Atomic Heart

The main character is Major Sergey Nechaev, nicknamed P-3, a KGB special agent assigned a particularly dangerous mission. The factory's robot control system has malfunctioned, and instead of helping people, the robots have started killing their owners. It is necessary to stop this madness, find and neutralize the instigators, while also delving into the intricate plans of the Soviet party nomenclature and the director of the Enterprise, the brilliant inventor Dmitry Sechenov.

The world of Atomic Heart is vastly different from our reality due to innovators who tackle problems that usually require entire institutions working for decades. In the 1930s, young Sechenov invented the "polymer" — a liquid programmable compound of heavy water and silicon.

This discovery launched the Soviet robotics program, for which the government allocated a vast territory called Enterprise 3826. There, the best scientists and engineers established science cities like "Vavilov," "Pavlov," "Theater," "Chelomey," and others, while Sechenov led them and continued to improve the "polymer."

World War II did occur in the world of Atomic Heart but, however, the USSR quickly defeated Germany, which, towards the end of the war, released the "brown plague" — a powerful genetically modified biological weapon.

Suffering more than others from it, the USSR transitioned labor-intensive agriculture, construction, and industry to robots, while creative and knowledge-intensive sectors remained with humans. As a result, by the end of the 1940s, the country emerged as a leader in development: cold fusion reactors, levitating trains, flying drones and vehicles, quantum computers, and Gagarin, who conquered space 10 years earlier.

By 1955, the time when the game events begin, Sechenov had improved his invention to "neuropolymer." This substance painlessly integrates human consciousness into a single network with other people, robots, and computers with an infinite volume of knowledge, allowing for instant messaging, controlling technology, or learning something new. Ahead lies the mass polymerization of the USSR population and the conquest of Mars.

There is no seamless open world in Atomic Heart; you cannot wander wherever and whenever you want or go back. Alternating between each other, most locations consist of long "corridor" levels, while fewer are large open spaces. Thus, it combines approaches typical of corridor shooters and open-world games.

Enterprise 3826 is located in a meadow-forest biome with mountainous and lake landscapes, showcasing a model of peaceful, calm life. Fields and farms, settlements and villages, tourist cottages, infrastructure and economic objects, all connected by a network of roads and various robots caring for the territory and performing necessary operations. A true utopia.

Following the principles of secrecy of objects in the USSR, only by going underground do you understand its true colossal scale. Levels are full-fledged factories, research centers, factories, laboratories, medical complexes, agro-industrial parks, etc. While the open spaces are designed in a unified style, the designers did not repeat themselves, and each level received its unique feature, a set of its own design styles, decorations, and individual items.

No foreign capitalist samples. Everything — from posters and animations, clothing and room designs, to car options, building architecture, and monuments in Atomic Heart is done in a visual style of retro-Sovietism, synthwave, avant-garde, and empire.

The plot of Atomic Heart is original and well thought out, filled with details, includes several unexpected twists and endings. Sergey’s antics with horny robots are just a facade for such complex themes as the dangers posed by progress, the influence and role of personality in history, and the intervention of dictatorship in the life of the creator. The screenwriters managed to create a "gray morality" without clearly good or bad characters and events.

The narrative begins with a prologue, where the devoted cyborg Nechayev receives an upgrade in the form of a polymer glove. This glove is also the companion of KRAZ, a crucial character in the plot, as in the recent past, the hero of Atomic Heart lost his memory. The relationships between him, Sechenov, and KRAZ form the main plot arc.

The artificial intelligence leads the missions, suggests routes, clarifies complex moments, narrates about the game world, robots, and human inhabitants, and even reveals Nechayev's backstory. He appears as a stereotypical action hero: not particularly clever, a war veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder, cursing at every opportunity.

There are few other characters, their images do not go beyond familiar shooter archetypes, but they are revealed through well-defined personalities, sufficient to explain the backstory of the time and understandable motivation. The story is linear from beginning to end, does not offer side quests, and the pace picks up after the first third. The cutscenes are well staged and directed.

The combat system is built on intense forward movement, dismembering androids and other organic beings with makeshift weapons supported by the glove's abilities. Depending on the type, the weapon allows for slashing, chopping, or smashing opponents. All strikes are reflected on their bodies.

Each weapon has several styles of strikes, as well as individual dependencies of fast-weak, slow-strong strikes, and an alternative mode. You can dodge enemy attacks by running, jumping, or dashing to the sides, but there is no block or roll, though you can push back the overwhelmed enemies with a basic attack of the glove.

The glove's abilities — freezing, fireball, electric shock, polymer release, upward lift — open up new tactical schemes, but combos between them and other actions are not provided. The glove also justifies the upgrade of Nechayev's polymer organism and unlocks the hacking of robots and mechanisms.

Since the action takes place in the depths of the USSR, there isn't much weaponry available — a couple of firearms, several futuristic energy guns , and a sort of RPG equivalent. Each type has its own shooting physics, and shooting in general is enjoyable. The shooter component kicks in when the player accumulates enough ammunition or resources for crafting.

The single-player game features a standard set of activities: we move forward, explore the level, take down all encountered enemies, solve puzzles, find secrets, study the lore through notes and messages, vacuum locations, and enhance the character. Since there are few cutscenes, they are compensated by constant banter between partners.

Unique bosses appear periodically, and understanding their strengths and weaknesses requires adapting the playstyle. The upgrade system allows players to change their character build without penalties, which is familiar for shooters. We extract polymer from defeated enemies, accumulate it, and purchase passive perks that affect the character's basic parameters (health, movement speed, inventory size, etc.). Alternatively, we can spend it on active glove abilities, making them stronger, more versatile, or simply more useful.

The gameplay pace increases in corridor levels, where Atomic Heart actively spams mobs and tries to kill the player in various ways, and slows down in open spaces. However, enjoying the views while leisurely driving a "Moskvich" is not possible due to the quickly recovering worker robots that pressure the player like in some Dark Souls. The balance is set so that there will always be a resource shortage, but exploring the world can yield useful blueprints for weapons or upgrades, making the hero overall stronger.