After much anticipation, Mundfish Studios have introduced ray tracing to their widely promoted shooter game, Atomic Heart, over a year after its initial release.
The ray tracing technology was heavily marketed during Atomic Heart’s promotional campaign yet was notably missing at its release in February 2023. However, developers promised its eventual implementation.
The awaited moment arrived on June 11 with the debut of Atomic Heart’s 1.14.4.0 patch, which on all target platforms finally added support for ray tracing—currently in a “beta” form.
For the smooth operation of this feature in Atomic Heart, a graphics card supporting DXR (DirectX Raytracing) and at least 12GB memory is required. Further details of the technology’s integration include:
- Ray tracing is available in three modes: “Performance”, “Balance”, and “Quality”
- AMD Fidelity FX Super Resolution (FSR) is automatically deactivated when ray tracing is switched on
- The player character does not appear on mirror surfaces
In addition to beta-version ray tracing, patch 1.14.4.0 includes accessibility settings (color blindness mode, automatic clearance of QTE and puzzles), and achievements for the “Trapped in Limbo” add-on.
Additional updates from developers include minor bug and technical issue fixes (such as crashes when AMD FSR is deactivated), along with general stability improvements. A detailed list of changes can be found here.
Atomic Heart, together with two released add-ons, are available on PC (Steam, VK Play in the Commonwealth of Independent States), PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and S. An unreleased trailer from 2017 is also now publicly accessible.
