Thank you Focus Entertainment and 4Divinity for the review code!

Atomic Heart is an action-packed puzzle FPS that takes place in an alternate world where Soviet Russia was industrialized to the point of robots running everything and most people having access to advanced brain-linked technology. If all those robots suddenly became hostile, though, a large issue would arise. That exact thing happens, and your role in the story becomes concrete. You must traverse through several abandoned facilities and towns to get to the bottom of this issue to understand how and why it happened, and save everyone from it too. As you go, you learn more about the politics of the area and the corruption of the Soviet government, as well as about your personal backstory. I really enjoyed the storytelling in Atomic Heart, and the gameplay during it is amazing as well.

The gameplay consists of a lot of combat against various robots and mutants with the use of sharp melee weapons, energy guns, and traditional firearms. Most battles are fast-paced and involve a good balance of dashing to avoid attacks and finding the right moment to strike. As you progress through the game, encounters will gradually change, as certain abilities such as spewing ice through your hand allow you to speed up or slow down certain fights to whatever degree you desire.

The primary gimmick of Atomic Heart is that your character, Major Sergey “P-3” Nechayev, possesses a special AI-powered glove named Charles that allows you to utilize special abilities that typical people do not have. One of the most useful out of the many functions it has is scanning the area for items, interactables, enemies, and other useful information. It works through walls, and is used through the entire game. Other fancy things the glove can do include picking up items instantly and efficiently, spewing ice to freeze enemies (as mentioned previously), or even performing telekinesis on a whole group of enemies at once. A lot of puzzles in the game revolve around the glove and its abilities. For example, there’s an area centered around moving platforms by manipulating magnets that they are attached to. To do this, you must use the glove to send controlled shocks through them to change the polarity and move different platforms to get to where you need to be.

The story is very interesting, and is told through the game very well. In an alternate, more powerful version of the Soviet Union, your main mission is to find out about the previously mentioned malfunction with Russia’s many machines. Through conversation with the glove and many well-produced cutscenes, you learn many secrets about the Motherland, the government, science, and even your own past. Something I really liked is that during the less interesting (in terms of gameplay) segments of the game, Nechayev and Charles will talk about various bits of the expansive lore of Atomic Heart, usually about the government or its decisions. There’s much more to the lore than what has been explained already, but this results in there being too much to talk about here.

A major part of the story is a place called Limbo. This is a strange, joyful dreamland that you get transported to whenever you black out. Limbo is where the Trapped in Limbo expansion takes place, and has quite a lot of importance to the lore while staying mysterious and confusing. The DLC takes place after one of the endings, and leaves you stuck here (hence the name). Here, the gameplay changes a lot, as you’re doing more candyland-themed parkour and fun sliding games than actual combat. There still is combat, but it’s entirely different than that of the base game. There are a few boss fights, but none are super stressful of difficult. Not only that, but all of the enemies are either re-modeled or changed in behavior. They all are made of softer materials and/or candy, and may have some different moves. Even so, the main attraction of the DLC is definitely the sliding levels and parkour.

The graphics of Atomic Heart are exceptionally good. The textures and models look great, and allow for amazing atmospheres when combined with the brilliant lighting system. The sound design is phenomenal as well, using older music for some areas and original compositions for everything else. The music made for the game is quite good, ranging from synthwave/phonk music to heavy metal music. Something that was a minor issue, though, was that some areas are slightly laggy, and even caused the game to crash when running it on a Steam Deck despite it being verified for it. Something else worth noting is that some objects in the base game and DLC have no proper collisions. Another thing I disliked was that some objectives are unclear and may cause you to put in unnecessary effort to complete an easy task. Other than that, it’s very well made and is easy to play.

Atomic Heart is not in any way a family friendly game. To start off, the blood and gore in the game can be rather intense. Most enemies do not spew blood when attacked, as they are machines, but the ones that do will fairly graphically show gore. Also, corpses can be cut up using weapons, and the detail on the way that happens is rather striking. Other than violence, Atomic Heart uses a large variety of harsh language throughout the dialogue of almost every major character. F-bombs among other similar words are very commonly dropped for comic relief, intense fights, and in casual conversation. Beyond language issues are the sexual issues that are present. Several of the robots have sexually-oriented designs or dialogue. Also, there are mentions of sexual intercourse being had with the robots in question, but none is shown. Some test subjects can be found in a later segment of the game wearing minimal clothing, but still do not show any true nudity.

I am definitely glad to have played Atomic Heart. The thought-provoking plot and impeccable design make it one of the best storytelling FPS games I’ve played. Other than the major moral issues, this game is a phenomenal experience that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys this type of game.