Atomic Heart Review, A Valentines Day Review

Before its release, Atomic Heart seemed like a solid game by all measures. Early trailers showed how it could be an experience that successfully blends elements of acclaimed games like Bioshock and the more recent Wolfenstein. Superficially, the game at times seemed too good to be true, and now that I’ve played it, it has only partially lived up to expectations. Overall, it is undoubtedly a good game, albeit somewhat overly ambitious for its good.

If you want another FPS, albeit slightly different in style, check out Warhammer 40 000 Boltgun!

The Story of Atomic Heart

The story of Atomic Heart takes place in 1955. However, it’s an alternate history where Russia discovered a polymer substance before World War II, which enabled significant technological advancements. The human lifespan is over a hundred years, and things like robots, flying cities, and similar marvels have become a reality. The entire game unfolds in facility 3826, an advanced secret base nestled in the mountains of Kazakhstan, comprised of numerous scientific complexes, laboratories, and other infrastructure – both below and above ground.

Facility 3826 is, by all criteria, a jewel of Soviet technological prowess. It is precisely here that the Soviets are developing their latest technology called Collective 2.0, which essentially allows people to control robots using their minds. Sounds like a recipe for success. What could go wrong?

Things start pretty calmly – with a boat ride. The main character, Colonel Sergey Nechaev, known as “P3” throughout the game, goes to his boss and the facility’s director, Dmitry Sechenov. Of course, amidst this, numerous robots in the facility switch to combat mode and practically exterminate the human population. It’s up to the main character to uncover what, how, and why this happened and to prevent this local disaster from becoming global because that would be shameful.

Sounds Cool, But

Generally, the main story isn’t anything special, and things are often relatively predictable due to the structure or the generous hints the game serves you in every meaningful conversation. Whether it’s about the main character’s history, the moral compass of supporting characters, or even who the main antagonist is in the story. The big problem is that we process all information and learn through the eyes of a somewhat dim-witted, one-dimensional protagonist.

P3 is utterly inconsistent in terms of personality. His worldview, reactions to horrific events and dialogue vary from minute to minute – almost as if 20 different people crafted his personality. Overall, I feel they didn’t know exactly what they wanted to achieve with him, so in the end, he remained an unhappy mix of a joker, a serious soldier, and a philosophe. And all of that doesn’t blend well together. Unlike many other protagonists, despite traumatic events, discoveries, and conversations with supporting characters, he remains unchanged from the beginning to the end of the game.

It certainly doesn’t help that the dialogue and voice acting, both for the main and supporting characters, are sometimes really bad; I would even say – robotic. In short, playing Atomic Heart shortly after Forspoken, I almost yearned for good old silent protagonists. Like P3, the dialogue is often inconsistent because it sometimes pushes an ultra-serious narrative. At other times, it tries to push some awareness that it’s a somewhat silly concept that shouldn’t be taken seriously. Moreover, crucial, I would say, critical dialogue often occurs in the heat of intense combat, resulting in missing details necessary to the story.

The Look and Feel of Atomic Heart

What essentially saves Atomic Heart is that retro-futuristic world and its presentation. From the beginning, the game throws wild concepts and technologies at the player, which are all the more interesting because they are in that distinct Soviet aesthetic. 

The game takes world-building seriously and elaborates it so much that I’ve visited a real place. It’s one of the rare games where secondary sources like terminals or audio recordings are often more interesting than the main story, and you learn a lot – whether it’s about the main political actors, technologies, or robots. Themes of human greed, forced equality, free will, and many others are directly explored, which can be very interesting.

The Gameplay

Atomic Heart tries to juggle multiple things within its gameplay. Try because some game segments are executed more skillfully than others. It’s a first-person shooter with RPG elements. The game unfolds in a combination of open-world and linear complexes/dungeons. Within these complexes, there’s a healthy mix of fighting robots, solving puzzles, and finding blueprints and components for crafting.

And the gameplay loop in those more linear parts was delightful to me. The arsenal of weapons is diverse, ranging from classic rifles, pistols, and melee weapons to more technologically advanced toys. You can upgrade everything to improve your statistics, adding alternative attacks or elemental ammunition, which often visually changes parts of the weapons. Ammunition is a relatively limited resource, which positively encourages you to use more than one or two weapons in the entire arsenal.

