Atomic Heart

What to Know

Critics Recommend

Average Score

Total Reviews: 56

Days

Hours

Minutes

Skip It

Atomic Heart is a game full of ideas with tremendous promise, but it’s marred by uneven balancing, lacks coherent vision, and feels thrown together.

Skip It

Critics Recommend

Critic Reviews: 56

Critics Consensus

# Reviews: 56

Atomic Heart is a game full of ideas with tremendous promise, but it's marred by uneven balancing, lacks coherent vision, and feels thrown together.

Where to Play

** VSG may earn a commission for purchases using our links. Learn more.

Rate and Review

What did you think of Atomic Heart?

Player Reviews0 Votes

Critic Reviews for Atomic Heart

Critic Reviews

Distribution

56

Reviews

High Score - 95/100

95%

Average Score - 74/100

74%

Low Score - 40/100

40%

6/10

Jordan Ramée (GameSpot)

Atomic Heart lacks follow-through on its most interesting narrative concepts and plays it safe with its first-person shooter gameplay.

February 20, 2023 |

Full Review

Atomic Heart is a highly imaginative, atompunk-inspired attempt at picking up where the likes of BioShock left off that makes missteps but definitely has the ticker to punch well above its weight.

February 20, 2023 |

Full Review

8/10

Luke Reilly (IGN)

7/10

Mick Fraser (God is a Geek)

Atomic Heart embraces lunacy, overblown sexuality, and violence at every turn, and feels simultaneously polished and yet painfully unrefined.

February 20, 2023 |

Full Review

Jordan Ramée (GameSpot)

6/10 - (Read Review)

Atomic Heart lacks follow-through on its most interesting narrative concepts and plays it safe with its first-person shooter gameplay.

Luke Reilly (IGN)

8/10 - (Read Review)

Atomic Heart is a highly imaginative, atompunk-inspired attempt at picking up where the likes of BioShock left off that makes missteps but definitely has the ticker to punch well above its weight.

Mick Fraser (God is a Geek)

7/10 - (Read Review)

Atomic Heart embraces lunacy, overblown sexuality, and violence at every turn, and feels simultaneously polished and yet painfully unrefined.

**Read all 56 critic reviews on the desktop version of VSG.

Read the Reviews (56 total)

