The long-overdueAtomic Heartis finally here, and if the mixed reviews of the game are anything to go by,I’m one of the game’s biggest fans out there, having declared it one of the best single-player shooters of this generation (with the caveat that, frankly, the competition isn’t that strong from the likes of the more-of-the-same Far Cry 6 and thedecent-but-flawed Deathloop?). My biggest issues with the Atomic Heart stemmed from just about everything related to its narrative; the writing, to the voicework, o the story itself just felt so much less cohesive than the rest of the game that it kind of led me to wonder ‘What went wrong there?’ It’s strange to have a game that on so many levels feels like a glossy production, yet in that one area feels socheap.
It’s at this point that I think terms like ‘Eurojank’ start cropping up, where certain elements of the game–like dialogue–get lost in literal or cultural translation, and what perhaps sounds good in the game’s native Russian doesn’t translate so well to English. But given the game’s Russian roots that, aspointed out on Eurogamer, its developer Mundfish is trying to downplay as much as possible, I suspect that the game’s shallow story and glaring lack of meaningful critique of the Soviet system is more a matter of wariness than ignorance.
While Mundfish is currently headquartered in Cyprus, they were originally based in Moscow, and an investigation in January byAIN.capitalclaims Mundfish’s privacy policy allowed it to hand over user data to Russian authorities. That same investigation claimed that the studio’s legal address was in Moscow too, despite Mundfish claiming they’ve been headquartered in Cyprus since 2017. The studio has also received substantial investment from Russian investment firm GEM Capital (as well as Tencent and Gaijin Entertainment).
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So, in the parlance of today, Mundfish’s apparent desire to cover up its Russian origins seems a little ‘sus,’ but I for one am of the belief that, well, I don’t really blame them. They didn’t get to choose the country they were born in, and in one ofseveral statements on Twitterto their own defence they said they’re “undeniably a pro-peace organisation against violence against people,” while not speaking directly about Russia’s war on Ukraine. Their unwillingness to speak directly on the topic is also natural, given Putin’s tendency to arrest those who speak out against the war (while dozens of Russian businesspeople, some of whom have apparently not aligned with Putin on Ukraine, havedied in mysterious circumstances since the start of 2022).
I have no reason to think that the folks at Mundfish are anything other than a game development studio full of passionate geeks who’ve spent an unthinkable amount of time working on this game, and doing everything possible to make sure they don’t get boycotted by western media on the one hand, or falling foul of Putin on the other. It’s not an enviable balance to strike.
In that same string of tweets, Mundfish also something that leads into what Ireallywant to talk about. They wrote “We do not comment on politics or religion,” andboydon’t they, because nowhere is their avoidance of political subject matter more glaringly clear than in a game set in an alt-history USSR–a setting veritablyrifefor interesting commentary, be that political, philosophical, or otherwise.
It’s the inherently political nature of the story, themes, and setting in Atomic Heart that makes the total lack of critique jarring. This is a game where you’re a special agent who works closely with high-ranking members of the Communist Party, the state apparatus. The ‘big twist’ is that your character is partly mind-controlled to do the bidding of the lead scientist behind the great robo-experiment, who also plans on enacting a plan for global mind-control called ‘Kollektiv.’ There isso muchmaterial here that it’s almost easier to make this game take some kind of stance than to somehow skirt around it, and yet through the miracle of pulpy storytelling and an unbelievably oblivious protagonist, Atomic Heart manages it.
Atomic Heart is a sci-fi story about cybernetics, yet doesn’t touch on the widespread censorship of science and cybernetics in the Soviet Union, which resulted in the suppression of valuable research because it didn’t fit the party line; there’s a bid of ‘science gone mad’ in there, but in the end everything tracks back to megalomaniacal individuals who want to use the power of the game’s magical substance (Polymer) for their own gain.
To set a game in a Nazi-run alternative timeline andnothave anything to say about Nazism would be a little weird, right?
Put it this way: you could have pretty much the same story if you swapped out the game’s overriding ideology of communism and Sechenov with capitalism and some menacing corporate entrepreneur modelled on Elon Musk. It’s a ‘one size fits all’ story with nothing distinctly ‘Soviet’ about it other than the presentation (which is lovely, but ultimately surface-level). Again, we can’t force that expectation on a game studio who just wants to make their damn game under a regime that doesn’t take too kindly to free speech, but it’s kind of fascinating to see a game of this sort lack any kind of stance.
There’s also an interesting moment where the game touches on the topic of ‘robosexuality’ which, as you may have guessed, is the romantic attraction of humans to robots (its reciprocity remains a bit of a mystery). The subject is mentioned, the protagonist makes some half-assed comment about it (admitting like the butch bonehead he is that some of the robots are ‘kinda hot’), and… that’s it. No real exploration of the subject, no attempts to use it as an allegory for homosexuality, no nothing. Again, with Russia’s increasinglydraconian stance on LGBT rights, you can see why the developers may have deemed it best to steer clear of a topic that could aggravate the higher power that it seems to still have ties with.
Part of what inspired this feature was a much-upvoted comment on some YouTube channel that said “If Atomic Heart is pro-Soviet Union, then BioShock is pro Ayn Rand,” which frankly does a massive disservice to the latter. While I don’t think Atomic Heart is pro-Soviet, it’s certainly not anti-Soviet either; it’s simply a silly sci-fi story that happens to be set in a visually distinctive and characterful vision of the Soviet Union (which, it has to be said, seems pretty damn idyllic until a couple of mishaps occur).
Bioshock’s setting of Rapture, meanwhile, is a spectacular and alluring embodiment of Rand’s Objectivist ideology. The setting, with its grandeur and rampant elitism and mad, individualistic inhabitants. Everything in the city is privately owned, and there’s a sense that the inherent inequality of Rapture’s ideology meant that the city’s eventual collapse was inevitable, not some ‘terrible accident’ like that which happens in Atomic Heart. Another comparable pair of games is MachineGames’ Wolfensteins, which in their alt-history Nazi-run world make it abundantly clear in myriad creative ways that Nazism ain’t a great thing. Because to set a game in a Nazi-run alternative timeline andnothave anything of note to say about Nazism would be a little weird, right?
I’m not of the belief that every game needs to be political, and probably share Bioshock creator Ken Levine’s thoughts when he told me thatwe don’t need to apply politics to games like the Far Cryseries. But in a game set in such a politically intriguing setting, and which displays its love for Bioshock through both its design and direct references, it feels kind of incongruous that it has so little to say.
To me, Atomic Heart’s narrative scarcity, which jars with its otherwise excellent design, is indicative of a game whose creativity has been stifled by a higher power that’s time and again proven itself to be violently intolerant of criticism. At a time whenmore and more Russian people identify with the Soviet Unionand Vladimir Putin is on an imperialistic surge to reclaim ex-Soviet territories whilemourning the collapse of the Soviet Union, even suggesting that the USSR was kind of messed up could be interpreted as a veiled criticism of modern-day Russia.
There’s still plenty to like about Atomic Heart beyond that however. It’s a cool, strange game that I heartily recommend. It just feels like it’s a few steps and a ‘freedom of expression’ away from being a classic.
