Atomic Heart

2023 - 2 - 20

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Atomic Heart Review - Crispy Critters (GameSpot)

Atomic Heart lacks follow-through on its most interesting narrative concepts and plays it safe with its first-person shooter gameplay.

The level sees Sergei chasing after a man who used to work there, who has twisted the theater into a macabre showcase of art--much like in At this point, the game's narrative slows to an annoying crawl as Sergei journeys to one of several facilities to complete a mission, return to the surface of the open world, travel to the next facility, and repeat the process. I would often just hop in a car and drive straight to the next story beat, as that's where the better gameplay is. After completing the first mission, Sergei takes a monorail to the main area of the game, where Atomic Heart expands into an open-world format. Looting is surprisingly the most enjoyable aspect of Atomic Heart, as, with just the click of a button, Charles can use telekinesis to pull loot into Sergei's pocket. Of course, you can then use these resources to craft new firearms, ammo, weapon attachments, and items, but the sheer delight of the act is almost enough of a reward in itself. He's antagonistic to everyone around him, including the regularly helpful Charles, and it's never explained why, leading to the slow realization of the painful truth that you're just playing as a shitty human being. With the benefit of 21st-century hindsight, we know the Internet will not end up being a 100% good idea even if the main character Major Sergei Nechaev, an agent who serves Sechenov, fully believes in the dream of a world where everyone equally has access to each other and the wealth of information that will surely be shared. By the time you reach the climax of the story and you're asked to visit a lighthouse, you know what's up. Wow, it's almost as if an algorithm is feeding him with information about what it thinks he should see and hear more of, disguising it in a way where he can't spot the manipulation. The game begins a few years after that, just prior to the public unveiling of Kollectiv 2.0, which will allow all humans to have equal access to the hive-mind to control robots remotely through a Thought device wired straight to their brain, as well as connect and share information with each other across great distances. The game begins in a city in the clouds, features reality-bending and elemental powers you can employ in your fight against advanced robots, sees you scrounging for resources in an idyllic city that's falling apart, and stars an amnesiac protagonist grappling with the nuances of free will.

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Atomic Heart Review - IGN (IGN)

Atomic Heart is a highly imaginative, atompunk-inspired attempt at picking up where the likes of BioShock left off that makes missteps but definitely has ...

Atomic Heart is smart to keep this process fast by allowing us to extend out a hand and suck up reams of resources like an industrial shop vac, but it still becomes a little tedious having to ransack the same sets of desks and cabinets arranged slightly differently in a hundred-or-so different rooms. But now, after centuries of servitude, Renfield is finally ready to see if there’s a life away from The Prince of Darkness. There is a way to fry all enemies within a zone for a while if you’re patient, and the robot hordes do become a little less intimidating as P-3 and his arsenal grow stronger throughout the story, but that’s a process that takes some time. It’s a shame that some better context wasn’t baked around these occasional fetch quests because Atomic Heart’s underground chambers feel like a ripe opportunity and are largely great otherwise: eerie, deadly, and mostly devoid of life – unless you count the mutant freaks with skulls shattered into fanged, floral arrangements or the dead bodies that communicate via the confused ramblings of their fading brain implants. The foul-mouthed and amnestic P-3 is admittedly a bit of a relic of games gone by – and his default English-language voiceover doesn’t exactly do him a lot of favours. At any rate, there is a Russian-language/English subtitle option for purists, but I would’ve simply preferred an English script that was more tempered for the setting and era. There are some especially tiny touches in Atomic Heart that smack of a great deal of consideration, like the way there are different reload animations for unspent magazines compared to empty ones – the latter of which are flicked away while the former are grasped by the same hand sliding a fresh one in. Okay, that’s a bit reductive – rather, Charles is basically an intelligent system embedded in P-3 who is capable of granting him seemingly supernatural abilities, manifested by a set of small, squid-like tentacles that extend from a glove on P-3’s left hand. Its range of robots is particularly strong, from its sleek and sinister moustachioed terminators that charge at us without ever averting their gaze to its pot-bellied parking meters with mouth tubes that make them look like they’re sucking at the drawstring on an invisible jacket. Atomic Heart’s outstanding aesthetic also extends to its large range of partially ruined labs, facilities, and transportation hubs – each filled with long, snaking globules of the liquid polymer that powers the advancements of this fantastical 1950s. For its part, however, the background does largely fade away as Atomic Heart peels back the layers of its false utopia. There’s a lot to be said about unapologetically single-player games like Atomic Heart: its entire focus is on creating an intricate world for us to explore and discover for ourselves.

