The release of Atomic Heart Game Pass swept away competitors like Bethesda’s Hi-Fi Rush, putting Mundfish’s Soviet-themed allohistorical FPS game at the top of the Xbox charts despite the controversy surrounding it.
As reported by TrueAchievements, data from Atomic Heart’s first week suggests nearly 120,000 people dove headlong into Mundfish’s red-tinged neo-dystopian shooter.
That number eclipses Hi-Fi Rush, the surprise rhythm game from Bethesda and Tango Gameworks, and the classic James Bond adventure GoldenEye 007, which TrueAchievements says drew around 70,000 players each in their respective first weeks on Gamepass.
It also managed to beat the Harry Potter-inspired RPG Hogwarts Legacy, whose overall view on Xbox apparently weighed in at around 100,000 in its first week.
There are several potential reasons for this. The first is that the game is, at its core, controversial. Given Mundfish’s alleged ties to the Russian government (see more in the italicized section below), the story game exploded on social media, enticing players to try it out.
Plus, while our Atomic Heart review praised the weirdly wonderful world-building and glorious but bewildering Soviet-inspired sights, our sister site The Loadout absolutely hated the game. This phenomenon extends outside of Network N, with the game scoring 77 on Metacritic with very, very Mixed reviews. As a result, you’d probably rather try it ‘for free’ on Game Pass than pour cash into a potentially awful game.
While Starfield’s release date will likely eclipse Atomic Heart’s Game Pass triumph in the future, Mundfish will be very pleased with this outcome. If you’re looking forward to Starfield and decide Atomic Heart might be the one for you, be sure to check out our Atomic Heart tips and tricks to help you survive the robot apocalypse.
Developer Mundfish has come under intense scrutiny in recent weeks after it was alleged that the Russian government would benefit financially from the release of Atomic Heart. This is because investors involved in financing Mundfish include GEM Capital, an investment fund whose founder has ties to Gazprom and VTB Bank, both majority-owned by the Russian state, and because that Mundfish partners with VK (formerly Mail.Ru) for Russian release of Atomic Heart, avoiding Steam sanctions. VK is also majority-owned by the Russian state through Gazprombank. Additionally, the CEO of Mundfish was the creative director of Mail.Ru.
With Russia’s continued invasion of Ukraine, many gamers are choosing to boycott the game in protest and donate money to organizations such as the Ukraine Crisis Appeal, the International Rescue Committee, and the British Red Cross.