Atomic Heart is a story-driven single-player shooter that takes place in Facility 3826, a research complex that was supposed to represent the height of Soviet technology. The game shows an alternate history from 1955, where helpful robots and groundbreaking experiments have gone rogue. You play as Major Sergey Nechaev, who is tasked with investigating what happened, while you navigate an environment that mixes Soviet aesthetics with futuristic design.
As part of your mission in Atomic Heart, you need to check why robots have started attacking humans, and the combat combines fast-paced shooting with melee weapons. At the core of the new technology, you'll find a conspiracy and a new substance called "Polymer" that also gives you special abilities such as telekinesis, freezing, and electric shocks when you wear a "Polymer Glove".
When playing Atomic Heart, you will also need to solve puzzles and craft items to advance in the game and upgrade your gear. Apart from light RPG elements, the game also offers a great adventure where you need to battle murderous robots and explore the mysterious facility to check various experiments. You can download Atomic Heart and play it on Windows, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Why should I download Atomic Heart?
When it comes to combat in Atomic Heart, you are never limited to just one approach. Depending on how you combine your weapons and glove powers, you can take down each enemy in multiple ways. You might freeze a robot to stop it, then blast it apart with a shotgun, or you might lift items with telekinesis and use them as a weapon. The game encourages you to experiment and learn which attacks are best against specific enemy weaknesses.
In Atomic Heart, you need to battle robots, mutants, and experimental creatures that all behave differently. Some enemies use brute force, others swarm, and some deploy technology to shield or regenerate themselves. When you enter a boss fight, you need to use all the abilities you've learned so far, as these are large-scale encounters that test your skills.
While the Polymer Glove is great as part of combat in Atomic Heart, it also gives you abilities that are useful in other situations. You use them to manipulate the environment, solve puzzles, and interact with machines. You can use electroshock to power doors or deactivate traps, or freeze a burst pipe to pass through it safely. Because of that, you have more connection with the location and need to watch out for various challenges other than just the robots.
The graphics and art design in Atomic Heart use a Soviet retro-futuristic style that makes the game visuals unique. One moment, you are walking through laboratories lined with propaganda posters, and the next, you are crawling through industrial tunnels with malfunctioning, futuristic machines. As you explore this world, you can find documents, recordings, and various other details that slowly reveal what happened inside Facility 3826.
Atomic Heart also has a strong upgrade and crafting system, where you need to collect resources from enemies and the environment to modify your weapons or upgrade your glove. The upgrades can change the way your equipment performs, so it's crucial to spend some time on them. This way, you can also adjust the combat style to your liking and get prepared for later parts of the game as you progress.
Your hero in Atomic Heart, Major Nechaev, also gets an AI assistant, Char-Les, whose sarcastic and unsettling commentary balances humor with guidance. Their conversations keep the narrative moving and provide context for the things you encounter. Interacting with adds elements of satire, dystopia, and mystery to the storyline and keeps you curious about what is really happening.
All in all, Atomic Heart blends intense action with surreal and almost dreamlike sequences. You never quite know what to expect around the next corner, so the game keeps you hooked. You can buy Atomic Heart for various platforms, including PCs, Xbox, and PlayStation gaming consoles.
Is Atomic Heart free?
To download Atomic Heart, you have to first buy it for the platform of your choice. The game is available in standard, gold, and premium editions, each of which includes the base game and various additional content like weapon skins or Atomic Pass DLC.
What operating systems are compatible with Atomic Heart?
You can play Atomic Heart on PCs with Windows 10 or 11 64-bit and at least 8GB of RAM. The game is also available on PlayStation 4 and 5, and Xbox One and Series X/S. Because the game supports backward compatibility, you can enjoy enhanced versions with better visuals and performance on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. The game hasn't been released on macOS, Linux, or Nintendo Switch.
What are the alternatives to Atomic Heart?
Beyond Citadel is a first-person shooter with anime visuals where you play as part of an elite unit that needs to investigate a mysterious structure called the Citadel. You fight against robots and aliens while solving puzzles and trying to get to the bottom of what lies below the Citadel. You can buy the game through Steam, and it's only available on Windows PCs.
METAL EDEN is a science fiction shooter that takes place in a post-apocalyptic landscape with biomechanical enemies and industrial wastelands. The combat focuses on melee and ranged attacks, while the game also requires mastery of survival mechanics and collecting resources. As you progress, you also need to upgrade your weapons and gear with the elements you find, and you can buy the game on Windows, PlayStation, and Xbox Series.
Selaco is a retro first-person shooter built on a Doom engine, and it combines fast-paced gunplay with destructible environments and intelligent AI opponents. The game has a whole narrative campaign as well as very detailed levels you need to pass through, and you can get early access to the game on Windows 10 and 11, as well as on SteamOS.