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Atomic Heart review: Rage against the machines (Shacknews)

After being founded in 2017, Mundfish is making a strong first impression with its debut game, Atomic Heart. This single-player first-person shooter ...

Although I found the robotic enemies to be creepy and formidable foes, I wish there was a bit more variety in enemy type. Outside of controversial themes and a lack of enemy variety, it’s hard to point out any glaring issues with Atomic Heart. This review is based on a PS5 copy of Atomic Heart provided by the publisher. There is also detailed dismemberment, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I got a laugh out of hacking the limbs off of enemies after clearing a room. I was continuously impressed by the various puzzles that Mundfish threw at me as I attempted to open doors and disarm security systems. In addition to melee and ranged weapons, Major P-3 is equipped with a Polymer glove that lets him harness electricity and telekinesis powers. Shooting feels impactful, and there are a variety of weapons to be discovered and crafted, each with its own unique feel. The tunes give a cinematic feel to battles, and make the quiet moments eerier. You have to constantly be moving and dodging in order to avoid the aggressive robotic enemies, and there are quick-time events that will trigger when your character is grappled or on the brink of death. Atomic Heart puts players in the shoes of Major P-3, a Soviet intelligence agent tasked with getting to the bottom of what caused the USSR’s robot companions to lash out and wage war against their human creators. There’s a wide range of music featured, and it only improves the experience whenever it kicks in. Atomic Heart reminded me a lot of the Bioshock franchise with its alternate historical setting.

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Atomic Heart Review in 3 Minutes – A Weird, Weird FPS That ... (The Escapist)

Atomic Heart is a first-person action-adventure shooter developed by Mundfish. The shooting, puzzles, and political thriller narrative bring back good ...

Most of the puzzles are locks that require timing to a beat or rearranging dots to unlock, but the real challenge is clearing the area thoroughly to buy yourself enough time to open the door. Protagonist P-3 constantly berates the circumstances he’s in for being lame, annoying, and unimaginative, like repeatedly being sent on fetch quests to retrieve a number of items, his AI companion never shutting up, and things being too conveniently inconvenient. In present-day 1955, the USSR attempts to launch a new device that will allow humans to control robots with their mind, but the plan is sabotaged, causing all robots to turn on the humans. That being said, Atomic Heart often feels like it’s flexing for the sake of flexing, causing the gameplay or story to falter at times, but it manages a positive impression in the end. The boss fights are a spectacle to behold, but even those are easily dealt with by getting in close and chopping away at their legs. The shooting, puzzles, and political thriller narrative bring back good memories of 7th generation FPS big-hitters like BioShock and Call of Duty: Black Ops while using the 9th generation tech to push the gameplay and cinematics to another level.

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Atomic Heart review – Kollektivly incredible (Gaming Trend)

The saying goes "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is". That's at least initially how I felt about Atomic Heart. It had all the trappings of my ...

As a collective effort, you’re going to lose yourself in the narrative, setting, and what’s going on. This isn’t just my favorite game of this year, it might be one of my favorites of the decade. I had one other issue where I clipped into a box and got stuck, and that was the only one I had to restart. There were tons of sprouts and mutants heading my way, and I was able to use the mass telekinesis power to lift most of them in the air and slam them down, killing almost every one of them instantly. Select your weapon, find the thing you want to upgrade, and spend the items necessary to do so. The weaponry you use is decently varied, and the best part is that the system doesn’t feel bloated. You get a few moments to compose yourself and make your way to a pod that will airlift you to the base, but yet again the robots come after you, and after a crash landing you have to pick yourself up and get a move on. Another thing that keeps you engaged is the combat, and it’s a blast. I think some of it is the lifeless, dead-eyed look you get out of them. Because of his work, robots now fill the streets of Russia, taking on the jobs no one wants to do and introducing a new renaissance. It had all the trappings of my kind of game, from setting to gameplay and more, and I’ve wanted so badly for it to be good. It’s a fair comparison too, even with my opinion that Bioshock might be one of the few legitimate 100/100 games in existence.

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Atomic Heart Review (Game Rant)

Atomic Heart has some solid bones in the story and general design, but it is worsened at every step by an incredible amount of bloat.

