Atomic Heart is one of those games that has been on everyone’s radar for quite some time now. It’s clear inspiration from the likes of Bioshock and the Metro series mixed with its own flare of Russian dystopia and robotic teenage angst has garnered a significant amount of buzz since the first trailer dropped a little over two years ago.
Since the reveal trailer, Russian developer Mundfish has been rather quiet, dropping a few trailers and screenshots here and there over the last year-and-a-half. Preorders for the game have been live on their official site since the beginning, where players have three options to pick from: the digital download edition, the deluxe founder edition, and the coveted atomic founder edition priced at $40, $50 and $90 respectively. The differences between the three editions include exclusive, in-game cosmetic pieces, seven-day early access, personal in-game ID and your photo placed in one of the facilities that represent your support for the game.
The world of Atomic Heart is one filled with peril, poorly mannered artificial intelligence, anti-gravity and fully immersible water paths, and weird symbiotes. We are in the midst of a technical revolution, but one immersed in communism, imperialism, and confrontation with the West. Mundfish promises a huge open world “full of lush Soviet nature and less spacious territories of the Facility [3826] complexes with its secret underground and above-ground labs, bunkers, and robotic logistics systems”.
Everything from the level design to the creature art bleeds triple-A quality, but reports that surfaced back in 2018 circulating around massive lay-offs and incompetence at the studio left people skeptical on the validity of their promises. Some claimed that the employees had little experience in the industry, the overall graphical quality was downgraded due to an entire reset of production, and that the trailers shown to the public were heavily scripted and in no way indicative of actual gameplay. Worrisome news for those that had already placed their hard earned cash on a game that seemingly promised much more than they could logistically deliver.
Fortunately, earlier this month, Mundfish came back with new gameplay, showing off more of their beautifully rendered and well-realized alternate USSR universe, ending with a mini-boss fight against the disgusting Plyush – a kind of bloody matter that eventually kills and seemingly consumes the player.
The new gameplay trailer and screenshots gave hopeful early adopters exactly what they wanted, and also instilled more hype than skepticism in myself. Supporting this new trailer is Mundfish’s revamped Instagram account, which offers more of an insight into their studio and puts faces to names; a breath of fresh air compared to two years ago when most of our (mis)information originated from critical leaks. As 2020 withers down, most questioned the release schedule for Atomic Heart.
The official site, as of August 2020, still has its preorders set for Steam and Playstation 4, but the new gameplay trailer offered some more insight. Atomic Heart will now release for PC, Xbox One, Playstation 4 and Xbox Series X and Playstation 5. Exciting news for Xbox enthusiasts who once thought they’d have to miss out.
