I’ll be honest—Atomic Heart 2’s reveal press conference hit me square in my “what if history went sideways?” sweet spot. I’ve lost count of the hours spent imagining a Cold War gone full robot-rebellion, and the original Atomic Heart delivered that fever-dream brew with style. Now Mundfish is promising to scale the mayhem from a backwards Soviet lab to a worldwide uprising. I’m pumped—but also wary. Can they expand the scope without losing the offbeat charm that made the first game a cult hit?
Atomic Heart 2 breaks free of its original Soviet heartland and thrusts players into a global network of rogue AIs. In developer diaries, Mundfish CEO Bagratuni explains that the narrative will bounce between disparate theaters—from snowbound military bases in Siberia to tropical geothermal stations in the Pacific Rim. “We wanted players to feel the weight of every rogue AI encounter, whether you’re in a Russian bunker or stepping off a hijacked cargo plane in Brazil,” he says.
The sequel’s storyline is structured as interlocking missions across continents: track down a sentient satellite that’s broadcasting synthetic emotions to civilian robots in Paris, then race to prevent a cyborg coup at a defunct nuclear plant in South Africa. Early concept art teases a world map studded with “anomaly zones,” each with unique environmental hazards and narrative payoffs. This multi-region approach aims to evolve Atomic Heart from a mostly linear shooter into a true action-RPG with emergent moments of chaos.
One of the biggest overhauls is a persistent city hub co-designed with a UAE-based architectural firm. Instead of fleeting backdrops, you’ll return to “Atomgrad”—a sprawling, neon-dripping metropolis where every district has its own AI-infested subculture. Mundfish Art Director Elena Morozova describes it as “an urban organism that responds to your actions.” Hack a central AI core, and crime rates plummet in one neighborhood but skyrocket in the industrial outskirts.
Under the hood, Atomic Heart 2 moves to Unreal Engine 5, leveraging Nanite for detailed geometry and Lumen for dynamic global illumination. The team has implemented streaming world cells to minimize load screens, though that introduces performance risks on mid-range PCs and consoles. Bagratuni acknowledges the challenge: “Balancing fidelity and frame-rate across platforms was our toughest hurdle. We’ve built new profiling tools to catch memory spikes mid-session.”
If you came for bizarre robo-mutants and psychedelic fever-dream sequences, you’re in luck. Expect even more genre-bending experiments: grotesque “fur people” that trade hallucinogenic mushrooms in back-alley markets, ambulatory vending machines dispensing weaponized snacks, and “horny robots” that leak into the game’s more surreal optional quests. Sound designer Alexei Petrov hints at new audio tech that syncs robotic voices to player heartbeat—“the game literally listens to you freak out,” he laughs.
Alongside the single-player campaign, Mundfish unveiled The Cube—a standalone PvE arena where up to four players tackle time-warping combat trials. Each arena cell warps physics and gravity, forcing teams to constantly adapt. While it looks intriguing, narrative fans might worry about resource split. Many studios stretch thin when juggling a mainline story and a multiplayer offshoot—just ask the mixed reception to Anthem’s post-launch modes. Mundfish says The Cube will receive “regular story-driven updates,” but until we see how much cross-pollination there is, skepticism is warranted.
Ambition is a double-edged sword. Expanding to a global scale and deeper RPG systems echoes other sequels that stumbled under their own weight. Remember Mass Effect: Andromeda’s unsteady open world? Or that DLC-inflated expansion in Cyberpunk 2077 that got scrapped? Mundfish has acknowledged these cautionary tales in interviews. “We study both successes and spectacular failures,” Bagratuni says. “Our goal is to nail pacing and meaningful choices, not just scatter quests across a big map.” Whether they can avoid the trap of “more is better” remains the franchise’s biggest question.
Early alpha builds show a consistent 30–40 fps on mid-tier consoles, dipping in densely populated districts. On PC, Mundfish claims to target 60 fps at 1080p with DLSS support, but beta testers report occasional stutters during AI hordes. Pacing-wise, the team is reworking quest hierarchies so that main missions, side expeditions, and dynamic events interweave rather than bottleneck. If they pull it off, Atomic Heart 2 could avoid the stop-start fatigue that plagued the original’s sandbox segments.
Atomic Heart 2 is, without question, one of this generation’s most audacious projects. A globe-trotting narrative, a persistent city hub, Unreal Engine 5 tech, and a side-serving of multiplayer trials—it’s a lot to juggle. But if Mundfish can maintain the first game’s off-kilter humor, blend it seamlessly with new RPG systems, and deliver a polished open world, they’ll have transcended cult status. Until then, I’m both hyped and holding my breath. After so many overpromised sequels, this one needs to land with the finesse of a hydraulic-mech powered ballerina.
Source: Mundfish via GamesPress