For starters, in this alternate timeline, the USSR wants to push science and technology to new heights by creating the “Science of Medicine Academy” research institute of the USSR in the “Nature of the Intellect” Department. By 1937, Dr. Dmitriy Sergeevich Sechenov, fresh off earning his P.H.D, is put in charge of the institute. The research institute shortly thereafter began a project called “Crowd-Man”. The project aims to create some new type of being, a human who has no individualism or private life.

The character of Sechenov appears to be a tribute to the Russian father of physiology Ivan Sechenov. Ivan Sechenov pushed the concepts of human neurological science. His work laid the foundations for studying human brain reflexes and observing animal and human behavior. He pioneered the concepts of electrophysiology and neurophysiology into the teachings of medicine. Not a bad source of inspiration all things considered.

Moving back to the story of Atomic Heart, the USSR commands Dmitry to “restore the former effectiveness of the research work in the institute.” In an alternate timeline twist, in 1939, Russia started World War II and won the war by 1941 using robots and weapons created in the main research plant simply called Facility 3826. The victory of World War II did come with massive human casualties all across Russia and surrounding Europe. As a result, the robot tech created for the war found itself integrated into replacing the workforce needed due to the lack of available living people. Doing this helped create the situation where robots play a large role in society, forestry, medicine, housekeeping, security, mining, farming, were all handled by robots. By 1948, facility 3826 has created a hive mind called “The Collective 1.0” neural network to maintain and control the robot workforce. This hive mind allowed the USSR to start the mass manufacturing and distribution of robots to surrounding countries.

By early the 1950s, with technological marvels like robots and the internet already available in Russia, Sechenov turns his sight to ridding his creations of their cybernetic shells for a more “human” appearance with his process of “Mimicry-Like adaptation”. A process the leads to the successful extraction of stable Neuro-polymer lattice from living creatures. Joining him in his quest are two scientists named Dr. Pavlov and Dr. Vavilon. But they are not using just their ideas. They are continuing the research of a possible German Nazi scientist, Dr. Stockhausen. Stockhausen was a mad scientist who liked to play with reanimated tissue. By combining Stockhausen’s research with materials brought back from the moon, Sechenov and his scientists have been able to form chimeras from the DNA of human, animal, and plant species into what they call “Non-Earth Celestial Objects”.

The interesting part about all this lore so far is that it lines up with the struggles that the USSR faced during this era. It’s no secret that after World War II the United States, UK, and Russia were all trying to get their hands on all German scientists and scientific data no matter how dark or destructive the research could be. A big example in today’s world is Robert Oppenheimer using native German-born Albert Einstein’s theories to build the atom bomb that ended World War II.

All this backstory brings us to the current day in Atomic Heart, 1955. The USSR now wants to globally launch the neural network Collective 3.0 to the rest of the world, at the same time rolling out a mandatory vaccine that is called the universal polymer vaccine. “Vaccination Day”, as it’s called.  It is planned to start on Sechenov’s 55th birthday, Monday, June 13, 1955. But of course, there is an accident at Facility 3826, the robots are rampaging, and experiments are getting loose. There is only one man who can fix this situation. Enter, Major Nechaev.

As a special duty officer and a private agent of Professor Sechenov. Major Nechaev excels in handling complicated situations, sometimes violently. Nechaev has dedicated his whole life to the service. In return, all he has is deep loneliness and numerous wounds, both physical and mental. The codename “P-3” was given to Nechaev after being severely wounded in Professor Sechenov’s lab. His codename “P-3” stands for plutonium, the third radioactive element discovered. He had both of his hands broken up to the elbows, his left leg completely shattered, and head trauma giving him a severe concussion. The good doctor Sechenov, personally augmented P-3 with metal prostheses and restored his brain activity as best he could. But he still suffers fractional memory loss and has never fully recovered the memories of his past. On top of all this, he also suffers from PTSD, passionately believing that he is dangerous and unstable. P-3’s primary mission is to contain the situation at Facility 3826 and if possible, find out what happened.

Atomic Heart is, unsurprisingly, a combat-based game. The player will be able to craft over 30 different weapons using a device called, the “Chaika 3.0 Crafting Device”. I want to point out that the crafted weapons in Atomic Heart look well thought out and engineered with purpose. Every component of each weapon appears to add a reason and function to each crafted piece of the weapon. From what I see, most weapons should have a secondary fire option to get creative, but the main tool in P-3’s arsenal is his Polymer Glove.

The Polymer Glove was Sechenov’s last gift to P-3. It is a cutting-edge technological invention that easily absorbs new polymers and provides experimental combat capabilities. The glove or the “Polymer Manipulator” is powered through batteries, implanted in P-3’s jumpsuit, and used through a universal port in his hand. The implant when connected with the neural system and soft tissues, can be controlled with the force of the mind using the electrical impulses of neurons. It also guarantees instant absorption of polymers by the user’s body.

