Mundfish, the game developer of Atomic Heart, is under the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. The game’s release has been marked by controversy, including criticism over its links to Russia amid the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, performance issues on certain platforms, and the latest scandal of featuring a cartoon with a racist stereotype.
According to PC Gamer, the problematic cartoon was first identified by a user on ResetEra and received numerous criticisms right after the game’s release. Mundfish has since issued an apology, attempting to rectify their mistakes so far.
One of the contentious episodes of the Soviet children’s program Nu, Pogodi! was found within the game. The 1978 “Museum” episode has caused outrage due to a racist representation of an African tribesman in the form of a statue. In this specific scene, the statue is fired by a bow and arrow it is holding, as a result of the statue’s antics.
Atomic Heart is set in a 1955 Soviet Union parallel reality, where chrome robots are in power. The player takes on the role of Major Sergey Nechayev, an amnesic World War II veteran tasked with destroying enemy robots. The game features in-game usage of pro-Soviet Russia propaganda, and the creator’s position on the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine remains ambiguous.
Mundfish’s official Twitter account posted an uncertain remark regarding their position on Russia invading Ukraine, which has affected the company’s reputation. The Ukraine Ministry of Digital Transformation has requested Valve, Microsoft, and Sony to halt the sale of Atomic Heart in Ukraine and urged “limiting” its distribution in other countries because of the potential use of money raised from game purchases to conduct a war against Ukraine.
The female robot twins of Atomic Heart and Yulia Tymoshenko, the head of the Batkivshchyna party in Ukraine, have also raised controversy, with their uncanny similarity. The game had performance difficulties at its release, especially on Xbox Series S, and ray tracing capability was not yet available on PC.
Despite all the controversies, Atomic Heart has managed to garner critical and commercial success, with a Metacritic score of 77 on average and a user rating of 7.6. The game began with an all-time high of 38,469 players and has consistently maintained 35,047 concurrent players. Atomic Heart, also dubbed as the “Russian BioShock,” is currently available on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC.