P-3 will spend a lot of time questioning why doors are so hard to open or why he's even doing a given task, and players will be too. Atomic Heart's story, gameplay, and world design have promise, but the payoff is lacking across the board. [combat in Atomic Heart](https://gamerant.com/atomic-heart-doom-wolfenstein-crazier/) should have been engaging at the very least, but it isn't. Indeed, someone might play Atomic Heart for twelve hours in a single day, and it would feel like they made about 3-4 hours of progress. Perhaps the best way to describe this is that Atomic Heart's entire story is predicated on a choice between two evils, one that is bad and one that is worse, and players are incessantly shuffled between the two. The same thing happens with nearly every dungeon and removing this bloat from Atomic Heart would easily reduce its playtime to about 10–12 hours, and it would be a much better game as a result. It's that the crafting mechanic is tied to a strange, red refrigerator-looking bot, who upon the first few encounters, violently grabs the player, makes obnoxious and sexual remarks, and frequently harasses them. Then, they are tasked with finding four other random objects, which become entire quest-length tasks themselves, and by the end of it, players will no longer remember what they are supposed to do after leaving. Along the way, a variety of secrets and relationships are unearthed, and there are a few exciting moments created out of the chaos. For example, there are a few interesting things to do in the open world like finding new weapon blueprints and an activity called Training Grounds, but they are so infrequent that it eventually becomes uninteresting to pursue them. But in trying to achieve so much, the game ends up adding an equal amount of filler. A special assignments officer assigned to USSR hero Dmitry Sechenov, Nechaev wears an AI-controlled glove named Charles that gives Nechaev someone to talk to and unlocks some special abilities throughout the game.

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Atomic Heart review in progress: a thrilling fps with Bioshock vibes (Polygon)

Developer Mundfish's first-person shooter about a KGB agent in Soviet Russia features fun combat against robots and monsters on Xbox Game Pass — but to what ...

While there is a Detective Mode to highlight useful objects, using it forces P3 to move at a snail’s pace, and the items lose their glow the moment you exit the mode. It can all feel a bit simple: a brutal retro shooter with inventory management and crafting and a macho lead character. For a game where melee is encouraged, it’s far too difficult to clock incoming projectiles or flanking enemies. Melee weapons and guns must be built at crafting stations, after scavenging the environment for bits and bobs. And the crumbling Soviet setting, while glorified in the context of the story, seems to have been built spectacularly for an equally spectacular collapse. Divining what the game intends to say (or doesn’t) about society or culture is particularly challenging, considering its creation. But as I barrel into the core of Atomic Heart, I wonder whether this game is what it appears to be — or if it’s something much more interesting. Indeed, Mundfish’s relationship to the Russian state remains [murky](https://www.eurogamer.net/questions-remain-over-atomic-heart-developers-russian-origins). But as I journey deeper, it helps my curiosity that the characters themselves are likable enough. P3’s main job is overseeing security for various facilities run by Sechenov and the government. The game begins with spectacle, peacocking its world, its aesthetics, its technology. Like those utopias, Atomic Heart’s Soviet nation is failing, under leaders plagued by the Icarus complex in which grand ideas come to naught.

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'Atomic Heart' Reviews Are Here, And They Are Just Okay (Forbes)

Today marks the embargo date for Atomic Heart, the bizarre new sci-fi game from Mundfish, which has attracted some manner of controversy given its ...

With an incomprehensible storyline, weightless combat, and frustrating first-person platforming, Atomic Heart is left to stand in the shadow of the video games that so clearly inspired it.” [Twinfinite (4/10)](https://twinfinite.net/2023/02/atomic-heart-review-missing-more-than-a-beat/): “Despite what is a promising combat formula as well as the supporting systems behind it when it comes to skills, crafting, and upgrades, there are also several equally frustrating aspects of it that hold the game back. [GamesRadar (5/10)](https://www.gamesradar.com/atomic-heart-review/): “Atomic Heart has a lot of big ideas, but it doesn't do a good enough job with the basics. And my friend Skillup gives it a big old “Do Not Recommend.” This isn’t just my favorite game of this year, it might be one of my favorites of the decade.” In the broader context of the video game landscape where GOTY contenders hit above 90, studios get bonuses at 85+ and anything under a 60 is an utter disaster, I would declare these scores “fine.” Today marks the embargo date for Atomic Heart, the bizarre new sci-fi game from Mundfish, which has attracted some manner of controversy given its connections to Russia.

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Atomic Heart: Is the scanner tutorial broken? (Polygon)

You'd be forgiven for getting stumped right at the start of this first-person shooter, out now for PlayStation, Xbox, and Windows PC. How to use the scanner in ...

