The promising Soviet themed FPS-adventure Atomic Heart has a new short teaser, and it’s absolutely nuts with its weird depiction of an alternate universe USSR. The ambitious still has no release window but it’s set to come out for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Check it out here!
The elusive immersive sim genre still has a rough time getting a spot in the limelight. That’s despite many games in the genre long being hailed among the most influential and important games of all time. Titles like the original Deus Ex and System Shock revolutionized the way gamers approached gameplay and especially how to play.
You see, one of the cornerstones that defines immersive sims is a systemic world that allows players to tackle a set mission in a wide range of ways. Modern representations of this can be found in the Dishonored series and the new Prey. By giving a deep toolbox of skills, mechanics and open level design, no playthrough feels the same and no approach is wrong if it works.
Atomic Heart is an action RPG game. The story is about all the things that could have happened in the reality of the USSR but didn’t. Technical revolution has already occurred, robots, the Internet, holograms have already been invented, but all these innovations are immersed in the atmosphere of communism, imperialism and confrontation with the West. The protagonist of the game is a Soviet KGB officer and his Party sends him to the facility 3826 and are waiting for the report.
But despite a rabid fan-base of the genre, immersive sims also have the dubious honor of consistently failing to get the commercial success they truly deserve. Maybe it is exactly that open-ended approach to game design that makes it difficult for many gamers to get to grips with.
Nonetheless, every new entry in the genre is great news, especially if it looks as ambitious and over the top as Atomic Heart. The uncommon new setting of an alternate Soviet timeline where that regime enacts weird experiments that include mechanical apparitions and biological aberrations alike is a fresh breath of air.
