Initially depicted as a retrofuturistic utopia, the game follows the quick collapse of the Soviet Union into a dystopia, after a robot uprising begins.

[7] A crafting system allows the player to piece weapons together from metal parts that can be detached from robots or taken from household appliances.

[13] After one of the released patches in June 2024, the game also offers accessibility settings, which include not only puzzles auto-solve, but also colorblind mode, auto QTE, auto-heal, and some others.

[14] Atomic Heart takes place on the grounds of Facility 3826, the Soviet Union's foremost scientific research hub in an alternate history 1955, located in the Kazakh SSR.

In 1936, scientist Dmitry Sechenov developed a liquidized programmable module called the Polymer, sparking massive technological breakthroughs in the fields of energy and robotics in the USSR and freeing much of the populace from manual labor.

As part of the Soviet Union's post-war reconstruction program, Dr. Sechenov created a wireless, networked artificial intelligence called "Kollektiv 1.0" that linked his robots together for greater efficiency.

THOUGHT is to be released alongside Kollektiv 2.0, and Sechenov boasts that it will usher in a true post-labor era for the entire world.

Major Sergey "P-3" Nechayev is a World War II veteran with memory problems, who was saved from a life-threatening injury in the past by Dmitry Sechenov.

With his AI partner Char-LES (nicknamed "Charles") attached to his glove, P-3 is tasked with confronting homicidal robots and failed biomechanical experiments of Facility 3826.

Using Zakharov's security clearance, they uncover more of P-3's past: he was previously critically injured in a mission in Bulgaria alongside his wife and fellow agent, Ekaterina.

While lying bleeding on the floor, Sechenov reveals that Zakharov used P-3’s Polymer implants to cause his blackouts, killing Molotov and Filatova.

Zakharov reveals his manifesto as he jumps into a vat of red Polymer, transforming it into a massive, black humanoid body that houses him, planning to exterminate the human race with Polymerize Beings.

Lebedev repairs P-3's glove and explains that Zinaida joined an anti-Kollective faction, declared war against Sechenov, and seeks to take control of NORA to make use of her weapon manufacturing capabilities.

Lebedev then tasks P-3 with finding BEA-D robots scattered around the complex, which contain parts of NORA's code which he can use to access her core and reset her.

P-3 considers it, but Lebedev puts him direct contact with Sechenov, who admits that he preserved Ekaterina's body and brain in neuropolymer, creating the Twins in hopes that one day she can be revived.

[17] "After escaping Limbo, P-3 and Ekaterina (now residing in the Polymer Glove) find the city of Chelomey in disarray as the rogue robots controlled by Zakharov have killed all of the civilians in the flying city, eventually P-3 escapes and continues to search for the rings located in the underwater facility of Triton, where he encounters scientific research involving Dolphins and mutant aquatic experiments."

Mundfish Studio was founded in 2017, in 2024 its key figures are the company’s president Robert Bagratuni,[18] CFO Evgenia Sedova, art director Artyom Galeev, and producer Oleg Gorodishenin.

On Galeev’s website, who had left the advertising segment at that time, there are sketches of some characters from the future game Atomic Heart, drawn as early as 2012.

Nvidia partially took on the marketing promotion, showcasing RTX capabilities at maximum settings in an Atomic Heart trailer at the Gamescom gaming convention in Cologne.

[32] Ed Power of The Daily Telegraph wrote that: "Playing the game, the player will be left with no doubt as to the dark side of Soviet manifest destiny.

"[33]Journalist Kevin Purdy of Ars Technica wrote that within the game: The USSR makes the world's best robots, its citizens live in a utopia where those robots do their menial tasks and labor, and even greater things are just about to happen...a world full of astounding promises, yet take apart that optimism by showing the hypocrisy, the false promises, the ego-driven leaders and actors causing so much pain, and the impact on real people's lives when it all comes apart...The Soviet State in Atomic Heart, and its maniacal leaders, are responsible for the death of untold thousands or millions of citizens at the hands of their own robots.

[32]Jason Faulkner of GameRevolution felt that while the game is frequently critical of the Soviet Union, it stops short of ever outright condemning it.

"[35] The game's soundtrack was written by three composers: Mick Gordon, famous for his work for video-game titles such as Doom, Prey and Wolfenstein (The New Order, The Old Blood, The New Colossus), Andrey "Boogrov" Bugrov,[36][37][38][39] and Geoffrey Day.

[37][38][39] Along with the original tracks created solely for the game, Atomic Heart also features popular Soviet songs and their remixes, including "Arlekino" and "Zvyozdnoye leto" by Alla Pugacheva, "Trava u doma" by Zemlyane, "Kosil Yas' Konyushinu" by Pesniary and more.

[40] The game's music composer Mick Gordon released a statement condemning the war and donating his fee from the project to the Red Cross Ukraine Crisis appeal.

[48][22] Since February 2024, Mundfish has removed mentions of its Russian office from the official website and positions itself as international company with "an incredible team… from 10 countries including Poland, Ukraine, Austria, Georgia, Israel, Armenia, UAE, Serbia, and Cyprus.

[57][58][59] IGN praised Atomic Heart for being "deeply ambitious, highly imaginative, and consistently impressive", though criticized its writing and "tedious" elements of gameplay, such as fetch quests.

They felt it took primary influence from BioShock, but criticized its combat and progression system as inferior, while being conflicted towards the story and characters.

[66] Similarly, Polygon felt that Atomic Heart failed to eclipse BioShock through its gameplay and attempts to tackle multiple themes at once.