Atomic Heart teases a wild Soviet super-science ride
From Russia with Blood
It's been a while since anyone has taken a solid shot at recapturing that original BioShock spark. Atomic Heart, an upcoming 'adventure FPS' from Moscow-based studio Mundfish might be in with a chance. Within, an elegantly cut trailer featuring at least four distinct brands of illicit super-science, rampaging robots, undead clowns and a horse made out of blood-tentacles.
Set in an alternate earth, Atomic Heart puts you in the shoes of a government agent, sent in solo to investigate just what has gone wrong at a Soviet research facility. The answer, if the trailer below and System/BioShock-standard cliche is anything to go by, is everything. Violence ensues. So much that even the blood doesn't know what to do - some of it even seems to be pooling on the ceilings.
Some stunning architecture, excitingly off-beat robot designs, and all manner of weird experiments gone awry. Even the peek we get at a boss fight against a bulbous mine-spewing droid looks fun, and charmingly animated to boot as the machine lands head-first from a jump, legs spinning in the air above it. The peek at the weapon-crafting system that allows you to go as far as customising the decals on your guns also has me intrigued.
While the trailer itself is impressive, the blurb on the Steam page for the game and on the developer's own site does have a little bit of second-language twang to it - not incomprehensible by any means, but you can practically hear the thick Russian accent behind the English text. Hopefully a trap that the game itself manages to avoid falling into.
Mundfish aren't quite ready to slap a release date (outside of '2018 listed on its Steam page') on Atomic Heart quite yet, but space-goggle spinoff Soviet Luna Park VR is due out sometime this month. It looks like a somewhat sillier co-op trip through the world of Atomic Heart, though no less blood-drenched.