Outlet	Author	Score	Date	Quote	Read
33bits	Fernando Sánchez	88 / 100	02-20-2023	Atomic Heart is the new open-world first-person shooter with RPG elements developed by Russian studio Mundfish and published by Focus Entertainment. From the beginning we will be captivated by its powerful setting and we will enjoy the powerful visual display that this dystopian Soviet Union of the 50s presents us with. It is impossible for Bioshock not to come to mind -and that can only be good- although at the time After playing it, many mechanics will also remind us of the last Far Cry. It's not quite round due to certain design decisions, and because of the wasted open world, but the game is fun and also a challenge, so we can only recommend it without any doubt.	Read review
ACG	Jeremy Penter	Recommended	02-20-2023	"Atomic Heart has its issues but it is also interesting, quirky, and in the end very fun to explore. "	Read review
Attack of the Fanboy	Kevin Mitchell	4 / 5 stars	02-20-2023	While Atomic Heart brings nothing new to the table, it brings flair to the concepts it borrows from games before it, making for a fun experience that will have your heart pumping, funny bone aching, and brain working overtime.	Read review
AusGamers	Kosta Andreadis	5.8 / 10	02-21-2023	Things go horribly wrong and fall apart.	Read review
But Why Tho?	Kate Sanchez	6.5 / 10	02-20-2023	With the environmental glitches, an odd narrative, and too much imitation of two iconic games, Atomic Heart lands in the middle for me. Not bad, not great, just fine.	Read review
Cerealkillerz	Nick Erlenhof	8.4 / 10	02-20-2023	Atomic Heart looks great and the overall design is amazing. From the extensive environments over some small ideas, every works really well. Also the gameplay elements shines with a lots of variety in combinations that don't need to hide behind the games that inspired them. Some tedious collecting, unbalanced swarms of enemies and the only "ok" story scratch the paint of this well thought out art piece.	Read review
CGMagazine	Khari Taylor	8 / 10	02-20-2023	Atomic Heart promises tens of hours of tense, first-person, Bioshock-style combat, a compelling, twist-filled narrative, challenging puzzles and an eccentric lead duo that will definitely grow on you.	Read review
Checkpoint Gaming	Tom Quirk	7.5 / 10	02-20-2023	Atomic Heart is a compelling and exciting sci-fi action RPG, with a unique and well-developed setting. Although it has its imperfections, from its slow pace to occasionally annoying combat, the exciting mysteries at the heart of, well, Atomic Heart, made it worth powering through. For action-RPG fans with a taste for alternate history settings, Atomic Heart is definitely worth diving into, and I am excited to see what developer Mundfish has to offer in the future.	Read review
DASHGAMER.com	Dan Rizzo	Not Recommended	02-21-2023	Atomic Heart has a lot going for it, but with everything compounded into one cumbersome campaign thus far, it may have been better buried beneath Facility 3826.	Read review
DualShockers	Robert Zak	8.4 / 10	02-20-2023	Despite a few missed opportunities to really build on the great games it’s inspired by, Atomic Heart surprised me, with a remarkably inventive world that brings to life (the tears apart) the weirdest, wildest visions of Soviet propaganda. This is a game that’s been through over half a decade of development hell, and come out the other side as one of the best first-person shooters this generation.	Read review
Everyeye.it	Mario Petillo	7.5 / 10	02-20-2023	Atomic Heart tries to do everything it can and wants: in fact, it offers a combat system that mixes firearms and powers, and then drops everything into an open world a bit 'end in itself.	Read review
Expansive	Brad Baker	Not Recommended	02-20-2023	Atomic Heart wants to be many things but ultimately ends up being none of them, apart from being woefully apathetic about itself. Undoubtedly, years of delays, rescoping and restructuring have left us with a conflicted piece of work that most of the time bores, unsettles and is unable to stay tonally consistent for very long. One of the most frustrating, confusing games I’ve played in a long time.	Read review
FingerGuns	Miles Thompson	6 / 10	02-20-2023	Atomic Heart is a solid yet over-indulgent first entry from a developer that maybe had more ideas than it could manage at once. The individual atoms and particles have wonderful potential, but their quantum connection to each other feels wholly missing thanks to their competing directions. I have hope a sequel could deliver on the fantastic premise and stellar world-building, but just like nuclear fusion, it’s an optimistic dream rather than an exciting current reality.	Read review
Game Rant	Joshua Duckworth	2 / 5 stars	02-20-2023	Atomic Heart's story, gameplay, and world design have promise, but the payoff is lacking across the board.	Read review
Gameblog	KiKiToes	8 / 10	02-20-2023	Atomic Heart remains a safe bet. An excellent surprise even.	Read review
Gamefa	mohammad hossein karimi	8.1 / 10	02-20-2023	Does Atomic heart live up to the hype around it? it completely depends on your expectations. While playing, there was only one thing on my mind, so much potential left unused or misused. Atomic heart is far from perfect, but when it comes to Combat, Visuals and entertainability, you won't be disappointed. Just remember that if narrative and character development is extremely important for you above everything else, you might get dissapointed.	Read review
GameMAG	Unknown	7 / 10	02-20-2023	Atomic Hearts is an interesting case of ambitious scientific experiment. Even if not everything went smoothly, the results are still fun, exciting, and a bit uneven. What matters here	Read review
GamePro	Tobias Veltin	77 / 100	02-20-2023	Solid shooter with a fresh setting, which stands out too little from the crowd because of the lame upper world and some unround mechanics.	Read review
GameSpot	Jordan Ramée	6 / 10	02-20-2023	Atomic Heart lacks follow-through on its most interesting narrative concepts and plays it safe with its first-person shooter gameplay.	Read review