Moreover, P3 has several abilities inspired by games like Bioshock that further deepen and make the combat more enjoyable. I’ll leave things like electric attacks, freezing enemies, telekinesis, and some others for you to discover. The abilities are fun to use, and the only shame is that there isn’t a wow moment in the story where you have to earn them; instead, you unlock them through the menu. Their significance is thus greatly diminished, and I often needed to remember that I had them until I ran out of much more effective ammunition for my favourite weapons, which is a real shame.

The RPG Elements And The Open World

There are quite a few puzzles, especially in the first part of the game, but they are nicely balanced in difficulty and manageable. Collecting resources is mechanically simple because you need to point the high-tech glove in the direction of the resources to “suck” them up. However, weapons upgrades later become hungry for various resources, so focusing on a few favourites is best.

Speaking of upgrades, they are purchased at terminals, which often come paired with save points. Usually, the latter mechanic makes the game harder, but it doesn’t make much sense in Atomic Heart because the game itself isn’t challenging. It’s even worse that the game only has a few slots that automatically overwrite each other without the ability to choose where to save. This can be particularly inconvenient in case of bugs, crashes, or voluntary exits from the game, and it means that it’s not possible to return to a specific part of the game for whatever reason.

Now, after the initial few hours and the first linear segment, the game opens up and allows for exploration of the open world. The game excels in those segments in terms of the level and density of detail, visual presentation, and complete immersion of the player into its world. However, that open world brings more problems than benefits, and it’s evident that the game needs to work on the weight of its ambitions.

The Open World Elements up Close in Atomic Heart

Mechanically speaking, the open world reminded me of Halo: Infinite in the sense that there isn’t much to do with it. The only worthwhile activity is delving into optional bunkers where weapon upgrades and valuable resources are found. There’s no absolute satisfaction in clearing enemy bases because they often respawn in 10 seconds and relentlessly continue to attack. So mechanics like stealth are mostly wholly unnecessary, and combat in the open world is just a mindless waste of ammunition.

It’s possible to hop into vehicles to cover large distances more quickly, but driving is annoying I’d rather walk most of the time. It doesn’t help that the map is useless because it can’t mark locations, making it difficult even to estimate where to go or how far something is. The open world is just one big, visually beautiful loading screen between more meaningful missions in more linear parts of the game.

The Gorgeous Look and Sound of Atomic Heart

I’ve already mentioned that Atomic Heart looks visually stunning – in terms of graphical fidelity and broader artistic style. The game’s world and facility 3826 are artistic achievements representing a perfect retrofuturistic style, creating an immersive experience that’s easy to get lost in. Whether it’s floating cities, advanced robotics, giant statues, or ordinary buildings and vegetation, the game bursts with details, and some scenes genuinely leave you breathless. This is one of those games that deserves a full-fledged Photo Mode, so its absence is a missed opportunity.

Also commendable is the musical score, which boasts performances by several Russian artists and Doom composer Mick Gordon. The collaboration results in a diverse combination of songs from various genres – from intense metal to electronic music or compositions that sound like they came from a Russian propaganda film. The music dramatically contributes to the overall atmosphere. It effectively raises adrenaline in combat, helping with the practical extermination of enemies, and is best enjoyed with our XP-Panther Blush gaming headset.

I encountered some bugs in the game, such as texture flickering, subtitle loading issues, menu unresponsiveness, etc. Still, there needed to be more that would affect the gaming experience. It also helps that the game is well-optimized, and it will be easy to achieve smooth performance on various PC configurations. I know it is playable on the Steam deck, but I didn’t want to play this gorgeous game on a 720p screen, so my review is entirely based on my desktop experience.

In Conclusion

As I said in the introduction, Atomic Heart is a good game, and don’t let anyone convince you otherwise. There’s enough positive here to warrant diving into the rich world and spending those 15 to 20 hours in it. The primary loop of combat, puzzle-solving, and exploration of more linear game segments is well executed, and it can stand alongside its inspirations.

Atomic Heart has an ESRB rating of M and is filled to the brim with blood, gore, intense violence, partial nudity, etc. We cannot recommend this game to anyone younger than seventeen.