How to play Atomic Heart on PS5. Or is it better to buy the PC version?

If you want to play Atomic Heart on PS5 you need to know two things right away: the game is well optimized and the situation with it Cyberpunk 2077 did not repeat. In some places, there are even fashionable reflections today. However, without patches it is difficult to enjoy the passage.

Now more extensive

The first thing you notice when starting up is the incredible amount of noise. A cacophony of Soviet songs, environmental effects, NPC dialogue and the protagonist with a glove will almost immediately force you to open the sound settings on the console.

Sound problems are felt almost immediatelySound problems are felt almost immediately

Even with a decrease in all indicators except the main dialogues, the problem remains. Apparently this is a bug: very often voices sound like they come out of an iron flask under water, and words without subtitles cannot be distinguished at all. Sounds also do not go anywhere, although they become quieter. This is the first project where I had to reduce the sounds to 30% out of 100.

At the same time, the peaceful opening scene is very colorful. The graphics in Atomic Heart are missing stars from the sky, but it looks good. Juicy colours, good drawing distance and lots of small details. At the same time, the frame rate was stable even in battle, at least with us. Although, judging by the console test videos on the Internet, many have dropped to 30.

A very powerful moment. There are few in the game.A very powerful moment. There are few in the game.

Admittedly, it couldn’t have been done without a “but”. When the opponents are at a great distance, the models start to move with jerks from time to time, but in close combat the paint really peels off the robots, you can see the spare parts.

There is no point even talking about the inability to put markers on the map and the unexpected dimming of light sources in some rooms. In any case, these “styles” do not affect the gameplay. Therefore, they feel nothing more than annoying shortcomings.

And here we have a combo – a T-shaped model and a lighting problemAnd here we have a combo – a T-shaped model and a lighting problem

The real problems of the console version are more global. Most of the combat focuses on melee weapons and abilities. There’s no blocking, so you’ll have to regularly dodge attacks from aggressive machines, step aside and find good moments to attack. The mechanics hardly work, because when you dodge you usually lose sight of the enemies completely, there is no target acquisition. It takes a long time to turn around on the gamepad, which is why ranged combat is, paradoxically, more preferable on the console.

In addition, the attacks of robots almost always occur silently (perhaps this is still a sound bug), so it is impossible to determine where the next punch came from. Complementing all this is a completely insane sandbox of a conditionally open world. With a high level of fear, enemies will often appear out of nowhere and, of course, behind your back.

Red circles – improved attacks. It is after them that the robots are after Nechaev.Red circles – improved attacks. It is after them that the robots are after Nechaev.

A regular battle looks something like this: the player walks down the hallway, collides with robots, starts attacking, dodging, and takes three or four hits in the back. As Major Nechaev turns around, the jabbing continues. This makes it almost pointless to play on medium and even harder difficulty levels, especially in the early stages. You simply die because of non-optimized combat.

Even if you just try to shoot, the robots will close the distance quickly. You are literally forced to pick up the drain. Judging by the impressions of a colleague who played the game on PC, Dodges work much better there, but there will certainly be problems with the gamepad.

Just hello how are youJust hello how are you

You can get used to it, for this you will have to thoroughly pump the arsenal and local “magic”. Grinding for progression is rather a minus. It seems that the developers wanted to create dynamics in the level Doom Eternal or Wolfenstein: The New Order, but – alas. Due to the completely rudimentary open world and the need to “vacuum” the chests for the sake of upgrades, it did not work out. In addition, on a PC you can easily complete the game using only melee weapons and skip shooting almost completely, although on the gamepad everything is exactly the opposite – shooting is much easier and more efficient.

The second tangible issue was the ability of the glove. By default, you can use two skills and change them with the button, but for unknown reasons, this feature started to fail with us. Or the skills did not change at all, then instead of two, only one remained automatically. For 10 hours of passage, the bug has not disappeared – you have to wait for the patch.

We really hope the skill issue gets resolved firstWe really hope the skill issue gets resolved first

Fair is fair, another colleague of the editors, who played the game on PS5, had not mentioned most of the problems. Bugs in Atomic Heart are random, worse than any casino.

***

Despite the good optimization of Atomic Heart, it is not easy to play it on PS5. Some mechanics work poorly or feel superfluous. Behind countless bugs, it is difficult to see the important benefits that the new product certainly has.

While there are plenty of technical issues on PC, gameplay turned out to be smoother and more stable there, and important skills haven’t been disabled. Of course, you can get lucky, and the “styles” will pass, but before spending the hard-earned five thousand rubles, I would like a little more confidence. Atomic Heart is a solid 7 point game that can keep you entertained for a few evenings. If you’re a die-hard PlayStation user, just wait for the patches and you can read about the game as a whole in our lengthy review.