From gameplay, it appears that ammo will be in short supply which will give a heavy emphasis on melee combat and sneaking. But what exactly are we fighting or sneaking away from in Atomic Heart? Well, you find yourself on the grounds of Facility 3826, and a variety of robots will be performing tasks of all sorts. They will continue to perform their jobs until something with a pulse walks by. Then the robots turn on you in a frenzy of attacks that can become overwhelming very quickly.

I must point out the combat of Atomic Heart almost appears Dark Souls-like in nature. You will find yourself having to plan your attacks accordingly, becoming familiar with when to conserve ammo by sneaking around enemies. The strategy plays an important role in your melee attacks as well with an emphasis on timing, blocking, and riposting.  There will also be quick-time combat finishers and escapes, so brush up on your controller awareness skills.

Now crazy robots are not your only foes obviously, your going to have run-ins with the scientists of 3826 but remember those Non-Earth Celestial Objects we talked about earlier. At Facility 3836, there is a fair amount of enemies that want your brain too. From the everyday zombie hordes to flying plant brain parasites, all rounded out with walking talking nerve tentacle monsters. Facility 3826 has a wide variety of enemies to contend with that were created in some of the darkest labs imaginable.

Be aware that according to Mundfish, enemies will call in reinforcements plus interact with other enemy types in different ways. In the trailers, we can see nerve monsters that have been taken over by parasitic plant creatures and moments of robots trying to exterminate the loose, experimental creatures invading Facility 3826.

I think this is where polymer research appears to come into play. With the Polymer Glove, P-3 will be battling robots and other un-worldly creations with some extraordinary un-worldly powers. It shows in the trailers that the player will be able to freeze, throw, and more, all through the use of the Polymer Glove. It does also look like the glove goes beyond fighting and becomes more of a Swiss Army knife of sorts, being used for hacking and manipulating the tech inside Facility 3826. It not only looks like we will be looking for food and beverages to recover health. It also appears that batteries are needed to recharge the power of the Polymer Glove.

The Polymer Glove is not the only tech P3 has augmented inside him. He has been seen in multiple gameplay trailers using some scanning tech inside in his eyes. He can enter a scanning mode of sorts to see the electrical conductivity of the robots and creatures that stalk him in low light or even through walls and objects. I wonder if this scanning tech is also another form of exploring your environment for secrets and clues.

Back story, check. Characters and personality, check. Variety of enemies and weapon types, check. What do we need for all these great things? Location.

Facility 3826 is a character in itself. The large rolling forest of the facility appears designed for all the researchers and their families. The facility has all comforts of life built-in and maintained by robots. From the colorful, detailed outside forest environments and rolling hills of flowers to the closed-in claustrophobic dark shadow flooded hallways of the unground laboratories, there is a lot to explore in 3826. The strange and macabre world of Atomic Heart has become a spectacle to admire. From theaters filled with crazy-looking robot clowns, red jelly fluid dripping down walls, creature creation laboratories, animal research laboratories, floating water tunnels, whale aquariums, and even a robot showroom complete with a sales floor. There is something around every corner to capture the imagination.

Atomic Heart has drawn numerous comparisons to Bioshock due to its game direction and world similarities. But unlike Bioshock, Mundfish wanted to keep the loading screens to a minimum and harness the SSD hard drive tech in gaming today by creating what they called a “Seamless Level System” They want your movement through the world of Atomic Heart to be as seamless as possible, especially on newer hardware.

To help P3 not get lost or feel alone at 3826, in your ear, you have Khraz. We do not know a whole lot about Khraz. Is he a scientist, another agent, or worse, we don’t know. We do know that P-3 appears to rely on Khraz’s directions and knowledge of Facility 3826 and what went on inside labs. In other videos we see P-3 moving through the world in some kind of liquid or water tunnel system. This liquid is seen everywhere in Facility 3826, with fish moving through it, as it slowly consumes objects and even people suspending them in some kind of state. Are they alive? Are they dead? I do not know, but we see P-3 playing with this liquid in one of the trailers. He seems to be amusing himself by controlling the liquids form with his mind.

Atomic Heart has all the elements to be an instant success, establishing itself as another prominent Eastern European game franchise like the Metro series. With a beautiful, imaginative environment to explore, multiple enemy types to battle, and a fleshed-out thought-provoking story what could go wrong? Well. Regrettably, Atomic Heart found itself caught in a whirlwind of controversies over the years since its conception. Its actual, true conception, that is. According to Mundfish social media, Atomic Heart was announced on Instagram around April 2017, followed by a teaser trailer in July 2017, bringing us to controversy number one.

In the above teaser trailer for Atomic Heart, which is still up on the Atomic Heart YouTube channel.  You can go to the end of the trailer, and under the game title “Atomic Heart“, it clearly states that it is coming to Playstation VR and Steam VR. A VR game of this magnitude would be massive now. Back in 2017, it would have been groundbreaking. Around May 2018, Mundfish announced that Atomic Heart and its VR spin-off are now two completely separate games, with the VR game under the name of Soviet LunaPark. To smooth over the confusion created by the original teaser, Mundfish released Soviet LunaPark on Steam Early Access in July 2018.