For instance, during the “Made in the USSR” mission, you have to find the “voice, the symbol, and the sprout of the Motherland.” Activating the scanner will highlight the three items — a radio, a hammer, and a plant — you need to progress. If you hold the scanner over a specific enemy, you’ll be able to see a list of their resistances and weaknesses, plus a rundown of the loot they’ll drop when defeated. Whatever struggles you’re having while learning how to use the scanner, know that it’s not a bug (probably).

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Atomic Heart: best skills to buy first | Digital Trends (Digital Trends)

You'll spend a lot of time collecting resources throughout your adventure to upgrade weapons, craft much-needed healing items, and even invest in skill trees ...

Power Amplifier can be found in the Shok skill tree. Morning Exercise can be found in the Character skill tree. This will come in handy most against higher-health enemies, but it’s worth having in general, as you should be using Shok as often as you can anyways. Resistor Malfunction can also be found in the Shok skill tree. In this guide, we’ll tell you the best skills to buy first to make things a bit easier on you in the opening hours. You’ll spend a lot of time collecting resources throughout your adventure to upgrade weapons, craft much-needed healing items, and even invest in skill trees that will grant you a variety of new abilities and enhance the ones you already have.

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Atomic Heart: A Wild Ride Through a Retro-Futuristic World (Red Bull Australia)

Atomic Heart is an upcoming first-person shooter video game developed by Mundfish, a Russian game development studio. We got an early look - here is the ...

The enemy variety is limited, and after a while, the combat encounters can start to feel a bit too familiar. The game features a blend of retro-futuristic design and Soviet-era aesthetics, creating a truly unique and captivating world. The game also features a captivating story, with several twists and turns to keep players engaged. One of the strengths of Atomic Heart's enemy design is that each type of enemy requires a slightly different strategy to defeat. The game features RPG elements, allowing the player to level up and upgrade their abilities. The player can use a variety of weapons, including guns, melee weapons, and even their fists.

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Atomic Heart: How To Stop Respawning Enemies & Cameras In The ... (Gameranx)

Once you reach the surface, you'll have to contend with even more enemies. Robots respawn constantly due to deployed repair drones, and cameras can raise the ...

- After unlocking the door, you can then travel to the HAWK Relay and hack it. Disabling enemies and security in an area is very useful, especially this early in the game. She’ll give you an upgrade to your hacking ability and a blueprint. - Use a camera with a view on the HAWK Relay. - Follow the line and look for a tower. By located security towers, you can find and unlock HAWK Relays, which can be hacked to disable every robot in a large area.

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Review: Atomic Heart (Destructoid)

Atomic Heart Review: The first game from Mundfish wears its influences on its sleeve, but can it forge its own identity?

You can take your time and hoof it from place to place on foot, fighting robots and avoiding sensors along the way, but the game will supply you with poorly-controlled jalopies that hasten travel time. However, given how unlikely such a monumental change like that would be, Atomic Heart is destined to be a one-and-done type of experience. It’s a rather basic tale of people in power trying to tighten their control of the world with P-3 standing in the middle. It’s a nice addition, but I honestly don’t have much reason to return to Atomic Heart other than to gawk at its architecture. Once you get outside and into the fresh air, you can feel the developer padding the game time again with an open world that connects all the different stations that make up Facility 3826. In the early hours, the bloat can be seen by all the keys you need to fetch to open doors. Robots, built with a substance known as Polymer that has been the backbone of the Soviet’s successes, have lost control and killed most of the workers at the facility. While that combination might sound ripe for experimentation, the anemic nature of the glove skills can be a real letdown. Certain enemies do have elemental weaknesses that you can learn via scanning, but if you don’t have any weapons boosts that can exploit said weaknesses, then all you can do is hit them with a combination of dodges, melee attacks, gunshots, and whatever glove skills you have equipped at the time. Once I did that, I was able to peel back the curtain on Atomic Heart‘s combat and realized it was rather elementary. The opening moments of Atomic Heart can best be described as a Stalinist’s wet dream with how it depicts its idealized vision of the Soviet Union. With a lot of games, ten hours is more than enough time to draw a clear conclusion about how you feel about it.

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Atomic Heart Launched With No Ray Tracing Support on PC (Game Rant)

A prominent Nvidia RTX showpiece, the long-awaited Atomic Heart, launches on PC without any ray tracing graphics options whatsoever.

