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Atomic Heart

Talking open world, time to beat, and monetisation: A Q&A with Atomic Heart's developer, Mundfish

We chat with the team about this upcoming first-person shooter to get an idea about what we can expect from it.

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Very recently, it was revealed that the BioShock-esque first-person shooter, Atomic Heart would be arriving later this year. While we don't have an exact release date just yet, a new trailer (that you can find below) stated that the game would be coming in "#######ber 2022", which basically means we can look forward to it arriving anytime between September and December. With that release window in mind, we had a chance to conduct a brief interview with the developer of Atomic Heart, Mundfish, via email, where we asked the team about the delay, the open world, and the monetisation of the title.

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Gamereactor: The game initially was supposed to land in 2020 - what happened to the development process, which necessitated such a delay? Was it the scope that expanded?

Mundfish: At that time, we decided that the game needed more time to realize our vision, and the scope has also changed. We do not want Atomic Heart to be a rushed release since we've put so much soul in this project.

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Gamereactor: Can you perhaps elaborate a bit on the game's open world - can players pretty much navigate a vast open space, or is it more "broadly linear"?

Mundfish: Let's say that we definitely won't compete with games like Assassin's Creed or GTA in terms of world size, but there will be enough interesting things to explore and uncover.

Gamereactor: How RPG-like is the main structure of the game? Are there quest hubs, friendly NPCs chatting and welcoming you to a safe place? Or are you truly alone?

Mundfish: Please wait for more details on the world structure soon!

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Gamereactor: How long are you expecting a play through of Atomic Heart to last?

Mundfish: We're aiming for around 20 hours for the critical path, and even more, if you want to do all the side activities.

Gamereactor: Do you consider Atomic Heart the start of a big franchise, and if so, are there already ideas for a sequel?

We have ideas about how to expand the franchise with novellas, comics, etc. We already have ideas on the sequel, and we really hope that players will like the game so we can tell more stories in this universe.

Gamereactor: Monetisation time - does the game consider extra forms of monetisation, like an NFT initiative or microtransactions, and if so; can you perhaps provide some context as to how they fit into the broader scope of the game?

Mundfish: Atomic Heart is a full-price, AAA single player adventure with no additional bells and whistles, period. And of course, we are looking at how the industry is evolving, and there are some interesting trends that can be explored in the future. We'll share DLC plans later, and we don't have any thoughts on NFT at this moment.

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Gamereactor: What has been the single biggest hurdle in creating the game? Has it been technical in nature, or artistic?

Mundfish: A bit of both — for a new team with such an ambitious first project there were challenges for sure. This has been an amazing journey and we can't wait to welcome players in the world we created.

Thanks to Mundfish for chatting with us. You can look forward to playing Atomic Heart for yourself later this year when the game lands on PC, PlayStation and Xbox consoles (also on Game Pass on day one) sometime between September and December.

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