Atomic Heart - Annihilation Instinct

Comrade Major Nechayev picks up the Secateur, a railgun straight out of Doom, and feeds it with bullets enough to supply a small army. "Now the fun starts," he exclaims, and that's all fine and dandy. But considering I have spent the first hour of this two and a half to three hour long DLC hiding in the bushes, occasionally smashing killer robots in the head with a decidedly less exciting melee weapon, it's already a little too late. And that's perhaps the major problem with Annihilation Instinct, the first of first four planned DLC's for Atomic Heart: It doesn't always play to its strengths.

The expansion takes place in a new area called the Mendeleev Complex, and the plot picks up straight after the ending of the main game with our protagonist Comrade Major Nechayev, also known as P-3, stripped of his weapons and his trusted ally Charles, who provided us with tons of pseudo magical abilities to play around with. After the rather dull opening, things start to heat up when we meet up with the scientist Lebedev who provides us with the aforementioned Secateur and a new ability called Technostasis that lets us freeze time. In return for these gifts, Lebedev tasks us with finding eight unique BEA-Ds, cubic robots that somehow will restore Nora (the horny weapon dispenser AI from the original game) to sanity and lift the lockdown affecting the science complex and surrounding areas.

The new power and weapons are needed, as Annihilation Instinct is tough as nails. At one time, when stepping into a large area, I was greeted by a Plyusch, one of the more difficult enemies from the main game, and my heart sank a little bit. But before the fight could actually begin, a cutscene started showing the dangerous creature getting absolutely torn to shreds by one of the new enemy types. At least the game has as the courtesy to warn you.

First up is a killer doll that can perform a deadly dancelike martial arts and even tear off its limbs, leaving its central body rather exposed if you manage to avoid its hands and feet that fly around like razor blades. Initially these enemies are tough but they are nothing compared to the BEA-D's. On their own, these small floating balls are not that dangerous, but when they link together, they became a real headache which, more often than not, is cured by them chopping off your head.

Luckily, your new weapons give you a fighting chance. The Secateur holds a hundred bullets in a single magazine (and even more if you upgrade it) and as if this fire power wasn't enough, it can also use energy, firing a horizontal laser that rips through robotic enemies and is absolutely essential for separating linked BEA-D's. And while the Klusha - a sort of shovel-harpoon hybrid - isn't that versatile, it can still deal plenty of damage when combined with the Technostasis ability.

As mentioned, the combat is even tougher than in the main game, but unfortunately it doesn't always feel fair. Many areas are poorly designed with plenty of obstacles that fails to provide any cover, but are easy to get stuck in when trying to rapidly escape with your dash move. Also, the enemies just kept piling up, and most of the time I ended up dying, not by failing to read or react to their attack pattern, but simply by getting swarmed and pinned up against a wall or environmental obstacle. Combined with a pretty unreliable autosave system, this proves rather frustrating, and I actually had to lower the difficulty, just to make sure that I wouldn't trash my controller.

Unfortunately, combat is not the only thing lacking in this DLC. While the game takes place immediately after the end of the main game, chances are you are picking up Annihilation Instinct after beating Atomic Heart back in February or March. This makes the already convoluted story difficult to follow, and I struggled to make any sense of it. And, what's even worse, the game does a poor job of reminding you of the controls and basic mechanics despite wasting no time throwing you into the heat of things.

Of course, the main selling point of Atomic Heart wasn't the story per se, but rather the setting. The techno-utopian vision of the Soviet Union was expertly bought to life, but unfortunately this aspect plays a much smaller role in Annihilation Instinct. The robot-infested underground complex and surrounding wetlands are still beautiful and contain many well-made details, but it feels much less exciting without all the Soviet memorabilia strewn about. And while the soundtrack once again accompanies the hectic battle in effective fashion, the classical music and heavy rock tunes doesn't strike the same chord as the USSR-era tunes from the main game. At least the game still has a weird tone, with P-3 getting constantly harassed by a talking duck, and the disabled robots strewn about in sometimes funny, sometimes lewd ways.

Annihilation Instinct left me with mixed feelings. In many way the experience is less polished than in the main game, but on the other hand, you do get a decent amount of content for your £10 and the DLC provides a solid setup for further adventures in the unique world of Atomic Heart. If the next expansions continues to add layers to the combat and manage to address some of the design frustrations, the Season Pass for Atomic Heart might end up just as engrossing as the original experience.