[reviews of Atomic Heart](https://gamerant.com/atomic-heart-review/) haven't been all that positive. [Atomic Heart supports DLSS at launch](https://gamerant.com/atomic-heart-denuvo-drm-dlss/), however. [Atomic Heart showed off 4K RTX gameplay](https://gamerant.com/atomic-heart-4k-rtx-gameplay/), hyping its graphics as one of its most exciting features. The lack of ray tracing is sure to disappoint some players, but the feature's prominence in pre-release materials comes as a bit of a guarantee that it should eventually be made available in-game. While the game is bound to find an audience with its Bioshock-like combat and plenty of content — according to the early reviews — some of the features that PC players might've been eagerly anticipating won't be available on day one. While the game has had a long and troubled production, having initially been announced back in 2018, its remarkable graphics have always been one of its most notable features, and developer Mundfish even collaborated with Nvidia to produce in-engine RTX showpieces years ago.

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Atomic Heart - Watch the Launch Trailer (IGN Africa)

Watch the tense launch trailer for action-RPG, Atomic Heart. Get another look at the game's story, combat, and robots, and meet some of the characters ...

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Atomic Heart Release-Day Deal - Save Big On The New FPS (GameSpot)

Send those pesky robots to the Soviet scrapyard with this launch-day deal for PC.

You'll need more than just a quick trigger-finger to survive, as you'll have to scavenge for resources, upgrade your skills, and use your environment to your advantage if you want to take the machines offline. You'll have access to combat abilities granted by your experimental power glove and a cutting-edge arsenal, to help even the odds. Set in alternate history Russia, the Soviet empire has risen to power thanks to a loyal army of robots that see to the nation's every need. The pricey premium edition comes with the Atomic Pass, a digital art book, and a pair of weapon skins. Or that's how it used to be, until a robot uprising put the Russian populace at the top of the endangered species list. The Atomic Pass is the biggie here, as it retails for $40 separately.

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Atomic Heart beginners guide: 8 things to know before starting (Polygon)

Atomic Heart isn't nearly as accommodating as most first-person shooter. Beyond just the best starter skills and weapons, this advice should help you start ...

Also, you’ll worry less about the fact that you can only save at save stations. By holding down L1/LB, you can freeze enemies in place for a short time with a steady stream of ice. But you’re restricted in how many consumable supplies — med packs, ammo, that sort of thing — you can cart around. There is no penalty for resetting, either: Sometimes you might have to solve a multipart puzzle, but in backing out, the game will acknowledge that you’ve solved the first part and start you at the second. It’s not always easy to gauge whether or not you can make a jump, but there’s one simple tell that works 100% of the time: If your hand is held outward (as seen in the screenshot below), you can make it. If you’re stumped on one specific puzzle, you can back out, then immediately jump back in to get a randomized variety of the same puzzle.

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Atomic Heart Review - A Red Rapture - Game Informer (Game Informer)

Atomic Heart's dazzling world design, extraordinary production values, and fast-paced fights make for a solid campaign, but the derivative plot and often ...

On the one hand, Atomic Heart is a good game on its own merits. Sadly, the best writing is hidden in the various terminals throughout the game, which contain most of the worldbuilding and connect other characters to one another. His interactions with the sexually frustrated crafting machine are especially painful, and the rest of the cast isn’t much better. Battles are both dangerous and satisfying, and the diversity of opponents keeps combat engaging. Instead of stealth, hacking, and environmental traps, Atomic Heart demands faster and more reactive shooting to curb the attackers’ superior numbers. The player assumes the role of Agent P-3, an operative under the command of Soviet genius Dr.

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Atomic Heart: Best Character Builds and Skill Upgrades (Den of Geek)

Atomic Heart offers a variety of skills and upgrades, though some quickly prove to be more valuable than others.

Combined with Sponge Effect, this skill allows you to soak a hit, destroy the attacker, and use your Energy weapons to focus on other nearby foes. Given the power of Energy weapons in this game, you can easily justify running a shield for this skill alone. Melee/Energy is a viable combo for most of Atomic Heart, so this skill soon proves to be worth its weight in Neuropolymers. As the only “defensive” ability in Atomic Heart, you may be tempted to pass over Polymeric Shield in favor of other options. This incredible skill allows you to lift “heavyweight” enemies with your Mass Telekinesis ability. One of the best AoE abilities in the game, Mass Telekinesis allows you to handle multiple enemies at once with relative ease. I’m not sure why that isn’t just part of the base ability’s functionality, but you will want this skill as soon as possible. Atomic Heart allows you to assign two abilities to your “Ability Slots,” and Frostbite is by far the most useful of those slotted, optional abilities. This skill allows you to acquire additional resources from defeated, frozen enemies, which means you’ll want to unlock it as soon as possible. So while you can eventually gain access to many of the skills in Atomic Heart, the better approach is to constantly change your skills around based on what the situation calls for. It doesn’t hurt that a properly upgraded Shok ability also happens to be one of the most useful overall abilities in the game. You didn’t come here to hear that, though, so let’s look at some of the best ways to upgrade your character in Atomic Heart and the kind of character build you’re ultimately aiming for.

