Enchantment Under the Sea features a brand new setting in the form of an expansive underwater complex full of new characters. There are also new types of enemies and two new glove skills to play with: Whip and Blaze.

With a more linear level design, the DLC places a heavier emphasis on puzzles, which also use the new Whip power. The Whip lets you essentially grapple around for traversal and from enemies during combat. The Blaze power, on the other hand, acts like a fireball, allowing you to clear obstacles while exploring or set enemies on fire.

Atomic Heart: Enchantment Under the Sea is available individually, as well as through the Gold and Premium Editions of Atomic Heart. With this release, there is one more DLC planned for the title. For more details on Enchantment Under the Sea, check out our review.

While the previous DLCs for Atomic Heart have been wildly different, with one essentially offering up more of what was already present in the base game and the other being a wild alternate-reality take on the story, Enchantment Under the Sea is an interesting one where it focuses back on the central storyline of the game, while also eschewing the base game’s more open design in favour of linear levels. While the game kicks off with a bang, having you break out of the building where you fought off the previous antagonists and finding your wife, you very quickly end up reuniting with Granny and setting off to explore an underwater facility in an effort to find the all-important wedding rings.

"You very quickly end up reuniting with Granny and setting off to explore an underwater facility"

In being a much more linear experience where you’re constantly making unambiguous forward progress in some form or another, Enchantment Under the Sea often ends up showing some of the most creative aspects that Atomic Heart has ever seen. Not only does the game introduce a host of new enemy types that you will have to juggle with, each with their own unique weaknesses that require entirely new tactics than what you might be used to, the game also goes further with its puzzle solving aspects. Now don’t get me wrong, you’re not going to get puzzle designs that rival something like a classic Zelda title, but their presence still ends up providing quite a bit of variety, as well as some breaks, in between bouts of relatively difficult encounters.

The writing also feels a lot better than what we’ve seen from Atomic Heart so far. Yes, there are still moments of unnecessary dialogue with jokes that tend to kill the tension that is otherwise bearing down on you. And yes, it does contribute to the identity crisis we mentioned even in our review of the game’s first DLC, Annihilation Instinct. But at least this time around, the jokes aren’t going to make you cringe or groan. Much of the humour comes from P3’s attempts to reconnect with his wife, which tends to offer plenty of tender moments as well. While there is still a general sense that the studio was torn between making this a more serious story in an effort to wrap things up in time for the next DLC to serve as a finale of sorts, the presence of these jokes still ends up undermining quite a bit of the atmosphere they were going for with Enchantment Under the Sea.

Aside from that, however, the story continues what has ostensibly been an insane ride from the get go. The underwater facility you spend much of the DLC exploring eventually ends up much more sprawling and spacious than you first thought, and my first impression was that Atomic Heart is trying its own hand at a Rapture-esque setting. While BioShock’s Rapture served as more than just a scenic backdrop, offering up some commentary on the idea of objectivist philosophy and unchecked capitalism, while also being a rather fantastic setting for a horror game, Enchantment Under the Sea’s setting doesn’t really bother going there. Sure, there are tiny tidbits of lore strewn about that players can find, be it through conversations with corpses or records on computers, but ultimately, the DLC’s setting really is just a scenic backdrop to the action.

The only real downside of the story in Enchantment Under the Sea is that it needs quite a bit of buy-in for the player to be able to understand. Essentially, since it’s picking things up where the game last left off, you can’t just start with the DLC; you will absolutely have to finish at least the base game to understand what’s going on. All in all, however, when you consider the fact that this is the third DLC release for the game, this isn’t really that much of an issue.

"Essentially, since it’s picking things up where the game last left off, you can’t just start with the DLC"

When it comes to action, Enchantment Under the Sea brings with it new types of powers that players can experiment with, with the standouts being a grappling hook and a fireball. The grappling hook, called the Whip, is used quite extensively throughout the DLC, and ends up being surprisingly versatile, useful in both exploration as well as combat. In fact, the whip was likely the key inspiration behind most of the puzzles in the DLC, which often require you to grapple around to get a vantage point on the whole puzzle. There are also platforming challenges that involve heavy use of the whip, with a memorable example involving you having to constantly swing between two electrified train tracks to dodge oncoming trains while you try to look for safe nooks and crannies. While it won’t exactly let you feel like Spider-Man as you swing around, it still offers a fun new way to explore the DLC’s levels.

In combat, the whip starts out with a simple enough function: you can grapple into enemies to get closer. This can then be further augmented by providing various buffs and debuffs, like letting you block an enemy’s major attack when you grapple into them. The fireball, while not nearly as versatile, still feels great to use. Essentially acting like a large grenade, fireballing becomes an excellent way to maintain crowd control when you’re getting swarmed by lots of enemies, for example. The fireball unfortunately doesn’t do much for exploration, aside from letting you destroy specific obstacles; this ends up feeling like little more than an afterthought.

Really, the only real problem with the combat in Enchantment Under the Sea is one that can’t really be solved with a DLC release, and would require a fundamental redesign of the entirety of Atomic Heart. The problem is that when you get into a big fight, readability essentially goes out the window. While enemies will let you know when they’re about to hit you, the general speed and abilities of the various enemies you fight always end up feeling like they’re ideas taken from a much faster game, but without the slowing down to make them more suited to Atomic Heart’s combat. It doesn’t help that enemies can also sometimes be quite difficult to even spot. While it doesn’t feel too bad often, the few times the game’s readability became an issue stuck out like a sore thumb.

"You’re not going to be getting any ground-breaking new content"

Ultimately, Enchantment Under the Sea just goes to show how strong the foundations of Atomic Heart have always been. Despite its identity crisis, the writing in the DLC is still some of the best from throughout the game, with characters feeling more like real people than they have in either the base game or the previous DLCs. The story also definitely feels like it’s coming to a head, and Enchantment Under the Sea feels like it’s getting ready for the big finale with the next DLC. Visually, the DLC takes heavy inspiration from BioShock, with its underwater facility feeling like it might just be as sprawling and huge as Rapture was. The more focused approach to storytelling, opting for linear levels rather than throwing the player into an open world also does wonders for not only the writing and pacing, but for gameplay as well.

While you’re not going to be getting any ground-breaking new content with Enchantment Under the Sea, it is quite easy to recommend the DLC, especially to players that like Atomic Heart. Not only does it offer up the same excellent shooter gameplay as the base game, but the level design, variety of encounters, new enemies, new powers, and fun writing all add up to being an excellent way to spend a weekend. Throw on top the fact that the DLC’s story makes it feel like Mundfish is just about getting ready to wrap things up with the overarching plot of Atomic Heart and Enchantment Under the Sea ends up feeling like a DLC you just can’t miss.

This game was reviewed on PC.

The story sees P-3 trying on a mission to save humanity, but that means dealing with new threats, including crab-like robots and MOR-4Y. Players will receive two new weapons to help – the Thunderclap hammer with electric attacks and the double-barrel KM-4 Kuzmich. The latter lets you customize its spread, potentially allowing for both long-range shots and wide-sweeping blasts.

Two new glove abilities are also available – Blaze for shooting fireballs and Whip, a grappling hook. Aside from Neptune, you’ll revisit Facility 3826 as locations like Chelomey are warped and taken over by robots.

Stay tuned for more details on Enchantment Under the Sea in the coming weeks. Atomic Heart is available for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, and PC. Check out our review of the base game.