Yahoo Finance Pro-Russia propaganda or mindless shoot-’em-up? The Atomic Heart controversy, explained
I’m on top of the world looking down on a pixillated workers’s paradise. Monorails twinkle, suspension bridges shimmer, drones whirr like dystopian worker bees. A statue looms through the clouds: a huge vengeful woman with a sword high in one hand, a giant atom cradled in the other. “We are now flying over the majestic Call of the Motherland monument – erected in 1949 to mark the Soviet Union’s victory in World War II,” says a soothing female voice.
This tableau is unfolding early in a controversial new video game, Atomic Heart. Call of the Motherland, the statue past which I am whizzing at speed, is constructed from nothing but code. But its inspiration is a very real chunk of Stalinist brutalism: the 300-foot-tall Motherland Calls, which stands above the Volga River and pays shrieking tribute to the dead of Stalingrad.
It’s one of dozens of references to the Soviet Union at the height of its power squirrelled into this cartoonish shooter. And these winks and nods towards Stalinism are proving controversial. Atomic Heart is accused of distorting history by depicting Soviet Russia as a social and technological triumph. There have been claims, moreover, that it is larded with ugly slurs against Ukraine. And accusations that the publisher has covert links to Moscow.
That final charge has proved stickiest. Developer Mundfish is based in Cyprus but its chief executive previously worked at the Russian communication company Mail.RU. Mundfish has also received funding from GEM Capital, a Cyprus-based investment fund established by a former chief executive of Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom. Moreover in Russia, the game is distributed by VK Play – part of the VKontakte social media platform owned by – yes – Gazprom.
Then there is the fact that VK Play’s president is Vladimir Kiriyenko – son of Vladimir Putin’s deputy chief of staff, Sergey Kiriyenko. Both are subject to US sanctions following the Ukraine invasion. There are also unverified claims Mundfish was founded in Moscow and switched its HQ to Cyprus in 2022. In the “about us” section of its website, Mundfish praises “an incredible team… from 10 countries including Poland, Ukraine, Austria, Georgia, Israel, Armenia, UAE, Serbia, and Cyprus”. Only nine countries are listed. Which one might it have omitted? That line, moreover, is absent from Mundfish’s Russian-language website.
Some of Atomic Heart’s missteps are simply a case of poor judgement. Five days after launch Mundfish was forced to apologise when players discovered a racist cartoon at one of the “save points” in the game. On a TV screen, the viewer can see footage from Nu, Pogodli, a Tom and Jerry-style animated series that ran in the Communist bloc in the Sixties. Unfortunately it’s an offensive caricature of African “natives” – and Mundfish immediately put its hands up. “We apologise if using the vintage cartoon or music has caused hurt or insult. We will edit the parts in question”.
Mundfish has been vague about its Russian connections. “Founded in 2017, by a team of four like-minded gaming enthusiasts, Mundfish is a video game development studio headquartered in Cyprus,” says the company website. It continues: “Mundfish is led by a talented global team focused on creating an original, captivating, and unique gaming experience with their first title, Atomic Heart”. Not mentioned is that the core team is from Moscow.
Back in the former USSR, Atomic Heart’s creators appear all too happy to tap into nostalgia for the Soviet Union. A Moscow launch event for the game in November was a love letter to Soviet kitsch. The downtown venue was adorned with Communist touches: signs read “Glory to Soviet engineers” and “Comrade, join the society of tomorrow”. Then there is Atomic Heart’s launch date of February 21 2023. That is also the first anniversary of Vladimir Putin recognising the independence of so-called “separatist” regions in East Ukraine. Coincidence? Or a sly salute to Moscow?
Atomic heart has racist imagery. pic.twitter.com/WUlPfabFQ8
— Wilsenal🇩🇴 (@wilsenal) February 28, 2023
Mundfish’s response to these accusations has been to say in vague terms that it is “pro-peace” and “against violence”. “Guys, we have noted the questions surrounding where we, at Mundfish, stand,” the company declared in a Twitter thread.
