What to expect from Atomic Heart? Let’s remember the history of development

And on January 28, 2019, the Telegram channel “Gamedev We Deserve” revealed details of the development of Atomic Heart, and the players’ faith in the project disappeared. Mundfish was accused of the following:

• lack of well-developed game design and constant changes in concept;
• the project is very linear, and there are simply no forks or elaboration of the script;
• personnel drain – experienced programmers leave the studio, inexperienced guys take their place. Optimization of Atomic Heart is below par;
• gameplay published on January 24, 2019 is a hoax, the full game will not be released in 2020.

When it seemed that Atomic Heart was buried under a layer of hatred from defrauded players, Mundfish executives came out openly and wrote a letter denying the investigation. And then they made another “knight’s move”, which was supposed to reassure the fans and dispel all speculation about Atomic Heart – they called the editors of the DTF portal to the development studio so that they could see for themselves that the project was being created and work was in full swing without stopping. The journalist confirmed this, interviewed the creators and looked at several “builds” of Atomic Heart – all the available information satisfied him and even made a strong impression.

What we learned from this interview:

• layoffs did happen, but it was the Soviet Lunapark VR team that doesn’t even know what’s going on behind the closed doors of Atomic Heart development;
• The Atomic Heart team has experienced developers who are the core of the entire project;
• the game will use Nvidia technologies: RTX and DLSS will be in the game from the start, and the project is perfectly optimized;
• the gameplay from January 24 is real – the journalist even played this episode;
• the episodic structure was completely abandoned in the studio, although he mentioned it in an interview in 2018;
• Atomic Heart is funded by partners all over the world, and working with a large publisher is difficult – there is a chance of losing intellectual property rights;
• the game’s budget is clearly outlined, as is the development plan – otherwise things don’t get done in such projects;
• the plot is constantly being refined, but its basic structure has long been ready and it does not change;
• there were mistakes in hiring workers, but managers will do everything to avoid this in the future;
• focusing on the domestic audience in terms of sales is not profitable, and therefore the story focuses on hooking Western players;

After the scandal with the Atomic Heart investigation, information about the game was spread reluctantly. In April 2019, a tech demo using RTX and DLSS technologies was released, and 5 months later a cinematic trailer. However, in November of the same year, another scandal occurred – the developers canceled beta testing and multiplayer mode for Atomic Heart. They reported this on their Discord server, citing the fact that this information was needed by those who supported the product.

Then another long interview came out on the DTF website , from which it became clear that the head of development, Maxim Zatsepin, aka Robert Bagratuni, was not telling something and was behaving arrogantly.

He refused to name the names of the “famous developers” who are working on Atomic Heart, dismissed the idea of ​​a need for game designers during development, stated that cool “filmmakers and advertisers can also make video games,” and at Mundfish they try to communicate with players in the spirit of Kojima – using trailers. To the question “why didn’t anyone else come to Mundfish and watch Atomic Heart?” Robert replied that no one simply wanted to, and when someone did, Mundfish could not arrange a meeting.

Other developers and managers, on the contrary, behaved with restraint and were happy to share the details of the project. It became known that Atomic Heart will have an open world from several regions, and there will also be “repetitive tasks”. Dungeons and laboratories are divided into story and side dungeons, where both new equipment and new abilities can be found. The main idea is to make Atomic Heart diverse, similar to a metroidvania, but not going too far so that the game can be played by “any player”.

A period of stagnation

After this, radio silence continued for almost a year, only occasionally Mundfish wrote announcements for loyal fans on their Discord server. However, in August 2020, the studio still showed the updated gameplay of Atomic Heart.

The main character P-3 goes to an exhibition house, where the robots have gone crazy, and everything around has been taken over by some unknown organic creature. As you can see from the trailer, the mini-boss is called Ivy, and he is not even the most difficult of those who will be presented in the project. However, unlike the early gameplay, the combat system seems to have lost weight – the blows seem weak, they have almost no effect on the enemies, even if they fall apart while receiving damage.

