Why are people arguing about Atomic Heart?

Mundfish’s retro-future Soviet shooter has stirred up a whole lot of controversy.

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Atomic Heart was a bolt from the blue when itsfirst trailer dropped in 2018, showcasing a shining Soviet retrofuture FPS that seemed like it was learning all the right lessons from BioShock, Stalker, and the Metro series. Never mind that it was the debut game from a new developer—a Russian studio called Mundfish—it was laser-targeted at a category of players who devoured immersive sims and ambitious-but-flawed works of genius from East European studios alike. It very quickly became an object of internet obsession, a game we wereintrigued by but knew very little about.

But a lot has happened since then. In February last year, Russia invaded Ukraine, starting a war that has killed thousands on both sides and sparked one of the biggest refugee crises in modern history, withmillions of Ukrainians fleeing abroadto escape the war at home. Russia became an overnight pariah in the west,excised from fundamental mechanismsin the international banking system, deserted by some of the biggest corporations in the world—includingseveral gaming titans—and censured in the UN.

In the wake of that invasion, Atomic Heart’s Russian provenance became more than an interesting detail of the game’s development. As many kinds of Russian art found itself subject tointense scrutiny and swift bans, rumours began to swirl about Mundfish’s investors and excited fans feared their purchase would somehow end up funding a brutal war. Even though Mundfish says it’s based in Cyprus, gamers are still arguing about whether it’s okay to buy Atomic Heart.

An equivocal statement on the war

Although some kind of debate has gone on around Atomic Heart since Russia first invaded Ukraine, it was brought to the fore bya tweet from Mundfishlast January. In response to questions about where the studio stood in regards to the war, Mundfish tweeted that it was “a global team focused on an innovative game and is undeniably a pro-peace organization against violence against people,” and did not “comment on politics or religion”.

It also tweeted that it didn’t “condone contributors or spammers with offensive, hateful, discriminatory, violent, or threatening language or content,” and, indeed, has been criticised forblocking users that ask about its position on the war.

Guys, we have noted the questions surrounding where we, at Mundfish, stand. We want to assure you that Mundfish is a developer and studio with a global team focused on an innovative game and is undeniably a pro-peace organization against violence against people.January 16, 2023

It was not the statement of support for Ukrainian independence that some were hoping for. Mundfish’s reticence to even name the war in question sparked outrage, summed up bytweets from game designer Sergey Mohov, who mocked Mundfish’s position as “We’re for all the good things and against all the bad ones,” lambasting the studio for “having the unbelievable privilege to have this kind of position”.

“We’re for all the good things and against all the bad ones”

Mundfish’s statements that it was only interested in “getting Atomic Heart into the hands of gamers everywhere,” or that it was “For players who just want to play,” struck some people as, at best, a marketing attempt to redirect the conversation surrounding its game or, at worst, some kind of tacit support for the actions of its original home country. A video from a Ukrainian YouTuber titled “Please, Don’t Buy Atomic Heart”—which has managed to accrue nearly 2 million views in just over a week—highlighted the absurdity of a game based around an alt-history USSR claiming it doesn’t “comment on politics,” calling it “absolute nonsense” and “one step away from the types of gamers who say ‘I don’t like politics in my videogames’ and then immediately open up Fallout”.

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We’re for all the good things against all the bad ones. Imagine having the unbelievable privilege to have this kind of position. I can’t.The death toll in Dnipro is up to 35 now. Russia is to blame for it. Sanctions are there to stop its terror.January 16, 2023

On the other hand, whether it’s headquartered in Cyprus or not, Mundfish is a studio with Russian roots and Russian staff (with Russian family and Russian friends), asa 2019 article documenting a tour of its Moscow officewill attest. The Russian state has taken a hard line against any and all internal protest against its so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine,arresting thousands of protestors, threateningyears in prison campsover anti-war social media posts, andcharging a political opposition figure with treasonfor “spreading disinformation” about the Russian army.

