Atomic Heart is the debut game of Cypriot game developer – Mundfish.
It’s often said that the year 2023 will be a great year for single-player gaming. It’s just the second month, and the community is already blessed with great titles. With the hefty list of games coming through, it’s perfectly understandable why this may be the case. And speaking of great games, Focus Entertainment isn’t exactly shy of publishing a game of the standard, in order to be in that conversation.
If you recall a few months ago, with A Plague Tale: Requiem. Elden Ring was the winner, many believe the award should’ve gone to Requiem. Meanwhile, less than a month later, although Evil West didn’t necessarily fit the requirements to be in the discussion – it was one heck of a game and you will definitely have a blast playing it. With all that being said, hopefully, their latest new toy – Atomic Heart, comes with another positive reception.
Plus, with the heavy load of hype and anticipation for the last months, it’s expected that this will be the case. Especially, during that time, there were glimpses. If you recall, not so long ago, there was a gameplay video of an impressive boss fight and all you could think of is you could not wait to play it.
Good thing, you don’t have to wait any longer to get your hands on it, and for the Xbox owners – this will please you the most. Atomic Heart is indeed available on Xbox Game Pass – that’s right, you are not required to pay anything to try this out at least. You know the drill, all you’d need to do is simply download the game and try it for yourself.
Unfortunately, on the day’s release, seemingly many cases of players from other platforms – including Xbox Series X were encountering problems such as issues with orders, steam keys not being received, downloading issues, and so on. And for those who were lucky enough to play the game, you may stumble across some bugs and glitches that you simply could not ignore.
Now – if you are into a strange utopian world permeated with futuristic domains, as well as mayhem, mayhem, and more mayhem – then Atomic Heart is the one for you. It also helps a lot if you’re a Bioshock or a Far Cry series fan, seeing as there are some similarities to them. Nonetheless, Atomic Heart still manages to keep its own identity.
The story of Atomic Heart guides you through the setting of post-World War II in an alternate history of the 1950s, in which the Soviet Union had won the iconic war and has become a pioneering momentous powerhouse for every aspect of science – especially robotics and technology. A brand-new creation, devised by the USSR, comprised of robots being controlled by the human mind. Sounds interesting, right? Well – you better buckle your seatbelts, because there’s a problem, a massive one, in fact.
The objective has radically collapsed due to the obstruction of all robots – resulting in them turning rogue and becoming a huge threat to the human race. You are taking the role of Major Sergey Nechayev – Codename Agent P-3 and your mission is to investigate Faculty 3826 – which is the scientific research hub for the Soviet Union, and shut down the event. A protagonist with a typical bad-boy attitude who clearly loves to hear himself speak. Plus, there is something about his voice, and for that reason, you could listen to him all day.
Starting with – albeit, it was pretty intense, and no doubt, your eyes will be glued to your screens. Furthermore, it does help in preparing you with some of the functionalities. It was quite a long introduction to the game. It would take at least 30 minutes for you to really get going.
Atomic Heart offers a thrilling FPS role-playing experience from start to finish – featuring an array of missions, objectives, challenges, quick-time events, puzzles and the great potency of battles against some of the toughest and most challenging boss fights you might have in modern gaming, leaving the impression that a potential technological apocalypse is emerging and it’s your duty to stop it by any means.
Before you play Atomic Heart, you must understand that your personal and adaptability skills are persistently tested with the large variety of enemies you will encounter. Fortunately, you can use the environment as your ally and also upgrade your equipment to increase your chances of defeating them – and successfully completing missions, obviously.
Not to mention the large diversity of devastating weapons and insane combat mechanics for you to wreak havoc on the bad guys and have them begging for mercy. And of course, your polymer glove performs an abundance of actions involving telekinesis, looting, freezing, restoring health, and puzzle-solving. It even aids in executing stealth attacks. Although, it is quite buggy when doing them most of the time. Your character freezes and to make it worse – the enemies remain alive and they finish you off.
Rightfully, it has a rather intriguing synopsis that will certainly grab your attention – although, a few parts of the plot is quite confusing, and might leave you with more questions than answers. Also, you’d probably like to know that the game has multiple endings.
The main story produced an action-packed adventure and sufficient chaos, conspiracies, shocking twists, and so on to tie your brain into a knot. Moreover, the side quests are equally exciting. However, the story relied heavily on these elements to keep the audience interested. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – the concept is great, but they could’ve done more to make it greater, and it hasn’t really fulfilled its potential.
Depending on what difficulty you choose and if you are a completionist or not, the walkthrough should take anywhere from 13-35 hours. And with that being said, you just know that the game is jam-packed with madness.
All of this anarchy is occurring in a very large, resplendent, and at the same time shattered, open-world map – pervaded with a gorgeous graphical presentation. Easy on the eye artistic designs all around are one of the game’s biggest sparks. Although, the errors with both frame rates and subtitles, Atomic Heart has lost a few more cool points.
Plus, you don’t always have to go to where you need to on foot – seeing as doing so on many occasions is tiring. Sometimes, if you want a faster way, there’s a simplistic vehicle for you to drive. Bear in mind, the car is pretty vulnerable. A few hits and it’s a goner.
Atomic Heart has succeeded in becoming another excellent addition to Focus Entertainment’s catalog. Crammed with a shedload of brilliance for an electrifying FPS experience and satisfying an ideological vision of the Soviet Union. You wouldn’t automatically call it a masterpiece – but it is extremely close to being one.
Despite a few glaring issues, there’s nothing a few patches won’t fix. It does almost nothing to take away the game’s truest qualities. It’s still an impressively ambitious title that can bring the craziness out of anyone. Mundfish has done exceedingly well for what is their debut game and would look forward to their future projects.