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Atomic Heart: Brave New World Walkthrough (TheGamer)

In the Brave New World chapter of Atomic Heart, you will need to defeat the Hedgie boss, activate the Hawk to continue, and complete a mirror puzzle.

This will prompt the game to send you underground to open a jammed lock. To progress to the Exhibition, you need to access the Hawk. After defeating Hedgie, you will be asked to find a way into the complex. The game will inform you that you need to access the Hawk. Once in the main Exhibition park, you will have to defeat Hedgie - the game's first major boss fight. You can do this by climbing up the Volan tower marked by your objective marker.

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Atomic Heart VDNH Door Code: How To Find The Code (GGRecon)

If you are wondering what the Atomic Heart VDNH door code is, so you can access the display case, we've got you covered with an explainer of how to find it.

Head through the door opposite the locked door, and into a room with a dead body on your left and a computer terminal on the right. When you enter the VDNH building in Atomic Heart, after taking a left and following the corridor, you'll come to a door with a lock on the outside and an interface with various buttons. [Atomic Heart](/atomic-heart/)'s key locations, there are side paths where you can grab different collectibles or find resources for crafting, meaning sometimes it's worth it to take the time to explore.

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The Atomic Heart HAWK Security System explained (GamesRadar+)

The Atomic Heart HAWK system controls overworld security via Dandelion Cameras, alert levels, robotic reinforcements, relay towers and Pchelas.

However, this is usually a sidequest and it's entirely possible to get around the area without doing so, with a mixture of intelligence, stealth and firepower. Opening them is enough of a process that you should only bother if you're going to be running back and forth to do secondary elements. - A HAWK relay, or Volan, is a small tower with a glass dome that links the HAWK to all the Dandelion Cameras in the area. The end goal of being in an area should be to overload the relay at a terminal, which will render it safe. - HAWK Terminals are small computers in booths used to control the HAWKs themselves from ground level, usually situated beneath the HAWK itself. [Atomic Heart](https://www.gamesradar.com/atomic-heart-guide/) doesn't explain especially well at first, often leaving players feeling rather flummoxed and intimidated by the tangle of mechanics and hostile robots that have to be carefully navigated.

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'Atomic Heart” Arrives on PC Without Ray Tracing After Years of ... (Tom's Hardware)

Mundfish's 'Atomic Heart' launched without ray tracing, even though Nvidia has bragged about its RTX options since 2018.

Even on an RTX 3060, performance with DLSS Quality mode and the Atomic preset averaged over 100 fps at 1440p Atomic — though not in the opening sequence, where it was in the 50–80 fps range. We did a quick test of the game running on and Even 1440p remained playable, with the indoor areas in the early part of the game staying well above 60 fps — 4K dropped to about 40 fps, though. "Atomic Heart is a fantastic looking game and we are very pleased with what Mundfish was able to accomplish," Nvidia's director of global PR, Bryan Del Rizzo, told Tom's Hardware. 9, Mundfish founder and Atomic Heart director Robert Bagratuni said the game, which takes place in a alternate universe Soviet utopia, that "consoles will not support RT for now, but we strive to give our players the best and most optimized visual experience possible." Mundfish's Atomic Heart is releasing today, but without a feature that the developer and Nvidia have been pushing for years: ray tracing.

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Atomic Heart restored my fragmented faith in PC ports (Digital Trends)

Atomic Heart is out on PC, and despite being a showcase of next-gen gaming tech, it runs shockingly well on a wide range of hardware.

