Atomic Heart Review: From Russia... With Love?

While the plot and characters lack originality, Atomic Heart makes a nuclear debut in its ability to create an imaginative and ambitious universe filled with endlessly terrifying fascinations.

Atomic Heart Review (Xbox Series X)

Release Date: February 21, 2023

Publisher(s): Focus Entertainment, VK Play

Developer: Mundfish

Platforms: Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Windows

Rating: 7.5/10

*NO SPOILERS BELOW*

Atomic Heart was quick to make waves across the internet. With the controversy surrounding the game’s funders and potential ties to the Russian government, a fair amount of outcry had risen in an attempt to limit or all together cancel the game’s distribution. Since that hasn’t been working out, people are attempting to find reasons to cancel this game, like how there is a reference to a racial cartoon in a museum found in the game. Sadly those iron balls Mundfish had for remaining politically neutral have rusted as they chose to cave on that aforementioned one. This fascination with attempting to erase history rather than learn from it is truly a baffling sight to behold, but I digress!

Atomic Heart is a first-person action-adventure shooter and puzzler that takes place in an alternate reality where the Soviet Union instead gained the upper hand during WW2 and amidst Nazi Germany’s rise, released a deadly plague in combat that decimated the human population, thus leaving significant gaps in the human labor force that were quickly filled with robots. As part of the Soviet Union's post-war reconstruction programme, Dr. Sechenov created a wireless, networked artificial intelligence called the "Kollektiv 1.0" that links all the robots of Atomic Heart for greater efficiency. 

As the player, you take on the role of Major Sergey Nechayev, AKA P-3, a WW2 veteran with notable mental problems that befriends the country’s beloved Dr. Sechenov after he “saved” P-3’s life. P-3 is tasked with assisting with the rollout of the Kollectiv 2.0 and comes to learn that some of the system and its robots have become hostile. With the help of his handy AI Charles, P-3 dives in deep to find the source of this robot rebellion, uncovering darker and more nefarious tales along the way. 

The immediate comparison that was made to Atomic Heart during those early trailers was Bioshock, another franchise that takes advantage of the retro-steampunk-esque style and also takes place in a past era reshaped by technological advances. This comparison is very fair in a multitude of ways, starting off with the basic combat mechanics. 

Whereas in Bioshock, you started off with a derelict wrench and the plasmid ability, Electroshock, Atomic Heart starts you off with an axe and a similar shock ability. As the game progresses through the USSR’s mechanically destructed utopia, you are able to pick up more weapons, such as a handgun and shotgun, as well as uncover blueprints to build more colorful weapons as seen in some of the game’s trailers. And just as you did in Bioshock, your shock ability can be upgraded, though in this through a rather seductively voiced robot called NORA who will have your nips at attention for.. a few reasons. 

Alongside your shock, you can also unlock several other abilities like a shield that momentarily protects you from oncoming attacks, a telekinesis ability that allows you slam enemies into the ground, and even a frostbite ability that helps you freeze enemies as well as environments. Fortunately, these abilities do not require any time of juice to use, but have a cooldown period of about 30 seconds instead. 

Combat, ability, and movement controls are introduced to brief tutorials on screen to show you your basic fighting and equipment functions. Rather than prompting a practice, it’s 3-4 slides on screen that describe what it is, why you would use it, and how to use it. For a game like this where combo moves aren’t necessarily a staple for combat, this gives players some room to be more creative with their fighting style, especially once you begin making the aforementioned upgrades where there are instances that you can lift and even shock multiple enemies at once. 

As a new IP, this helps Atomic Heart gain its footing a little better for newer audiences that are uncertain but hold the Bioshock franchise close to heart. 

Hehe, see what I did there?

