Ukrainian Government Moves To Rip The Atomic Heart Off Your PlayStation, Xbox, And Steam Deck

Via Atomic Heart

 

Released on 21 February 2023, the Atomic Heart video game has drawn serious moral and ideological criticisms from those who argue that buying the single-player first-person shooter is akin to supporting Russia’s war on Ukraine. 

 

The Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister, who is also the Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, revealed in a Tweet on Friday, March 24, 2023, that he’d written to the leaderships of Sony, Microsoft, and Valve asking them to block the Atomic Heart video game from their platforms.

 

Fedorov tweeted the official letters he’d sent to the trio of entertainment corporations, citing concerns of “a potential risk that money raised from purchases of the game will be transferred to Russia's budget, so it will be used to fund the war against Ukraine.” 

 

The Atomic Heart was one of the most anticipated first-person shooters since the game’s announcement in 2018. Developed by Mundfish and published by Focus Entertainment and 4Divinity, the Atomic Heart incorporates a fascinating blend of first-person shooter and RPG characteristics. In other words, the game offers a retro-futuristic take on an alternate post-WWII 1950s Soviet Union, where technology is far more advanced than our present reality. 

 

Mundfish released Atomic Heart for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. The story follows the fictional character Major Sergey Nechaev (also known as P-3), whose mission is to shut down a group of rogue robots terrorizing locals. 

 

Initially receiving generally positive reviews upon its release in February, the Atomic Heart critics, some of whom are Ukrainian gamers, decry the game’s pro-Russian hype amidst the invasion of Ukraine and the developer’s alleged connection with Russia. Although there’s currently no verifiable evidence of proceeds from the Atomic Heart replenishing the war chest of the Russian military, critics accuse Mundfish of having a connection with sanctioned Russian state-owned companies and enterprises. Mundfsih denies these allegations.

Via Focus Entertainment

Ukrainian YouTuber Harenko echoed Fedorov’s concerns. “Some users could make a claim that they could simply pirate it [Atomic Heart], and pay no money to the Russian devs, and still enjoy the game. To that, I can’t say anything. At that point it depends only on your moral compass,”Harenko said.

The Ukrainian government’s letter urging the three major distributors to pull Atomic Heart from their platforms follows calls from critics both within and outside the gaming sphere for gamers to boycott the game perceived as Russian propaganda. They point out ‘suspicious’ details like the red banners decorated with hammers and sickles that frequently appear in the game, which according to the Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine, promotes “the communist regime and Soviet symbols.”

There’s also criticism of the fictional Major Sergey Nechaev portrayed in the game as the hero KGB agent loyal to the USSR. As the Ukrainian YouTuber Harenko put it in a video titled ‘Don’t Buy Atomic Heart,’ “This kind of approach to the showcase of the USSR and communism walks a thin line between using it for world-building and praising it.” The video amassed over two million views as of the time of writing this.

Critics’ calls for a boycott of the Atomic Heart have valid grounds for scrutiny, but so is the fact that the game’s production predates Russia’s escalated invasion of Ukraine by four years. Meanwhile, both the game’s developers and investors deny ties to Russia and the current Russian regime.

NBC News reported that Ukraine’s deputy minister of digital transformation, Alex Bornyakov, accused the video game of having “Russian roots and romanticizes communist ideology and the Soviet Union.” In addition to the ministry’s letter to Sony, Valve, and Microsoft, Bornyakov said they’re equally working on “limiting the distribution of this game in other countries due to its toxicity, potential data collection of users, and the potential use of money raised from game purchases to conduct a war against Ukraine.”