In its trailer and when you play Soviet LunaPark, it becomes clear that this game looks graphically, nothing like Atomic Heart. The VR game was a heavy first-person shooter filled with robots and zombies to spray lead into, perfect for its co-op mode. We also can not forget the mini-games that littered the world, ranging from Whack a Mole with Russian hamsters to shooting seagulls down with a slingshot. I did not play Soviet LunaPark, but there are plenty of videos online from those that got a chance to play it. I say “chance” because, in December of 2018, Mundfish announced that they were halting all updates and patches for Soviet LunaPark, de-listing the game, and shutting down servers by March 2019. They did all this to “focus on Atomic Hearts”. I have heard a few say, those who bought Soviet LunaPark now get a free copy of Atomic Heart. In an effort to distract from the abrupt abandonment of Soviet LunaPark, Mundfish released a gameplay trailer for Atomic Heart in January 2019. The gameplay video somehow opens yet another bag of issues for Mundfish.

Not able to catch a break, Mundfish finds themselves having to defend the gameplay video days after its release. An article published in Russian and translated on ResetEra accuses Soviet LunaPark of being a cash grab and the Atomic Heart development of being in big trouble. The accusations ranged from management issues, layoffs, lack of direction, and a need to reboot the game. The accusations made in the article dug deep when it accused the Atomic Heart gameplay video of being linear and staged. The article states that in the gameplay, enemies followed pre-determined paths and had no real AI. Pointing out most of the gameplay in the video was computer-generated with the sound effects and music edited in. By this time, Mundfish becomes defensive and even starts looking into the legal aspects of the damaging accusations.

In August 2018, to challenge the accusations head-on, Mundfish invited game developer Richard Grey, aka “Level Lord”, to Mundfish to see the development of Atomic Heart. Richard Gray, best known for his work on Duke Nukem and Quake, sits down for a 17-minute interview, available on the Atomic Heart YouTube Channel, explaining how the game is real. He got to see the very gameplay in question, plus more, and yes, it worked as it was supposed to. The enemies were not walking on pre-determined paths, that they did have AI. The music and sound of the game were there. It looked and played like a real game. He is quoted in the interview saying, “It’s strange but it will all make sense, it’s not strange just to be strange”. He closes the interview saying, “the game is being worked on, and lots of work has already been done”.

I must point out in Richard Grey’s interview, he states how he retired from game development long ago mainly due to how complex games were becoming to develop. He admits how he liked to work in small teams. Stating how he didn’t like “having to deal with the large teams” needed for bigger AAA projects. After his retirement, he claims that he lost all his passion for gaming, and did not want to make or play games anymore. He states the uniqueness of Atomic Heart drew him in and captivated his imagination. He talks a little about how he gets to see how “the games of today” are made and reflecting on how things “were done” back in his day. The interview is definitely worth a watch, be warned, Richard Grey is a blunt individual. Near the closing of the interview, Richard claims to be a spokesperson for the game. Not going into detail on what his true role is. Adding to the situation further, in October 2019, Mundfish announced that the Atomic Heart beta and multiplayer mode were, officially canceled. MundFish lost a lot of the hype still left for Atomic Heart as a subsequent result.

In January 2020, new life was pumped into Atomic Heart by Russian Game Journalist, Alexey Makarenkov, host of the 4Game YouTube Channel. Alexey explained how he “was invited” to have an almost four-hour hands-on demo of Atomic Heart and its current build state. In the interview, they bring some of the rumors about the game to center stage to challenge them head-on. Alexey shows us in his interview how he got to sit down at a PC at Mundfish in Moscow and play the current game on the Unreal engine developer tool kit. The interview is a great wealth of information, but be aware, it is all in spoken Russian. No worries, there are subtitles for those interested, but from this point, we will not see any big waves for Atomic Heart for over a year. But to make sure the game stays relevant, the developers at Mundfish started documenting more of the creation of Atomic Heart on social media. They play around with CG effects filmed from all over Moscow, the motion capture taking place, showing off multiple prop weapons from Atomic Heart, and we can not forget the pictures of the new studio headquarters they purchased. The game “truly” appears to exist and is possibly closer to launch than we know.

In the Xbox 2021 E3 presentation, we got to see Atomic Heart rise back into the public mind share with some rather catchy Russian pop music. MundFish claims that the game will be launching on last-gen and current-gen hardware. Adding, that Atomic Heart will be launching day one on Xbox GamePass. There is currently no established date of release set, but it looks like it should be 2022 at the latest. You can easily see, Mundfish had to deal with some big ups and downs during Atomic Heart’s development. Could we see any more issues before release? Could today’s real-world issues cause players to feel a certain way? Atomic Heart story involves a vaccine, bringing in tones for the real world of today. Is Atomic Heart’s subject matter too harsh of a reality due to the pandemic and the mindset it has created? With all the what-if situations surrounding Atomic Heart, we can see why Mundfish is taking advantage of Game Pass. It will give anyone and everyone a chance to get hands-on with a game that looks to be a truly unique experience. But also to see the game that was close to being branded, non-existent.

This is a guest article by Centurion1307. For more of his work, you can find his channel here.