Atomic Heart

The main character is Major Sergey Nechaev, codenamed P-3, a KGB special agent assigned a particularly dangerous mission. At a factory, the robot control system malfunctioned, and instead of helping people, the robots began killing their owners. The madness must be stopped, the instigators found and neutralized, while 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 solving problems that typically take entire institutes decades to tackle. In the 1930s, a young Sechenov invented "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 named Enterprise 3826. There, the best scientists and engineers founded science cities "Vavilov", "Pavlov", "Theater", "Chelomey", and others, with Sechenov leading them and continuing to perfect the "polymer".

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

Suffering more than others from it, the USSR shifted labor-intensive agriculture, construction, and industry to robots, while creative and high-tech activities were left to humans. As a result, by the late 1940s, the country became a leader in development: cold fusion reactors, levitating trains, flying drones and cars, quantum computers, and Gagarin conquering space ten years earlier.

By 1955, the beginning of the game's events, Sechenov had improved his invention to "neuro-polymer." The substance painlessly integrates human consciousness into a unified network with other people, robots, and computers with infinite knowledge, allowing instant communication, control of 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. The locations mostly consist of extensive "corridor" levels alternated with large open spaces. This combines approaches typical of corridor shooters and open-world games.

Enterprise 3826 is set in a meadow-forest biome with mountainous and lake landscapes, exemplifying a peaceful, serene life. Fields and farms, settlements and villages, tourist cottages, infrastructure and economic objects, all connected by a network of roads and various robots taking care of the area and performing assigned tasks. A true utopia.

Following the principles of secrecy of objects in the USSR, only by going underground do you understand its true colossal scale. The levels are full-fledged factories, research centers, plants, laboratories, medical complexes, agro-industrial parks, and so on. If the open spaces are done in a unified decor, here the designers did not repeat themselves, and each level received its unique feature, set of styles, decorations, and individual items.

No alien capitalist samples. Everything — from posters and animation, clothing and room designs, to car variants, building architecture, and monuments in Atomic Heart is done in the visual style of retro-Sovietism, Sovmod, avant-garde, and empire.

The plot of Atomic Heart is unique and well-thought-out, filled with details, and includes several unexpected twists and endings. Sergey's fuss with horny robots is just a screen for such complex themes as the dangers generated by progress, the influence and role of the individual in history, and the interference of dictatorship in the life of a creator. The screenwriters managed to create "gray morality" without unequivocally good and bad characters and events.

The narrative begins with a prologue, where the cyborg Nechaev, unconditionally loyal to Sechenov, receives an upgrade in the form of a polymer glove. It is also the companion KHAZ, the most important character in the plot, as in the recent past, the hero of Atomic Heart lost his memory. The relationships between him, Sechenov, and KHAZ form the main story arc.

The artificial intelligence leads missions, gives route hints, clarifies complex moments, narrates about the game world, robots, and human inhabitants, and even reveals Nechaev's backstory. He appears as a stereotypical action hero: not particularly smart war veteran with post-traumatic disorder, swearing at every opportunity.

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

The combat system is built on intense forward movement with cutting androids and other organics into pieces using homemade melee weapons supported by glove abilities. Depending on the type, the weapon allows you to slash, chop, or pound enemies. All hits are reflected on their bodies.

Each weapon has several strike styles, 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 knock off attacking enemies with the glove's basic attack.

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

Since the action takes place in the depths of the USSR, there are not many weapons — a couple of firearms, several futuristic energy guns , and a peculiar RPG analog. Each type has its own shooting physics, and shooting, in general, is enjoyable. The shooter component kicks in when the player accumulates enough ammo or resources for crafting them.

Одиночная игра — стандартный набор активностей: движемся вперед, исследуем уровень, раскидываем всех встреченных врагов, решаем головоломки, находим секреты, изучаем лор по записям и сообщениям, пылесосим локации, усиливаем персонажа. Так как кат-сцен немного, их компенсируют постоянные перебранки между напарниками.

Периодически встречаются уникальные боссы, выяснив сильные и слабые стороны которых нужно адаптировать стиль игры. Прокачка позволяет без штрафов поменять билд персонажа и привычна для шутеров. Высасываем полимер из убитых врагов, накапливаем, покупаем пассивные перки, влияющие на базовые параметры персонажа (здоровье, скорость движения, объем инвентаря и т.д.). Либо тратим на активные способности перчатки, делая их мощнее, универсальней или просто полезней.

Темп геймплея возрастает в коридорных уровнях, когда Atomic Heart активно спамит мобов и по-разному пытается убить игрока, и снижается на открытых пространствах. Но насладиться видами, расслабленно катаясь на «Москвиче» и тут не выйдет из-за быстро восстанавливающихся роботов-рабочих, прессингующих игрока как в каком-нибудь Dark Souls. Баланс настроен так, что дефицит ресурсов будет всегда, однако исследуя мир можно найти полезный чертеж на оружие или апгрейд к нему, что сделает героя в целом сильнее.