GamesRadar+	Josh West	2.5 / 5 stars	02-20-2023	Atomic Heart is a messy video game with big ideas and a desperate need for refinement	Read review
GameWatcher	Neil Bolt	7.5 / 10	02-20-2023	Atomic Heart is a shooter with some fantastic ideas, excellent presentation, and a fair bit of variety. Although it doesn't excel at any one thing and flatters to deceive at times, it still has enough to offer a compelling adventure.	Read review
Gaming Nexus	Jason Dailey	8 / 10	02-20-2023	A competent first-person shooter set against the fascinating backdrop of an alternate history, technologically advanced Soviet Union. Atomic Heart wears its gaming inspirations on its sleeve, but never comes close to their greatness.	Read review
GamingBolt	Mike Alexander	8 / 10	02-20-2023	As a first major project from a largely new studio, Atomic Heart is astounding. It is a visual spectacle with great gameplay and an overarching story that is worth seeing to the end. But as a title that is aiming to take on the other major blockbuster games of the recent past, it's not quite there.	Read review
GamingTrend	David Burdette	95 / 100	02-20-2023	2023 has already been strong with Game of the Year contenders, and Atomic Heart is another one of them. It lives up to all of the hype and all of its promises; an amazing debut game for Mundfish. Nailing down a few things Atomic Heart is phenomenal at is nearly impossible because it's extraordinary in all of them. This isn't just my favorite game of this year, it might be one of my favorites of the decade.	Read review
Generación Xbox	Pedro del Pozo	9 / 10	02-20-2023	Atomic Heart has everything that shooters have taught us in recent years and its mix with Soviet flavor gives it the point of originality to be the fresh product we were looking for	Read review
God is a Geek	Mick Fraser	7 / 10	02-20-2023	Atomic Heart embraces lunacy, overblown sexuality, and violence at every turn, and feels simultaneously polished and yet painfully unrefined.	Read review
Hardcore Gamer	James Cunningham	4.5 / 5 stars	02-20-2023	Atomic Heart is an "everything and the kitchen sink" type of adventure that feels like it should explode from the weight of its ambitions, yet keeps it together through a combination of good pacing of new elements and a deeply likeable world.	Read review
Hobby Consolas	Daniel Quesada	90 / 100	02-20-2023	Despite some initial fears and some technical failure, it is confirmed that Atomic Heart is a complete, fun and spectacular game, which promises to hook any fan of shooters who care about the narrative. Bol'shoi!	Read review
IGN	Luke Reilly	8 / 10	02-20-2023	Atomic Heart is a highly imaginative, atompunk-inspired attempt at picking up where the likes of BioShock left off that makes missteps but definitely has the ticker to punch well above its weight.	Read review
IGN Italy	Angelo Bianco	8 / 10	02-20-2023	Atomic Heart turned out to be a pleasant surprise, a charismatic first-person shooter with gameplay ideas applied almost to perfection. Leaving aside the uninteresting open world stages, the development team managed to create a world with a remarkable aesthetic quality despite the presence of several bugs. In any case, Atomic Heart represents a good first work for Mundfish and, above all, remains a fun and brutal FPS in its Soviet madness.	Read review
IGN Spain	Rafa Del Río	8 / 10	02-20-2023	Mundfish arrives with a charismatic and powerful proposal that leaves us wanting a sequel.	Read review
Metro GameCentral	GameCentral	5 / 10	02-21-2023	The mix of highbrow story concept and complex first person combat is certainly reminiscent of Bioshock, but this churlish homage has nowhere near the same nuance in terms of either plot or gameplay.	Read review
MonsterVine	Diego Escala	4 / 5 stars	02-20-2023	Despite the questionably tasteless tone its narrative takes at times, there’s a lot of fun to be had with Atomic Heart.	Read review
Noisy Pixel	Henry Yu	8 / 10	02-20-2023	Mundfish has managed to capture the thrill of over-the-top action taking full advantage of Atomic Heart’s 1950s setting and insane narrative. Every moment of gameplay is packed with tense combat against haywire animatronics. Still, all the heavy metal shredding in the world isn’t enough to save the experience from its extremely poor user interface design and lack of basic accessibility features.	Read review
PCGamesN	Phil Iwaniuk	8 / 10	02-20-2023	A story-led shooter that's heaving with ideas and boasts a distinct sci-fi setting in its doomed USSR. There are cringeworthy moments and occasional design missteps, but the way your abilities and the enemy ecosystem combine is a constant thrill.	Read review
PlayStation LifeStyle	Rebecca Smith	5.5 / 10	02-20-2023	These are just some of the many signs that suggest the game was rushed past the finish line (including a reference to game crunch), but its problems run deeper than something that can be fixed with a couple of patches. The story isn’t explained well, the dialog is over the top, the tutorials don’t do their job, and the open world is just a boring place to be. While the combat and the linear facilities go some way to redeeming Atomic Heart, it’s not a game that I can faithfully recommend right now.	Read review
PlayStation Universe	Neil Bolt	7.5 / 10	02-20-2023	Atomic Heart throws up some interesting ideas and visually is a very impressive game. Otherwise, it's a jack of all trades and master of none that entertains with its brazenly silly throwback madness.	Read review
PowerUp!	Leo Stevenson	Not Recommended	02-21-2023	So far, Atomic Heart is a solid spin on the BioShock formula though it does seem to be a little lacking in cohesion. I'm not quite sure whether a more open-world approach really suits this style of gameplay and I'm not quite sold on the combat or the way it's been implemented. That being said, I'm still enjoying it and am looking forward to finishing it, so that's always a good sign.	Read review
Press Start	Brodie Gibbons	6.5 / 10	02-20-2023	The story plays out like a Jerry Bruckheimer-produced popcorn atrocity, the upgrade shop might as well be Travelex given how many currencies it juggles, and the performance is less than optimal. Atomic Heart is an exercise in excess. It has some clear strengths, like its first in class art direction and gunplay, however these are far outweighed by the game's faults.	Read review
