Atomic Heart from developer Mundfish is quite the conundrum in the way that I kept asking myself, “how did this go so wrong?” Announced all the way back in 2017, the game has had a long development cycle fueled by player hype and expectation over what the game actually was or what it was going to entail. Despite impressive showings and an alarming controversy, the game is finally here and in the hands of players worldwide.
On the surface, Atomic Heart is another power fantasy immersive sim set in a dystopia gone wrong in the vein of Bioshock and Prey, but the game’s myriad of problems hold it back from being anything other than a footnote in an ever crowded spiritual successor landscape.
Players will take up the role of P-3, a no-nonsense officer sent to Facility 3826 to deal with robots that were once obedient going completely rogue; and to figure out what the hell is going on with “the kollectiv,” an A.I. system that every single robot is connected together through. Equipped with a polymer “glove” that allows him to wield powers such as electricity, it’s up to P-3 to set things right.
After a graphically impressive introduction, players are thrust into this world without any rhyme or reason. What made games like Bioshock work is that the storytelling in that particular game presented players with a hook and a dangling carrot of a mystery for them to uncover. You were given just enough information that the intrigue of discovering more was enough to keep you playing. Atomic Heart does no such thing. Instead the game has a tendency to throw players into situations with little to no context without a “hook”. This made the story feel nonsensical, confusing, and worst of all: boring. It’s unfortunate too because a lot of care seemingly went into the aesthetics of the world and enemy designs.
The story also attempts to be thematically deep but ends up being about an ocean wide but a puddle deep when it comes to soviet utopias, A.I. and the relationship between humanity and robotics. All interesting topics worth exploring, especially given the real world similarities to situations happening right now. Sadly Atomic Heart does very little with such a framework and its story becomes forgettable at best and frustrating at worst.
Now comes the part that could potentially redeem this game: the gameplay. We’ve seen numerous takes on what I call the “mystical power firearm fantasy” genre that stemmed from immersive sims as a whole. System Shock was the birth, Bioshock was the crown jewel, Deathloop was the chaotic playground. It brings me no pleasure to say that Atomic Heart falls short when compared to its contemporaries. A big component in P-3’s arsenal is melee combat and traditionally in this genre it’s fairly straightforward and impactful (the thick smack of Bioshock’s wrench comes to mind), but here it feels lifeless and limp. At times I felt I was hitting enemies with a pool noodle rather than a metal instrument, and the enemies also fail to react in an appropriate manner. Adding to the ill-feeling melee combat is a broken dodge system that feels like it doesn’t function half of the time. Enemies will have a red circle appear when attacking to notify the player to dodge but I felt as if it never worked as intended, always second guessing myself. This is particularly frustrating when surrounded by multiple enemies.
Equally frustrating are the default controls that feel fiddly. Double tapping a button to scan an area feels pretty awful when the loot button is a single press on the same button. This leads to even more frustration as scanning is supposed to provide opportunities for stealth that most of the time devolve into monotonous, bad feeling combat that not even supernatural abilities can redeem. It’s a huge missed opportunity and had me itching to just fire up the Bioshock remaster instead of continuing on.
Completionists are also in for a frustrating experience as I found the map to be nearly useless and the collection of menus and UI hard to navigate. Instead of streamlining my experience it felt like I was constantly fighting against normal game functions that should be expected to work.
Performance wise, the game ran at a mostly stable 60fps on PS5 which should make it feel smooth but the physics feel off in nearly every manner, from P-3’s sprint to the firearms that feel clunky in their delivery. Graphically it looks very nice, and I’m glad the game was at least able to deliver on that front (keep in mind this has been in the works since 2017).
So where does Atomic Heart stand? Not very tall it turns out. The “spiritual successor” genre is a double edged sword. It’s a subgenre of games where fans want games to keep what works but evolve the genre at the same time. It’s been done successfully before with games such as Prey and Bioshock, but Atomic Heart forgoes the delivery of an enjoyable experience with a plethora of frustrating issues that could’ve been avoided on top of atomic-ly bad writing. Aside from its deeply questionable politics, Atomic Heart has a core so disappointingly frustrating that I can’t give it a recommendation.
Review code provided by the publisher.
The post ‘Atomic Heart’ Review – A Disappointing and Frustrating “Spiritual Successor” Experience appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.