“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 organisation against violence against people. We do not comment on politics or religion. Rest assured; we are a global team focused on getting Atomic Heart into the hands of gamers everywhere.”
What the company didn’t do was condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The only one breaking ranks is the composer of the soundtrack, Mick Gordon. He has donated his fee to Red Cross Australia’s Ukraine Crisis Appeal. “My motivations are solely to support the Ukrainian people affected by the conflict,” he said.
Mundfish has also denied that Atomic Heart was sharing player data with Kremlin authorities. It was forced to do so after it emerged that the company’s Russian website included a clause informing users their data may be collected. And that it would be sent to the Federal Security Service, the modern version of the KGB. “Our game and website DO NOT collect any information or data,” it told GamesRadar.
“The website’s privacy statement is outdated and wrong, and should have been removed years ago. We have shut down the shop to assure our fans of the integrity of our studio and products. We apologise for any confusion on this matter.”
Whether the game constitutes Soviet propaganda is harder to say. What is undeniable is it is indebted to the BioShock games– a series of first-person shooters that savagely satirised American libertarianism and Evangelical Christianity.
Atomic Heart borrows its gameplay beats and retro-futurism from BioShock. What about the satire? The player fills the boots of “P-3”, a World War II veteran summoned to Soviet research hub Facility 3826. The Facility was the creation of scientist Dmitry Sechenov, whose breakthroughs in artificial intelligence have allowed the Soviet Union to win the Second World War (though not before Germany had devastated much of Europe by unleashing something called the “Brown Plague”).
The game begins in 1955. A saboteur named Petrov has reprogrammed the robots who crew Facility 3826 to massacre all humans. Back in Moscow, the Politburo has ordered the immediate shutdown of the complex – putting them in direct conflict with Sechenov.
Soviet symbolism abounds. In that early scene, the player swoops past the Call of the Motherland statue in a flying car. There is also a huge brutalist skyscraper modelled on Stalin’s “Seven Sisters” high-rises that loom over Moscow to this day.
But if these flourishes are intended to evoke the USSR at the peak of its powers, do they cross into propaganda? Playing the game, the player will be left with no doubt as to the dark side of Soviet manifest destiny. The central conflict is between the Politburo and Sechenov. The implication is that the latter is a power-hungry madman who has poisoned the Communist dream. Whatever Atomic Heart is, it isn't a love letter to the Soviet Union. This is a paradise lost, fatally undone by its Prometheus complex.
More pernicious is the suggestion that the game is full of sly insults toward Ukraine. Early on, the player can kill giant wandering pigs – one charge made online is that this is a reference to “pigg”, a Russian slur against Ukrainians. The presence of drones carrying flowers is meanwhile interpreted as a reference to Russian drones in Ukraine – colloquially known as “geraniums”.
There is also an early encounter with two highly sexualised robots, which have featured heavily in the game’s marketing. They are essentially sex-bot versions of C-3PO, outfitted with stylised silver braids. The claim here is that the braids wink towards the Ukrainian traditional headdress as favoured by former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
All of the above is impossible to prove, though that hasn’t stopped politicians in Ukraine from calling for a boycott of the game. Kyiv’s Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine has written to Sony and Microsoft seeking a ban on selling digital versions of the game in Ukraine.
“We also urge 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,” it added.
But if Atomic Heart is propaganda, then it misses the mark. In my playthrough, I had to continually remind myself I hadn’t travelled back in time to play a less engaging version of BioShock. One particular issue was dialogue that seemed to have been written by a gaggle of giggling 14-year-olds. Gratuitous swearing abounded. And an encounter with a machine that allows you to upgrade your weapons was an excuse to include more double entendres than a triple-bill of The Inbetweeners.
If Mundfish truly wanted to turn me, the unsuspecting shoot-’em-up addict, into a Soviet shill, they might have started by making a better game.
