Atomic Heart‘s Trapped in Limbo DLC is a pastel pink acid trip that features a hammer, sickle, and a heck of a lot of fur. It’s bestial, it’s beautiful, and it’s downright bonkers, so when I was offered the chance to speak to Mundfish’s art director, Artem Galeev, I only had one question in mind – what happened here?
You see, despite its controversies, Atomic Heart remains one of my favorite PC games of 2023. As someone with two history degrees and a keen interest in allohistory (fictional alternate histories), Mundfish’s vision of a Soviet utopia immediately piqued my interest. Your hand talks to you, there’s horny weapon machines, and, of course, there’s the FPS game‘s oh-so-famous ballerina twins who, to this day, put me in mind of this wonderful article. Thanks, Ed.
But Trapped in Limbo is a whole different beast, filled with, well, different beasts. Limbo puts Greta Gerwig’s neon pink Barbie Land to shame, fraught with pastel dangers, creepy old ladies, and fairytale style houses. Oh, and you’re also furry, I should probably add that in.
“Limbo is a world of collective unconsciousness, which combines the ideas of many scientists from different fields of science,” Galeev tells me in our exclusive PCGamesN interview. “In modern terms, this world resembles a GPT network.
“Everyone perceives it differently, so in the end there are many countries, cultures, cities, and characters intertwined there. They all exist there as a projection of the real world. To us, everything in the world of Limbo may seem absurd, and to the inhabitants of Limbo, our real world also seems absurd. And yet both worlds are interconnected and repeat each other, constantly deciphering and encrypting each other.”
When I ask about the eerie, Baba Yaga-esque figure in the trailer, Galeev tells me that he was also heavily inspired by “fairy tales and international folklore,” but I’d argue Limbo is perhaps more akin to the original Grimm’s stories than the Disneyfied versions we see nowadays.
But Limbo doesn’t just look different from the post-WWII Soviet metropolis we see in the base game; Galeev states that the team “dared to experiment” with its the DLC’s gameplay.
“With this specific DLC, we intentionally decided to move away from the usual mechanics that everyone is used to seeing in FPS [games],” he tells me. “Since the world of Limbo is strikingly different from the real world, the gameplay, its mechanics, and the overall mood are also different now.” These “unconventional mechanics” were “specifically chosen to blow [players’] minds,” he promises, and I can almost see him smiling.
But let’s be real, there’s one thing that’s really blowing our minds: our protagonist is now furry. Enveloped head to toe in soft white fur that whispers gently in the wind, it’s a stark contrast to the base game’s camo clad P-3 – and one I had to ask about.
“Why on earth is P-3 furry?” I ask, and I can feel him chuckle. “I came up with the concept of a furry Newton [P-3] a long time ago, along with the early sketches of the surreal world of Limbo.
“But it has a really important narrative role in the Atomic Heart’s story. To avoid revealing too many details and spoiling for those who haven’t had a chance to play [the] DLC yet, I’ll say that this inhuman form emphasizes P-3’s mindless state, his unawareness of himself as a particular person while in the world of Limbo.”
He promises that we’ll find out more about how to shed said fur coat as we progress through Trapped in Limbo. So, if you want the full answer to the question, I’d suggest you dive on into this candy cane chaos.
The Atomic Heart: Trapped in Limbo DLC is out now on Steam, and will set you back $9.99 / £8.99. Alternatively, if you have the game’s Atomic Pass, it’s included as part of that service.
If you’ve yet to play the base game, though, we have a list of all the best Atomic Heart weapons, as well as a rundown of all the Atomic Heart skills you’ll need to battle your way through Mundfish’s robotic, nightmare fuelled apocalypse.
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