Visually, the game meets the graphical standards of 2023. In terms of world building? Honestly, while Atomic Heart kind of fails in terms of a unique plotline, it's more than made up for it its chaotically enchanting utopia. Stylistically the game starts off strong in the opening sequence with its bright colors, unique robots, and cumulative settings that blend the old world with the new. As players begin to dive into the action, the contrast in environments compliments the frenzied and sinister tones of the game pretty well. As you change between a perfect society to a mutant-infested biolab and more, the game does allow for you to become creative in how you choose to approach some of the missions. For example, there’s a segment where you’ll approach a building and you can choose to be uber stealthy or blast your way through some of the Soviet empire’s more devious mechanical contraptions. This is a necessary addition in a game like this as it keeps the gameplay from going stale and provides more interesting perspectives on the world of Atomic Heart. 

Fans of horror will most certainly appreciate some of the stylistic takes on the foes and level designs. Aside from the unique selection of robot foes that will give you some serious Terminator, you also encounter some Resident Evil style flower faced mutants, courtesy of the biological experimentation happening in this realm.   

The robots actually pose a genuine challenge in some instances even on the game’s default difficulty. While you can grasp the lower level bots pretty easily, it’s the more difficult ones that maybe carry saws or have a bulkier build, that can pose a fun challenge while simultaneously keeping the fighting from becoming repetitive and stale. 

Outside of combat and abilities, the game does offer some variety in actual gameplay. In traversing through different areas, you encounter not only different environments, but puzzles. Puzzling accounts for a significant amount of the gameplay and can vary. There’s your standard door puzzles which run on a timer or sometimes require a more tricking lining up of sequence points. Other puzzles require entire levels, such as the one where you have to locate 4 canisters to help bring a prized birch tree back to health. Gosh, that particular mission was a handful as each of the 4 canisters had their own puzzle to solve, of which some were easy and others were well… aggressive. 

For all the things Atomic Heart seems to have going for it, there are some very minor things that drag it down considerably in my opinion. 

First, the camera during combat sequences seemed a little sloppy. Even with adjusting the controller sensitivity, the adaptability of the camera during combat is all over the place and on several occasions, it led to the Skynet uprising handing me my cheeks unnecessarily. It was somewhat irksome adjusting these sensitivities as well, as by default, the actual combat and aim sensitivities were on point, so it took considerable time before I found the sweet point. As a result this made the first few hours of gameplay unflattering. 

Next, while I can appreciate P-3’s personality being a throwback to a lost era of smart-mouthed overly masculine protagonists – seriously I do miss these kinds of characters – a fair amount of his dialogue was more cringey than comedic. They are made even more off putting by the game’s inability to adequately time them right with what you are doing in game. For instance, when solving one of the many door puzzles through the game, in the midst of solving it, P-3 would start talking to Charles about how “Oh man, another door puzzle” when I had almost completely solved it. Regardless of this critique, there were moments where I enjoyed the banter between P-3 and Charles as the opposite nature of each often played well together. 

And finally, the at times mundane puzzles that seem to only exist to fill time. I lost count how many times this happened in the game. While in some instances it helped you learn more about the world of Atomic Heart, like the aforementioned birch tree puzzle, others were just unnecessary, like the icy balls in the furnace – no that’s not code, just the easiest way to describe it. Here is where the deviation from Bioshock’s gameplay style is most obvious, as comparatively, those puzzles, while at times being tedious, were balanced by the near-perfect injection of world building, thickening plots, and chilling atmosphere. 

Final verdict? Atomic Heart is imaginative, ambitious, and certainly a pretty cool amalgamation of several anarchic themes that work to its advantage when it comes to creating a truly fascinating alternative take on history. The weapons are cool, the robots are sexy, and the style is steampunk-alicious. 

But despite all the good things it has going, it’s a little bogged down by a somewhat lackluster, predictable plot and overly cumbersome puzzles that inadvertently affect the game’s pacing. However, in my opinion, the way this alternate reality is built and the history within it, more than make up for it as I found myself more interested in learning about the world of Atomic Heart rather than actually progressing the plot. 

As a result, I think players will either find Atomic Heart to be an alright release for its homage to other games of the genre, or straight out spectacular for its ability to craft such a cool and chaotic world. In either respect, I think Bioshock fans especially will appreciate Atomic Heart for its unapologetically batshit insane universe.