaceful Atom (aka "easy").

(Switching the difficulty does not appear to lengthen the window of Atomic Heart’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it quick-time events.) In the more frenetic combat encounters, I’ve found myself overwhelmed by enemies, scrambling to survive, and regularly failing. While some missions have a healthy number of save points, others, including the first major one, are stingy with how frequently they let you save. You can swap between difficulty levels on the fly in the gameplay menu. Feb 2023 (and at launch, as part of the Game Pass library), features three difficulty settings: You have to stomach an entire script’s worth of juvenile “humor.” The slim offering of accessibility settings is a genuine disappointment, to say the least. But there is at least one way to make this first-person shooter a tiny bit more approachable: Play on the lowest difficulty level.

Even in sci-fi Russia, Atomic Heart players need to turn to mods to improve their experience.

In order to use Flawless Widescreen with Atomic Heart, you first have to download the program and install it. When it comes to setting up Flawless Widescreen, the program is downright idiot-proof, but in practice, the app doesn’t quite live up to its name. The option you’re looking for is “In-game FOV – Fine Adjustment.” Select the FOV you want, and Flawless Widescreen will automatically inject it into Atomic Heart and overwrite the game’s default settings when you boot it up. Atomic Heart is the [latest game](https://www.denofgeek.com/games/atomic-heart-best-character-builds-skill-upgrades/) added to the list. [Flawless Widescreen](https://www.flawlesswidescreen.org/#Features)” mod, which is a series of plugins designed to provide additional support for monitors that go beyond the standard 16:9 aspect ratio. In FPS titles, the field of view slider (FOV) is king.