PSX Brasil	Rui Celso	90 / 100	02-20-2023	Atomic Heart has several fun elements that keep the player hooked from start until the end. Although it has some technical problems, they are passable in the face of the final work, which delivers much more than players expect. Diverse combat, lots of exploration and clever puzzles are just some of the points that make this game a must-have for PS5 owners.	Read review
Push Square	Ken Talbot	6 / 10	02-20-2023	This mashup of shooter, stealth, and RPG wears its influences proudly but rarely matches them. Its alt-history setting is interesting and there are plenty of ways to approach the robot-killing, but these elements are at odds with messy storytelling and characterisation.	Read review
Rock, Paper, Shotgun	James Archer	Not Recommended	02-20-2023	A Soviet sci-fi adventure with arresting visuals and occasionally excellent shooting, marred by uneven balancing, undercooked ideas, and an unlikeable protagonist.	Read review
Saudi Gamer	Unknown	8 / 10	02-20-2023	Atomic Heart comes as a very good attempt to fill the void that exists at the present time in the side of narrative shooter games, such as Bioshock and Half-Life.	Read review
SECTOR.sk	Peter Dragula	9 / 10	02-20-2023	Atomic Heart practically joins the ranks of Bioshock and Wolfenstein and offers an equally interesting reimagining of the world in an alternate past. The game will guide us through this, while it very well combines storytelling, challenging action, crafting items and a lot of of puzzle elements and levels.	Read review
Shacknews	Donovan Erskine	9 / 10	02-20-2023	Atomic Heart is undoubtedly one of the best first-person shooter campaigns I’ve played in years.	Read review
Skill Up	Skill Up	Not Recommended	02-20-2023	Atomic Heart is full of ideas but like the machine you're fighting, all of them suffer some critical malfunction. The result is a game that feels thrown together, poorly balanced and lacking in vision. There are some things to enjoy here, but the overall package is just bit of a mess and I can't recommend it.	Read review
SpazioGames	Domenico Musicò	8.7 / 10	02-20-2023	Atomic Heart is a brilliant game, that is able to mix some beloved game mechanics in its own way, in order to make you experience an intriguing journey that will make you wonder how and when will this universe be expanded in the future.	Read review
TechRaptor	Samuel Guglielmo	5 / 10	02-20-2023	Atomic Heart has some fun combat and a soundtrack that absolutely slaps. Unfortunately, it's glitchy, has a terrible open world, becomes a slog in the late game, and has the most aggressively awful writing I've ever seen.	Read review
The Games Machine	Simone Rampazzi	7.8 / 10	02-20-2023	Atomic Heart suffers from that flavor of "already seen" that ends up a bit 'to distort the workmanship, an important element that could affect the experience of anyone, precisely because of the inability to create empathy with characters lived, in the end, almost as extras. A set of clichés that, however, does not penalize the success of the work in its entirety. The show staged by Mundfish has all the credentials to set good starting points, which in the post-launch could find more sense. We'll see: the potential of the setting is more than those actually exploited.	Read review
TrueAchievements	Luke Albiges	3.5 / 5 stars	02-20-2023	It's a shame that rough dialogue lets the otherwise brilliant world down somewhat, and that the game doesn't always manage to feel like the full-on power fantasy it could with so many neat powers and gadgets on offer. But Atomic Heart remains mechanically solid and has enough impressive highlight moments to still be worth a play despite these and several other dubious design decisions. Good luck with the completion for the time being, though...	Read review
Twinfinite	Jake Su	2 / 5 stars	02-20-2023	Despite what is a promising combat formula as well as the supporting systems behind it when it comes to skills, crafting, and upgrades, there are also several equally frustrating aspects of it that hold the game back.	Read review
Use a Potion	Unknown	7 / 10	02-21-2023	It’s flawed, but there’s still a LOT I liked about the game. The combat is slick, the world design and visuals are fantastic, and the story definitely kept me intrigued right until the very end. It could have just done with trimming a bit of its filler, whilst a bit more development time could have seen the more obvious technical hindrances ironed out.	Read review
Wccftech	Alessio Palumbo	Recommended	02-20-2023	I'm not quite ready to rate Atomic Heart, having only had access to it for a handful of days, but what I've played so far points to a very well-made game that falls just one or two notches short of true greatness. Still, it's a must for any shooter fan, and it's one of the most optimized games I've seen in a long time, a breath of fresh air given certain disasters released in the past few months.	Read review
We Got This Covered	David Morgan	4 / 5 stars	02-20-2023	Atomic Heart is, most surprisingly, exactly what I expected. Its biggest strengths are the ones that treat the eyes, but great writing and exploration are welcome in an otherwise overstretched experience.	Read review
WellPlayed	James Wood	5.5 / 10	02-21-2023	Atomic Heart has an impressive command of aesthetics and occasionally gives you the tools to enjoy its world, but an unstable console build, unsatisfying systems and complete misfire of a script prevent these atoms from achieving the necessary fusion.	Read review
Worth Playing	Chris "Atom" DeAngelus	7.8 / 10	02-21-2023	Atomic Heart is a good game that buries itself in the shadow of great games. There's a lot of creativity, flair and intriguing design, but the game seems to lack confidence. This leaves the plot feeling a little halfhearted and some gameplay features feeling like they were there to check a box rather than actually add anything to the game. When Atomic Heart is on, it is on, but it spends too much time in the doldrums to keep it from truly reaching excellence.	Read review