Even when Russia isn’t at war, the country maintains a deeply alienating political system that has entrenched power among a cabal of lackeys and oligarchs for decades. The Russian political scientist and anti-war activistGreg Yudin described this systemas one that generates “incredible contempt and disdain for all kinds of politics” among Russians, who are “completely certain that there is no possible way to change anything through politics, that no change is possible in general”.

Marking oneself as anti-war in that kind of environment is an act of profound courage and incredible risk. It could be that Mundfish’s tweet was an ungraceful attempt to thread a political needle without jeopardising itself, its staff, or those associated with either.

I’ve reached out to the studio to ask about its statement on the war, and I’ll update this section if I hear back.

Following the money: Mundfish’s investors

In early 2021, over a year before Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine,Mundfish announced that it had secured fundingfrom three key investors: Tencent, GEM Capital, and Gaijin Entertainment (the maker of War Thunder). Tencent is, well, Tencent, the Chinese tech behemoth that ownswhole segments of the gaming industry, from a piece of Epic Games, Discord, andUbisoftto Riot Games in its entirety. But the other two quickly became more controversial in the wake of the invasion, with audiences placing both companies under the microscope to figure out where they stood in relation to the war, and whether they might be financially supporting the Russian state.

Here’s what’s definitely true: GEM Capital founderAnatoliy Paliy worked as first deputy general director for a Gazprom subsidiary—Gazprom Gazenergoset—in the past, before going into business for himself alongsideother Gazprom management types in the 2010s. Gazprom is Russia’s state-run energy giant which generates scads of cash for the government, has been instrumental in the ongoing economic warfare between Russia and the west, and which was reported to becreating its own private military companyas recently as last week.

Atomic Heart is also being distributed viaVKPlayin Russia—after sanctions ledSteam to effectively end businessthere—and a few other countries. VKPlay is run by VKontakte, a social media company often referred to as ‘Russia’s Facebook’ over whichGazprom has effective controlvia investments made by subsidiaries and affiliate companies.

Whether or not Paliy is personally associated with this or that infamous Russian oligarch is more tenuous and difficult to concretely establish, but GEM was still wheeling and dealing in the Russian energy sectoras recently as 2021. It’s hardly out of the realm of possibility that a businessman with Gazprom ties and investments in Russian energy—the sector where several oligarchs make their money—would be on first-name terms with some of Russia’s ruling elite.

Gaijin, meanwhile, came under fire for a reason that’s far easier to parse. In 2021, midroll ads for Gaijin’s games appeared in videos shot by a YouTuber in an area of theDonetsk People’s Republic, a pro-Russian separatist region of Ukraine that the Ukrainian government considers occupied territory (and which wasrecognised by Russia as a sovereign statejust prior to the 2022 invasion). The War Thunder logo was also visibly spray-painted onto props used in the video.

When questioned,Gaijin said it didn’t directly buy YouTube adson any channel “except a handful of extremely big ones”. All others, it claimed, were bought through YouTube itself or through advertising agencies. Gaijin said it doesn’t “provide political support to anyone anywhere,” and knows “nothing about politics and [prefers] to stay out of it”. The videos in question were made private, and Gaijin, in a statement echoing Mundfish’s own, said it prefers “to talk about games and games only”.

GEM Capital told games journalist Kirk McKeand that it hasno Russian investments as of 2022(like Mundfish, it now says it’s Cyprus-based), and Gaijin’s headquarters are in Hungary. Nevertheless, it seems unlikely thatnomoney earned by Mundfish and its investors from Atomic Heart’s sales will end up in the pockets of the Russian state, if only by taxation on whatever interests they still have in the country, so a refusal to purchase the game on those grounds seems pretty justified, but some people have rankled at what they perceive as a double standard here.

An Arabic Resetera user going by the nameAl-Dylan summed this viewpoint up in postwhich said it was hurtful to see people advocate only for boycotts “against Russia (and not even against Russia for how they helped destroy Syria, only for what they are doing in Ukraine),” while nothing is said “against the US for how they financed terrorists, invaded and completely destroyed our countries for decades, or Israel and its apartheid regime against Palestinians, or Saudi Arabia for what they’ve done not only in Yemen, but in the whole region by funding wahabist [sic] groups”.

