An Interview With Mundfish, Creators of Atomic Heart
Set in an alternate universe during the high noon of the Soviet Union, Mundfish’s open world action/RPG Atomic Heart is set to steal players’ hearts. Gamers Heroes spoke with the team behind this title to learn more.
Gamers Heroes:
A retro-future version of the 1950s USSR is something we can safely say we’ve never seen in the world of video games – what inspired you to pursue this angle for Atomic Heart?
Mundfish:
That’s absolutely right — this setting has not been explored yet. And we made this our ultimate goal — to create an unforgettable universe that will immerse players and let them take a look at Soviet sci-fi which is incredibly unique.
Gamers Heroes:
We’re a sucker for first-person action RPGs – were there any titles in the genre that inspired the development of Atomic Heart?
Mundfish:
We’re fans of games like BioShock, Half-Life, Doom. Since the beginning, we’ve wanted to place Atomic Heart on the same level as those games. At the same time, we’ve drawn inspiration from the science fiction of that era, the Soviet 50s-60s. Stanislaw Lem, Iosif Shklovsky, Strugatsky Brothers. The work of these geniuses was the foundation for the game.
Gamers Heroes:
Atomic Heart will support Nvidia RTX and DLSS – what was it like working with this cutting-edge technology?
Mundfish:
These technologies enable us to create truly next-gen graphics and realize the vision of the world just the way we wanted.
Gamers Heroes:
The idea of turning everything into a weapon in Atomic Heart via the “Chaika 3.0” device caught our eye – what inspired its development?
Mundfish:
Please wait for us to cover the weapon system in much more detail and we’ll tell you more about that!
Gamers Heroes:
Gameplay for Atomic Heart has been described as seamless, without any loading screens. We can certainly appreciate the gesture! What made you want to include this in Atomic Heart?
Mundfish:
The idea came to us when we were playing Prey (2017) – we really enjoyed the game but hated the loading screens between levels. Then, we’ve decided to do everything we can to eliminate the loading screens in Atomic Heart.
Gamers Heroes:
What was it like working with Mick Gordon on the music?
Mundfish:
Mick is exceptional! He is extremely talented, kind, and positive. The whole studio is proud of this collaboration. Hope he is as well! 🙂
Gamers Heroes:
We saw that you have an active Discord – what has it been like interacting with the community?
Mundfish:
Being in touch with your community is a big responsibility. It’s been great, we hope to welcome even more people to our server as we get closer to release!
Gamers Heroes:
We’re huge fans of Xbox Game Pass – what made you want to put Atomic Heart on the platform?
Mundfish:
We’ve been discussing this with Microsoft for a long time, and eventually decided to partner with them. We believe that the subscription services will make a big shift in the industry, and we want to be a part of that.
Gamers Heroes:
Outside of Atomic Heart, what other titles has your team been playing lately?
Mundfish:
We’re putting all of ourselves into development, but we really enjoyed discussing Cyberpunk 2077 and Guardians of the Galaxy recently. But we are playing games besides AAA.
All those interested can wishlist Atomic Heart on Steam here and you can follow the developers on Twitter here.
