Atomic Heart Interview – Open World, Combat, and More

Mundfish’s FPS action RPG Atomic Heart has been a game that people have had their eyes on for quite some time. Revealed several years ago, the game impressed with its initial showings, and though several years of silence and development hurdles in the following years meant that the game somewhat receded into the background, it’s recently re-emerged. Promising a weird open world, a unique setting, flashy and bombastic combat, and more, Atomic Heart certainly seems to be offering something that’s not commonly found in other games. To learn more about it and what makes it it, we recently reached out to its developers at Mundfish with some of our questions. You can read the full interview below.

"The world concept behind Atomic Heart was in the works for almost a decade, and the vision behind the game has been growing and evolving with time."

Atomic Heart has had a long and eventful development cycle. How would you say the game has changed during the course of development, and how well positioned is it right now to meet the expectations many have had from it for quite some time?

We always wanted to make sure that the game gets as much development time as it needs. The world concept behind Atomic Heart was in the works for almost a decade, and the vision behind the game has been growing and evolving with time. We strongly believe that the overall experience that we created will be unforgettable.

As you get deeper into Atomic Heart’s development, what are your plans for beginning to show and detail more of the game in the lead up to its launch?

The team is very excited to begin uncovering more mysteries behind the game without revealing too much. We’re starting with this story trailer and will look forward to the next step of the campaign, so please stay tuned.

Correctly nailing the sort of intentionally weird and cerebral aesthetic that Atomic Heart is going for can be tough to pull off. What has your approach to that been with this game?

There are some truly insane concepts that we’ve put in the game – like the whole thing with polymers, limbo, and the meta-plot of Atomic Heart. The weirdness is intentional, it was one of the creative pillars while we were creating the world, the enemies, and the characters.

Atomic Heart will see players going up against killer robots in combat- can you tell us about how you have leveraged that premise in areas such as enemy design and variety?

Our art and design teams has put immense effort in creating interesting and unique enemies. Both robots and zombies have different behavior and are very varied. For example, the robots are very detailed — you can pick them apart with your weapons and see their insides while they fight. On the other hand, some zombies can modify their abilities with special sprouts. We will cover the enemy types and their abilities in a separate beat a bit later down the road, but we can guarantee that the combat part of the game will feel fresh and engaging.

"Our art and design teams has put immense effort in creating interesting and unique enemies."

What can players expect from the game’s world in terms of size and environments? How much of an emphasis will the game put on exploration? Will there be a large number of varied side activities to encourage players to keep exploring?

The open-world will not be as large as in some games like Assassin’s Creed, but we’re making it truly believable and immersive — more details on the world are coming soon.

It’s clear that Atomic Heart’s combat will encourage deliberate planning and strategy rather than mindless shooting. Can you talk to us about how that will manifest in the gameplay?

Atomic Heart is an action game first and foremost. It’s very dynamic. You can definitely strategize on the go and pick various playstyles, but the core gameplay revolves around high-octane action. Think Doom, Wolfenstein, but way crazier.

Roughly how long will an average playthro­ugh of Atomic Heart be?

We’re aiming towards around 20 hours.

Do you have any plans to keep adding to Atomic Heart with new content following its launch, or is that something you haven’t yet nailed down?

Right now, we’re fully committed to deliver the full game on release without any distractions, but we already have interesting ideas on how to evolve this universe further.