There’s a lot to be said about unapologetically single-player games like Atomic Heart: its entire focus is on creating an intricate world for us to explore and discover for ourselves. An eye-catching blend of super-powered shooting and first-person puzzling, this is a lengthy, tough, and terrific-looking shooter that has us bathing in the blood and gears of elaborately designed enemies both biological and robotic and dispatching them with an impressive set of combat options. Granted, it’s not as clever as it thinks it is when dealing with melee combat or its typical fetch quests, and the story doesn’t quite stick its landing, but the journey from point A to point B is a sight to behold.

Atomic Heart is an alternate-history shooter cut from the same cloth as BioShock and MachineGames’ Wolfenstein series. It’s a kind of retrofuturistic romp back to an imagined past perverted by ridiculously advanced technology; a world where science has made the supernatural a reality and robots are now running rife. These are far from the only shooters Atomic Heart is unafraid to crib from, either. Half-Life and the puzzle-solving of Portal are also clear inspirations, and there’s been an attempted sprinkling of Arkane’s successful brand of first-person stealth, too

Our first project, Atomic Heart, doesn't just tell a captivating story and provide a vivid experience. The game's world is imbued with science—the achievements of Soviet scientists, their inventions, and their ambitious projects are an integral part of the universe. However, in the game's world, science isn't just a tool of the screenwriters. It's also a genuine educational tool. From the very start of development, we strove for Atomic Heart to do more than just entertain players and cause a rush of emotions. We wanted it to impart new knowledge as well. So, science became a central aspect of the game and a true passion for our team.

There’s a lot to be said about unapologetically single-player games like Atomic Heart: its entire focus is on creating an intricate world for us to explore and discover for ourselves. An eye-catching blend of super-powered shooting and first-person puzzling, this is a lengthy, tough, and terrific-looking shooter that has us bathing in the blood and gears of elaborately designed enemies both biological and robotic and dispatching them with an impressive set of combat options. Granted, it’s not as clever as it thinks it is when dealing with melee combat or its typical fetch quests, and the story doesn’t quite stick its landing, but the journey from point A to point B is a sight to behold.

Atomic Heart is an alternate-history shooter cut from the same cloth as BioShock and MachineGames’ Wolfenstein series. It’s a kind of retrofuturistic romp back to an imagined past perverted by ridiculously advanced technology; a world where science has made the supernatural a reality and robots are now running rife. These are far from the only shooters Atomic Heart is unafraid to crib from, either. Half-Life and the puzzle-solving of Portal are also clear inspirations, and there’s been an attempted sprinkling of Arkane’s successful brand of first-person stealth, too.

There’s a lot to be said about unapologetically single-player games like Atomic Heart: its entire focus is on creating an intricate world for us to explore and discover for ourselves. An eye-catching blend of super-powered shooting and first-person puzzling, this is a lengthy, tough, and terrific-looking shooter that has us bathing in the blood and gears of elaborately designed enemies both biological and robotic and dispatching them with an impressive set of combat options. Granted, it’s not as clever as it thinks it is when dealing with melee combat or its typical fetch quests, and the story doesn’t quite stick its landing, but the journey from point A to point B is a sight to behold.