After all, we exist in a world in which companies like Nintendoenjoy direct investmentsfrom the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund,Activision employs a former politician who defended tortureunder the Bush administration, themilitary uses videogames as a recruitment tool, and Call of Dutyworked with a man who helped fund right-wing death squadsin Nicaragua. To some people participating in the debate around Atomic Heart, it seemed arbitrary to boycott that game for its possible ties, but to let so much else slip by. Though, of course, the takeaway from this probably isn’t that Atomic Heartshouldn’tbe criticised, but that far more gamesshouldbe.

I’ve asked Mundfish about these issues, too, and I’ll update this section if I receive a response.

Fetishising the USSR

The takeaway from this probably isn’t that Atomic Heart shouldn’t be criticised, but that far more games should be

Atomic Heart lives and breathes Soviet kitsch, but not everyone finds it quaint. In particular, an event held for Russian games media drew criticism for its seemingly uncritical reproduction of Soviet revolutionary bombast: The walls were festooned with slogans reading things like “Glory to Soviet engineers,” everything was swathed in red, and in general the entire thing felt like a psychedelic retrofuture take onStalin’s funeral.

pic.twitter.com/tGQtT3XaOfNovember 24, 2022

To some, it felt like Mundfish—which hasdrawn criticism for downplaying its Russian rootsin the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—was actively celebrating the legacy of the Soviet Union, with all the connotations of ‘unity’ between Russia and Ukraine that entails. Sergey Mohov spoke up again, suggesting that the notion that Atomic Heart would be critical of the Soviet Unionwas clearly false given the nature of the event.The fact that the game’s protagonist—Major Nechaev—is an agent of the Soviet KGB has also raised eyebrows as onlookers worry the game might attempt to rehabilitate the notorious Soviet intelligence service.

Given that the game isn’t out yet, there’s not much to go on here beyond the screenshots, trailers, andbrief hands-on sessionswe’ve gotten so far from Atomic Heart. But we do know that the central narrative of the game centres around a bloody disaster at a Soviet research facility, where the robotic servants that are meant to tend to man’s needs have become unhinged and started murdering them instead. The theme here seems to be one of a utopian vision with a rotten, eventually-fatal flaw in its foundation, which has been a recurring theme in anti-Soviet art and literature since there’s been anti-Soviet art and literature.

When I got to play the game recently, I felt like I had the narrative figured out in the first 10 minutes: Your Soviet philosopher-king boss will turn out to be a bad guy and the dissidents he tasks you to hunt down will end up being right all along. I could be wrong, of course, and it could be the case that Atomic Heart ends up taking an uncritically apologetic view on the USSR, but that’d be quite a left-turn based on what we’ve seen so far.

So, should I buy Atomic Heart?

In the opaque bramble of our global economy, we’re all put in the difficult position to buy stuff that may be financially entangled with people, causes, or governments that, say, commit unspeakable atrocities. If we buy Hogwarts Legacy, are weindirectly supportingJK Rowling’s transphobic comments? If we buy Call of Duty, are we endorsingActivisionBlizzard’s harmful labour practices? And if we buy Atomic Heart, are we, through some winding, invisible scheme, backing Russia’s war against Ukraine?

We all have to make that decision ourselves. Personally I think the frustration felt by Ukrainians whose homes are being destroyed with Mundfish’s vague, equivocal statements is entirely understandable. But I don’t think there’s enough concrete evidence to condemn the studio as a whole as ‘pro-war’ or anything like it. I suspect Mundfish, like millions of Russians, had the rug pulled out from under it by the start of a war it didn’t ask for, and its moves since have been a clumsy attempt to navigate uncharted and choppy waters.

If you’re interested in grappling more with this tough moral question, someone basically made four seasons of a TV show about it:The Good Place, a philosophical 2016 comedy basically about how it’s impossible to get into heaven because modern society is unavoidably complicated.

One of Josh’s first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he’s been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He’ll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin’s Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you’re all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.

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