Atomic Heart beginners guide: 8 things to know before starting

If it looks like a BioShock and walks like a BioShock, it’s… probably an Atomic Heart. The alternate history shooter, developed by Mundfish and out now for PlayStation, Xbox, and Windows PC, has a lot in common with Irrational’s seminal series of alternate history shooters, but only in a superficial sense. The Rapture is not. Before you dive into Rapture, here are eight important things to know. Atomic Heart.

How to highlight items

You’ll constantly scan your environment in Atomic HeartIt helps highlight important stuff in different colors. Blue indicates lootable containers; WeißIndicates NPC (or objects that you can interact with, like save stations or computers). OrangeSymbols enemies violet indicates key items related to the main mission you’re on.

Are you able to make the jump? Consider your hand.

There aren’t many platforming sections in Atomic Heart, but the few that show up are clunky, plodding, and arduous — not the sort of thing you want to repeat. It’s not always easy to gauge whether or not you can make a jump, but there’s one simple tell that works 100% of the time: If your hand is held outward (as seen in the screenshot below), you can make it. If it’s not, you can’t. And yes, there’s fall damage.

Image by Mundfish/Focus Entertainment via Polygon

Reset puzzles

Opening locked doors in Atomic HeartIt is a way to work out basic lock-picking problems. The puzzles can be of many kinds: you might have to set a sequence of button press, rotate an inner circle until it matches the color of its outer counterpart, and so on.

If you’re stumped on one specific puzzle, you can back out, then immediately jump back in to get a randomized variety of the same puzzle. More often than not, I’ve found the second roll easier than the initial one. There is no penalty for resetting, either: Sometimes you might have to solve a multipart puzzle, but in backing out, the game will acknowledge that you’ve solved the first part and start you at the second.

Oh, a heads up: Enemies can attack you while you’re trying to solve a puzzle. You need to make sure that the space is cleared before you begin!

All your surplus loot is automatically put into storage

There are no limits to the amount you can keep of any resource that is used in crafting. But you’re restricted in how many consumable supplies — med packs, ammo, that sort of thing — you can cart around. It’s not possible to monitor your weight and limit the amount of items you have, but you can manage them through a derivative grid-style inventory.

Rest goes to your permanent storage. You can get access by interfacing with Nora (fridge-sized computer) near save stations. When you’re in the middle of a mission, you can clear extra space in your inventory by pressing R3 while tabbing over a specific item you don’t need to carry — that’ll send it to storage automatically. However, you can’t get it back into inventory unless you visit a Nora station.

By the way: The storage menu doesn’t tell you what each object is when you hover the cursor over it. But if you tab over to the “disassembly” view, you’ll be able to see information about what those items actually are.

Image: Mundfish/Focus Entertainment

Concentrate on one skill

Atomic HeartYou can pick up a few of these skills. BioShockThe ability to use elemental skills inspired by nature. But the equipment process is limited (you can only have two equipped at once, and can only switch at Nora stations), and doesn’t incentivize using multiple skills. You’re better off picking one skill you enjoy and making it ridiculously overpowered than you are trying to incrementally power-up a little bit of each one.

You can’t go wrong with the frost skill

If you’re focusing on one skill, the frost one, FrostbiteYour best option is to use. Holding down L1/LB will freeze enemy for a brief time using a steady flow of ice. Atomic Heart is at its most difficult when you’re getting overwhelmed by crowds. Frostbite makes it possible to control crowds. Bonus: If you rank your enemies, they will take repeated damage due to being frozen.

The Electro pistol can be upgraded

In abundance is ammo Atomic Heart (not exactly Resident Evil levels of scarce, but still notably less than you’d get in, say, a Fallout game). Energy weapons, like the Electro pistol, don’t use ammo; instead, they operate on a charged meter that recharges fairly quickly. Since the Electro pistol essentially has unlimited ammo, provided you take the time to let it recharge between combat encounters, you’re better off upgrading it over those that rely on how scrupulous you are at scrounging for bullets.

Are you becoming frustrated? Don’t let yourself become frustrated

Atomic Heart is a maddening game, frustrating in ways that seem like the developers don’t even want you to play it. Switching to easy mode — called “Peaceful Atom” in the game’s parlance — mitigates some of the frustration, making it feel more like a traditional first-person shooter. Also, you’ll worry less about the fact that you can only save at save stations.