At the same time, the developers told Wccftech what would be presented in the game and shared details that were not included in the gameplay video:

• The COVID-19 pandemic did not affect the development schedule, but made adjustments to the workflow;
• There will be no multiplayer mode at the start to make the campaign decent;
• The length of the plot is 20 hours, but to fully understand the picture you will have to go through the game several times;
• The project’s composer will be Mick Gordon;
• Atomic Heart will not be exclusive to the Epic Games Store, so that as many people as possible can try the project.

It became clear to fans that the work had not been abandoned, there was progress, and even though the pandemic rages, Atomic Heart is still in development.

And Mundfish didn’t lie about the fact that investments come from all over the world. When Atomic Heart disappeared from the radar again, in January 2021, Wccftech reported that the second round of investment in the project of the Russian studio had already passed. Not just market players, but some of its largest representatives – Chinese Tencent, Russian Gaijin and investment company GEM Capital – invested in the “dream game”. Tencent invested the most money in development, but Mundfish executives never reported any figures. But the goal of such a large fundraising was named – “the development of Atomic Heart into a global franchise.”

Around the same time, the opportunity to pre-order the project disappeared from the Atomic Heart website – all links lead to a page on Steam, where there is also no price, but there is a request to add the game to your wishlist.

Business “in Russian”

In May 2021, it became known that the game is completely ready and is entering the post-production stage – polishing the project, catching bugs and correcting errors. Mundfish also reported that their trailer for E3 was almost ready and no one then suspected what it would be like or where it would appear.

This happened at the Xbox presentation, and Russian fans immediately recognized the song of the Mirage group playing in the video – “Music has connected us.” Moreover, Western players liked the track so much that they found the song on Youtube and began to greet those who came in the comments after the Atomic Heart trailer. But no matter how wonderful the unity of the community was, Mundfish faced problems almost immediately after the presentation.

The trailer was blocked on YouTube after complaints from not just anyone, but the founder of the Mirage group, Andrei Lityagin. The main complaint was the ban on reworking the track (in the video it was changed and some parts of the song were cut out), as well as the fact that no one entered into any agreements with Lityagin himself.

Mundfish provided all possible documents that confirmed their full right to use the song, as well as to rework it and use it in videos. The founder of the Mirage group did not stop and began to accuse the developers of greed, threatening that they would turn the incident into a high-profile case in court and “a nightmare for many years.”

According to the website “Judicial and Regulatory Acts of the Russian Federation,” the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation ruled that Lityagin’s claims have no basis, and therefore the case will not proceed. Thus, judge Popov V.V. acquitted the representative of the Mundfish studio – the video was also restored on the Xbox Youtube channel.

Finish line

Following tradition, the developers again went “into themselves” and nothing was heard about them for six months. But out of the blue it was announced that on February 9, players will be presented with an Atomic Heart trailer with a release window!

And so it happened. In the trailer itself, the developers showed the gameplay in more detail: new enemies, the use of a glove that can freeze and lift enemies into the air, as well as attract objects, shooting from different types of weapons and melee combat, which has become even meatier. At the end of which an approximate exit window appeared – “*** 2022” . Mundfish have created some wiggle room for themselves, as the game could be released in either September or December.

The design of the locations is mesmerizing. The setting looks so chic, and all the elements in it are so organic and in place that they create a single picture and give an approximate idea of ​​the scenery in which the journey through the utopian open world of Atomic Heart will take place. Let’s hope that all the shown corners of the fantastic Soviet Union can be visited and found something interesting there.

The only thing that confuses me so far is the voice acting of the characters, both Russian and English. It can be described with the phrase “so bad it’s good.”

What to expect from Atomic Heart?

Answering the main question with which our acquaintance with the history of the Mundfish studio and the development of Atomic Heart began – the spiritual successor to Bioshock and Prey (2017) is clearly waiting for us. Every trailer and gameplay shown literally screams about this: the hero’s unusual abilities, a variety of enemies, a constant shift in emphasis to melee combat, a utopian world and the setting of the future USSR, open spaces with a huge emphasis on dungeon exploration, as well as the story of a man caught in strange circumstances and trying to overcome them. I would like to hope that the implementation will not fail, although Atomic Heart already looks like one of the main releases of 2022.