Comrades,
Recently we have collected all of your questions and put together detailed responses.
There is a lot of questions to go through so we will be releasing all of the answers throughout the week. Today we will be starting with 20 for you all.
Stay tuned as we will release more questions over the next few days!
- What stage of development is Atomic Heart in? All of the game’s functions, mechanics, and systems are written and functioning. Most of the features are polished and are already in the game. Currently, we are scaling the content, adjusting the combat, improving the shooting, adding micro-cutscenes where necessary, implementing story cutscenes, and everything related to the narrative of the game. This is the most important stage in terms of the direction of the game as a whole piece. We are quite close to the point where the game can be seen in its entirety, with highly detailed levels, mechanics, animations, and sound. This is a very important stage - it actually becomes clear how the game works in terms of their impact on the emotions of the player. This allows you to move from the perception of mechanics and individual levels - from particulars - to a more general understanding of things as a whole. It allows us to track things that were less clear from the closer view and improve them. In other words, the game is at the polishing stage.
- Is the map concept you’ve shown on the first trailer (not the teaser) still the same? If we are talking about the visual concept of the map - it changed quite a lot - almost completely. At the moment of the trailer release, the map was working as it was shown but during development, it went through several iterations and was reimagined, and changed drastically, both technically and visually. We think that all the changes that happened to the map made it much better.
- When will we see the first dev diaries (since they were confirmed a while ago)? Dev diaries are currently in the production and we are going to share them with you very soon. We have a particular concept of what we should include in the diaries - we want to show many aspects of the production and one of those aspects is the narrative, filming, and production of which is a thing of great interest for such a blog. Unfortunately, the pandemic took its toll and our filming plans moved quite a bit. Just be patient one last bit and your patience will be greatly rewarded!
- What's the reason behind the sudden design changes with P3’s outfit? From a standard coat with leather gloves to a jumpsuit with one singular glove. In 2018, during the trailer production, we haven’t finally decided where the game would start. It was an important question since it dictates what clothes would P3 wear. In the end, we decided that the game would start in the Vavilov complex, in the laboratory on the top floor of the research institute. That’s why he’s wearing a standard Facility worker outfit. Speaking of why P3 lost one of his gloves - it’s connected to the super abilities. Back then we thought that both of the hands would have the augmentations but during the development, we’ve come to the conclusion that only one left hand should be augmented. Hence, we took off his right glove.
- What was the main inspiration for the game? We don’t have a single source of inspiration, meaning our inspiration doesn’t come from a singular source. We’ve been influenced by many modern and not so modern works. Strugatsky brothers, TV series such as Black Mirror and games like Dark Souls or Dead Space. To be frank, inspiration comes to us from everywhere. Atomic Heart is a unique project in many ways. From a first glance, it may look like a Bioshock series - you may have such an impression from some of the trailers but as you dig deeper this appears to be only the first layer, and we have many more of those layers.
- Will there be a new trailer released soon? Yes, we will have a new one soon.
- Who will be the voice of P3 (both English and Russian versions)? P3 will be voiced by the actor who plays him in-game. No one will perform it better than him in Russian. We’ve checked many options but concluded that the most authentic way is to play yourself. We have not discussed the English version yet, it is better to film/voice-over all the narrative parts and then consider the best actor for the English version of P3.
- Will there be a digital or maybe even physical soundtrack released along with the game? We have lots of music - we compose it ourselves and work with famous authors. Even if the game won’t have a physical release we will add the soundtrack to some of the streaming platforms for sure. The question is what platform to use, but it’s too early to discuss this.
- What developmental challenges have the Mundfish team had to face during the continuing production of Atomic Heart? What have you learned from these challenges? During the development of such a large-scale project, there are always many challenges. One of the recent challenges is surely the Covid-19 pandemic - the pandemic has made its adjustments to the filming schedule of story cutscenes for the game.
- Will the game’s combat feature gore? The combat is quite gory, as well as the rest of the game. You will experience plenty of GORE!
- Can you pet the dog? No, we don’t have dogs. But you may pet a pig. Do you like petting pigs? You’ll know when you pet one in Atomic Heart.
- How will the Lore be elaborated in the game? Atomic Heart lore is developed as much as possible for a game of this genre. There are many different entities in the game variously intertwined with the complex systems and interconnections between each other. Some of the entities, such as the “Kollective” ecosystem affect how the robots interact with each other in-game and during the game, you can study how they work, try different interactions, and see how the system reacts to such actions. Each robot, each creature, and technology in the game has its own aim and purpose. All studies that were carried out at the Complex are described in great detail - each study had its own “initiator” - a scientist or an engineer with their own background, motivation, and social rating. The player often hears the radio broadcast which immerses him in the events of that time, he reads the correspondence of the perished employees. There you can hear the political debates on Polymer Education and so-called “attracting audio clips” (they avoided the concept of advertising), and these audio messages reveal the essence and purpose of the many technologies of the Facility. At the main Exhibition - VDNKh - you may find lots of information about the lore of the game - it is probably the largest narrative-vise dungeon of the game.
- About how large is the world planned to be? The world size is not so huge for the modern standard but it is filled with absolutely incredible events. We strive not to spread the thinnest layer of butter over a tremendous piece of bread. We do the opposite - create concentrated pleasure for the player, bring them the experiences that they won’t get in other games. In such context size of the world no longer matters
- How long will it take to finish the game? (approximately) It will take 20 hours to finish the main story. But in order to properly understand it, most likely you’ll need to do it several times.
- Will the game be dubbed in different languages or subtitled only? We’ll have the subtitles on all main languages. Both Russian and English will definitely be dubbed. Voice acting for other languages is still under discussion.
- Will Atomic Heart still have glory kills\ finishers? Yes, we have finishers but mostly they will be used during “shock kills”. We also have the concept of a reverse finisher where players have dozens of ways to perish - we try to diversify these terrible demises to make them as impressive as possible.
- Will the inventory be limited or can we use any amount of weapons, resources, and other necessary items? The inventory is not limited but will give you stamina debuff when you are encumbered which affects your agility and reaction. So tidying up your inventory is a must.
- What kind of Robots will be featured? Will there be friendly bots to help you throughout the game or will all robots be hostile? You’ll definitely find some friendly robots. But you will mostly find extravagant enemies that are fun to fight.
- Will there be any player customization? Like clothing or hairstyles? There is no hair and outfit customization. Major Nechaev has only 3 days to solve all the problems, he doesn't have time for dress up and haircuts.
- Will there be a female playable character? The plot was originally written from the point of P3, a man, KGB officer. In the early stages of the development, we considered the option to choose the player’s gender but in the end, we decided that the value of such choice is controversial in relation to the cost of voice-over, duplication of lore elements, filming, animations, and thousands of other things that this decision requires.