[RTX 4090](https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/nvidia-geforce-rtx-4090-review/), I was between 120 frames per second (fps) and 165 fps where my [Alienware 34 QD-OLED](https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/alienware-34-qd-oled-aw3423dw-review/) tops out with the highest Atomic preset. [Steam Deck Verified games](https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/steam-deck-verified-games/), but it currently has a Playable status. You can turn on FSR, either through the game or through the Steam Deck itself, but I never needed to. Because the game is so well-optimized, features like DLSS and FSR feel less like a crutch and more like the free performance boost they were intended as. It’s not nearly as fast as [Marvel’s Spider-Man Miles Morales](https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/nvidia-dlss-spider-man-miles-morales-pc/), so artifacts are few and far between, and they’re tough to spot. The most shocking part of Atomic Heart is that it doesn’t stutter on PC. Even more impressive is that Atomic Heart uses Unreal Engine, which is a game engine notorious for stuttering in I think it was the right decision given how well the game runs and looks without ray tracing, but it’s still a bait-and-switch situation. It would, as ray tracing normally does, add additional depth to lighting and shadows, but the traditional rasterized techniques employed by the game already look fantastic and save a lot in the performance department. That might surprise you considering Atomic Heart doesn’t support ray tracing on PC (or consoles, for that matter) at launch. It’s no secret that ray tracing tanks your performance, and with games like I was confident I’d enjoy the game, but I’ve been burned by too many half-baked, stuttering, buggy PC ports over the past several years to put too much faith in an ambitious AAA title with next-gen tech from a first-time developer.

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Atomic Heart Bug Making It Impossible for Xbox Game Pass Players ... (Game Rant)

Some Xbox Game Pass for PC players encounter an unusual game-breaking bug that makes it impossible to complete Atomic Heart's introductory mission.

[Xbox Game Pass](https://gamerant.com/xbox-game-pass-games-february-2023/) users on PC are still seeing it even after the download is completed. [Atomic Heart is a "Shock-like" first-person shooter](https://gamerant.com/atomic-heart-system-shock-2023-shocklike-games/) set in an alternate universe where a Soviet scientist developed a substance called Polymer in the 1930s. Even discounting this major annoyance, Atomic Heart hasn't been off to a perfect start. However, when players get close enough to interact with the door, a small message appears showing a padlock and saying the content is only available in the full version of the game. Players would reach a point in the quest, "No Rest for the Wicked," where the game instructs them to get into a car. An unusual bug prevented some Xbox Game Pass users from completing the intro to the newly released Atomic Heart.

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Image courtesy of "PlayStation LifeStyle"

Atomic Heart Save Room Cartoon Features Racist Caricature ... (PlayStation LifeStyle)

The Soviet cartoon shown in the save rooms in Atomic Heart contains some brief racist imagery that players didn't expect.

The episode in question is number 12, “Museum,” and first aired on April 8, 1978, and the statue is shown at the 5:50 mark. Although the scene is brief, it’s shocking that it somehow made it into a game in 2023. In it, a wolf is chasing a hare through a museum and accidentally hits a statue which presumably is meant to depict an African tribesman.

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Image courtesy of "Den of Geek"

Atomic Heart: How to Use Flawless Widescreen to Increase FOV (Den of Geek)

Even in sci-fi Russia, Atomic Heart players need to turn to mods to improve their experience.

In order to use Flawless Widescreen with Atomic Heart, you first have to download the program and install it. When it comes to setting up Flawless Widescreen, the program is downright idiot-proof, but in practice, the app doesn’t quite live up to its name. The option you’re looking for is “In-game FOV – Fine Adjustment.” Select the FOV you want, and Flawless Widescreen will automatically inject it into Atomic Heart and overwrite the game’s default settings when you boot it up. Atomic Heart is the [latest game](https://www.denofgeek.com/games/atomic-heart-best-character-builds-skill-upgrades/) added to the list. [Flawless Widescreen](https://www.flawlesswidescreen.org/#Features)” mod, which is a series of plugins designed to provide additional support for monitors that go beyond the standard 16:9 aspect ratio. In FPS titles, the field of view slider (FOV) is king.

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Image courtesy of "Game Rant"

Why Critics Are Split on Atomic Heart (Game Rant)

Atomic Heart has finally been released, but reviews for the game are a mixed bag with critics divided over several aspects of Mundfish's debut game.

[reviews for Atomic Heart](https://gamerant.com/atomic-heart-review/) make it clear that the game tries to include a lot of different mechanics, with some being more fleshed out than others. While Atomic Heart may be a flawed game, it still has its appeal as evidenced by the praise it has already received. Atomic Heart seems to be quite the ambitious title, to both its benefit and its detriment, which is likely the main cause of such a wide range of reviews. From a visual standpoint, critics are mostly in agreement that the game stands out as an example of fantastic world design. [Atomic Heart](https://gamerant.com/tag/atomic-heart/) seems to be drawing drastically different opinions on its gameplay, story, and characters. The game's world and aesthetic are almost universally praised as hauntingly beautiful interpretations of the alternate history, atom-punk feel the game was going for.

