Game News
Leading up to its launch Atomic Heart had marketed itself as a Bioshock-inspired technical marvel. And so far, the reviews have confirmed that this is mostly true with it being a spectacular shooter with gorgeous visuals. However, a key feature is absent and it’s not clear why. As of launch, Atomic Heart has no ray tracing even on the PC version.
We already knew that the console versions of Atomic Heart would be missing the desirable graphical feature. More specifically, it was thought that developer Mundfish intended to add ray tracing post-launch on consoles only. As for the PC version we expected it would support ray tracing from day one but that is no longer the case.
Noticing the absence of ray tracing, outlet Rock Paper Shotgun reached out to the game’s press team. They responded by explaining that this was not a mistake, and that ray tracing would be added to Atomic Heart in a post-launch update. This contradicts claims by game director Robert Bagratuni made just a couple of weeks ago.
Unfortunately, an exact reason for this change of plans was not provided. We assume that Mundfish either ran out of time or wasn’t happy with the state of its ray tracing. Either way PC players who pre-ordered Atomic Heart looking forward to its shiny visuals could be left disappointed. Thankfully, it does have support for DLSS and even DLSS 3 so those with high-end graphics cards have something to celebrate at least.
The reviews are all over the place
Reviews for Atomic Heart have been popping up and it has turned out to be very divisive. Scores vary from as low as 4/10 to a perfect 10/10. In addition to the lack of ray tracing critics panned Atomic Heart for its lack of accessibility, characters, and frustrating platforming. However, praise has been given for its ambitious design, world-building, and spectacular environments.
