You’d be forgiven for getting stumped right at the start of this first-person shooter, out now for PlayStation, Xbox, and Windows PC.
Atomic Heart supports DLSS at launch, however. While the feature itself is unproblematic and, indeed, a considerable boon for Nvidia RTX graphics card owners, the CEO's comments about its potential use cases did end up rubbing some people the wrong way. Specifically, the CEO stated that the GPU-boosting DLSS should prove handy to offset any potential performance problems caused by Denuvo DRM, which is specifically considered a CPU bottleneck.
Whatever the case may be, the release times for Atomic Heart are now set as the game officially launched on February 21. Players interested in the game now have a chance to give it a fair shake, and Mundfish should receive plenty of direct feedback once that happens. The lack of ray tracing is sure to disappoint some players, but the feature's prominence in pre-release materials comes as a bit of a guarantee that it should eventually be made available in-game.
HOW TO USE THE SCANNER IN THE ATOMIC HEART TUTORIAL
To use the scanner in Atomic Heart, just double-tap R1 on PlayStation (or RB on Xbox), then keep holding R1 / RB after the second press.
The written directions (“Hold R1 + R1” on PlayStation) read like the sort of tip where you’re supposed to press two different buttons, and the NPC — who exists solely to justify the tutorial within the game’s tenuous fiction — tells you something to effect of “holding both of your hands up.”
Given the general bugginess of Atomic Heart, no one would blame you for assuming the text instruction is in error, or for repeatedly trying to hold down L1 and R1 at the same time instead — one shoulder button for each hand. (This writer is guilty as charged.)
After Rock Paper Shotgun noticed that the review build of Atomic Heart didn't allow access to any of the game's long-touted ray-traced graphics options, the editorial team reached out to the developer, who subsequently confirmed that ray tracing will be introduced into the game on PC at a later date. This comes just under two months after Atomic Heart showed off 4K RTX gameplay, hyping its graphics as one of its most exciting features. However, PC players eager to see Atomic Heart's implementation of ray-traced shadows, reflections, and more will need to wait a bit longer still.Click to play game