ATOMIC HEART

Cards on the table: we’re still not convinced Atomic Heart is a real game. At least, not one that will ever come out in the form that’s been shown. Mundfish’s other game, Soviet Lunapark VR, released in Early Access before being pulled from Steam, nominally so the studio could focus on development of Atomic Heart. That was in 2018. In the meantime it’s faced allegations of mass layoffs and other internal difficulties – claims the studio has denied. But it’s hard to shake the sense that Atomic Heart never looks like quite the same game from showing to showing, aesthetically or mechanically. At various points it has looked like the heir apparent to BioShock, STALKER, Fallout…

It’s a hard game to pin down, and the footage shown during Microsoft’s conference didn’t do much to change that. It opens with a strange Lego-looking robot with a head full of fruit, before jumping between a parade of player powers, spectacular architecture, a driving segment and killer crash-test dummies. All set to a painfully catchy Eurotrash soundtrack, the cuts are incredibly – not to say suspiciously – quick.

The truth is, we’d love to be proved wrong about Atomic Heart. If everything that’s been shown is accurate, it should add up to one of the most broad, ambitious and unusual games we’ve ever seen. Maybe by next E3 we’ll finally know for sure.