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Image courtesy of "Polygon"

Atomic Heart difficulty settings — why you should play on easy mode (Polygon)

From inflexible combat to the lack of easy saves, Atomic Heart is a frustrating game. The fix? Play on Peaceful Atom (aka "easy").

(Switching the difficulty does not appear to lengthen the window of Atomic Heart’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it quick-time events.) In the more frenetic combat encounters, I’ve found myself overwhelmed by enemies, scrambling to survive, and regularly failing. While some missions have a healthy number of save points, others, including the first major one, are stingy with how frequently they let you save. You can swap between difficulty levels on the fly in the gameplay menu. Feb 2023 (and at launch, as part of the Game Pass library), features three difficulty settings: You have to stomach an entire script’s worth of juvenile “humor.” The slim offering of accessibility settings is a genuine disappointment, to say the least. But there is at least one way to make this first-person shooter a tiny bit more approachable: Play on the lowest difficulty level.

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Image courtesy of "Hard Drive"

Atomic Heart FOV Fix Guide: How to Adjust Atomic Heart FOV (Hard Drive)

Atomic Heart just launched on Steam and Xbox/PC Game Pass, but it's missing one of the key graphical settings: FOV. It should go without saying that being ...

If you don’t want to blindly choose the FOV value, the good news is you don’t have to! After going through the setup and opening it for the first time, you’ll have to click through a couple of windows. It’s also worth mentioning that since the plugin doesn’t need to be installed in a game folder, it should work no matter the platform you’re using. Unless you have quite an old build for a computer, you’ll just have to download the recommended x64 Installer Package. Don’t let the simple webpage and dated mish-mash of supported titles confuse you – this tool will allow you to increase Atomic Heart FOV. It should go without saying that being able to change the FOV is one of the most appreciated graphical settings.

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Image courtesy of "2EC"

From Russia with Love: Atomic Heart - Review - 2EC (2EC)

Mundfish's first title, “Atomic Heart,” is a single-player first-person shooter game with a retrofuturistic twist that blends super-powered shooting and ...

In an era of multiplayer games, “Atomic Heart” is a rarity, providing players with a unique and memorable experience. The elaborately designed enemies provide a unique experience, and it’s the closest experience to playing “BioShock” in years. “Atomic Heart” is a lengthy, tough, and terrific-looking game that is worth playing for dystopian science fiction and shooter lovers. Playing in the recommended language can add to the adventure and immerse the player in the game’s world. Upgrading its skills will enable players to use elements like electricity and ice to give them the upper hand in battle and puzzling. The game’s standout feature is its visual design and world-building, which takes players on an alternate-history journey to an imagined past that has been perverted by advanced technology.

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Image courtesy of "Game Rant"

Atomic Heart: Best Glove Abilities And Upgrades (Game Rant)

One of the first things players will notice in Atomic Heart is their talking glove companion, Char-les. This A.I. character provides P-3, ...

Being able to access more efficient energy will mean that certain weapons and abilities which drain this will do so more slowly, maximizing the player's damage output as they gain a significant advantage over most opponents. "Kinetic Reflector Upgrade" can also be useful on harder difficulties as it deflects critical hits, avoiding massive amounts of game-ending damage in the process. In conjunction with "Increased Chemical Reactive Distance," the Polymeric Jet can be turned into quite a powerful area-of-effect weapon against groups of enemies, but it is not as potent as Shok or Mass Telekinesis when upgraded. This ability will provide extra damage resistance which can be particularly useful in boss battles or when someone is outnumbered. Polymeric Jet might not be the most effective Atomic Heart option against the majority of enemies, but provides bonuses when facing certain bosses and can be useful when upgraded. "Forced Fall Acceleration" will do as it says, slamming enemies into the ground to deliver additional damage and often finish them off.

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Image courtesy of "The Escapist"

How to Disable Mouse Acceleration in Atomic Heart (The Escapist)

Some love it, but if you're playing Atomic Heart and you do want to disable mouse acceleration, here is how to do it (with a workaround).

Otherwise, that’s how to disable mouse acceleration in Atomic Heart — or at least as close as you can get to it. But you can do a little text editing to dial the effect back. If you want to disable it, the game doesn’t offer an easy on/off box to tick and untick.

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