** Learn more about how to become a MetaMeter-approved Critic.

Game Info

Game Description / Storyline:

Atomic Heart is an adventure first-person shooter, events of which unfolds in an alternate universe during the high noon of the Soviet Union. The principal character of the game is a special agent P-3, who after an unsuccessful landing on enterprise “3826” is trying to figure out what went wrong.

RELEASE DATES:

DEVELOPER(S):

PUBLISHER(S):

GENRES:

SERIES/FRANCHISE:

GAME MODES:

GAME ENGINE:

DLC:

BUNDLED IN:

DIRECTOR(S):

PRODUCER(S):

DESIGNER(S):

PROGRAMMER(S):

ARTIST(S):

WRITER(S):

COMPOSER(S):

LINKS:

AGE RATING:

Detailed Information

GAME MODES:

GAME ENGINE:

DLC:

BUNDLED IN:

DIRECTOR(S):

PRODUCER(S):

DESIGNER(S):

PROGRAMMER(S):

ARTIST(S):

WRITER(S):

COMPOSER(S):

People Also Like

Follow VSG on Instagram

Your go-to for the news, reviews and info you need from the gaming industry. Without access. Without favor. Without interference.

Atomic Heart

What to Know

Critics Consensus

Where to Play

Rate and Review

Critic Reviews for Atomic Heart

Critic Reviews

Distribution

56

Full Review

Full Review

Full Review

Game Info

People Also Like

Follow VSG on Instagram

Subscribe