Although Atomic Heart has no release date, the game will debut across PC, PS4, and Xbox One sometime in the foreseeable future. Though we gamers and fans are poised to see and hear more about Atomic Heart “soon,” publisher and developer Mundfish took up an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session and compiled the most interesting questions and answers regarding Atomic Heart for readers to look over.

One of those questions and answers happens to revolve around the difficulty of Atomic Heart, given that accessibility and onboarding is a conversation that many publishers and developers are having around the games industry.

With that said, you can read one of the first fan questions and Mundfish’s answer right here courtesy of steampowered.com:

Q: Does Atomic Heart have multiple difficulty levels?

A: There will be 2 difficulty levels in Atomic Heart.
The first one is “hardcore” difficulty for veterans of the Souls-like genre and those who like a serious challenge.
We use this mode as a reference when working on the balance and combat system of our game.

But we didn’t forget about other players as well. The second difficulty level is “Story playthrough”, in which we adapted gameplay so that the world of Atomic Heart could be enjoyed by a wider audience. There will be no hardcore challenges and no “platinum” trophy for completing the game as well. You can compare this level of difficulty with Bioshock.

However, the combat system and gameplay are thoroughly adapted to both difficulty levels for experienced and casual gamers to enjoy.

Instead of leaving them as separate questions and answers given their close nature, you can read how Atomic Heart handles “run n’ gun” and stealth right here:

Q: Can you play the game as a shoot and run game? Do you need to conserve ammo like Prey 2017 or will there be a lot of ammo like BioShock? And, is stealth a viable option for a playthrough?

A: Atomic Heart in some sense, is a “run n’ gun” game. But you must add “if” and “then”: “if you shoot then run. Everything is set up in a way that it’s not advised to make noise as the Kollectiv network has threat mechanics. The network will harshly react to perpetrators and a loud gunshot is a serious reason to react – by sending a new party of robots to your location. Nevertheless, you will have to shoot as sometimes it’s a matter of survival. As for the consequences – you’ll handle that later.

You can go stealth in some places but to finish the game full stealth is not possible. We did not set such a goal and we don’t see much sense in it – the combat in the game gives a lot of pleasure in our opinion and depriving ourselves of combat for the sake of stealth is not the best solution for our game.

As for weapons in the game, you can customize and change up guns and melee weapons thanks to modules and so forth. Moreover, there will be quite a bit of weapon types in Atomic Heart:

Q: How robust is the weapon customization gonna be? Is there going to be a weapon progression or an equipment based upgrade system? And, how many guns and melee weapons will be available in the full game?

A: The weapons could be upgraded and made stronger and more precise. You may install special modules in certain weapons for special attacks. Also, there will be at least 10 of each type.

Interestingly, Atomic Heart will not have a player level-up system, but it is possible to acquire skills through mechanics that may be combined:

Q: Will there be a perk/skill tree level-up system?

A: The player doesn’t have levels but you can acquire skills with interesting mechanics that may be combined with each other.

For those wondering if there will be more to the game than just the main story quest will likely be pleased to know that there are a limited amount of side-quests in Atomic Heart:

Q: Will there be optional or side quests available in the game?

A: Of course there are side quests. There are not many of them, after all the game is not about that – the side quests will complement the plot, reveal it a bit more. But there will be quite a few puzzles that will force you to properly strain your brain.

As for Atomic Heart’s genre, the details sit below:

Q: Is the game gonna be an immersive sim? And, is this going to be a full-on fiction soviet game or have some historical elements in it?

A: We are not striving to match the genre to the letter and canonically follow it. However, we can say for sure that the game is perceived as a mixture of a hurricane melee combat, shooter, and immersive sim. At least everyone who has played games of this genre and tried Atomic Heart says exactly this.

Also, we are not trying to make a historically accurate game. The game tells about the events of those years such as the Great Patriotic War (World War ll for those born outside of the USSR) and other significant historical events. But there definitely will be people who will think that we have gone crazy and mixed the events of quite different years into a single tight bundle. We will not convince anyone – perhaps we are really crazy.

Lastly, Atomic Heart will feature a crafting system, which we have detailed before, and will have Easter Eggs and possibly multiple endings. As noted above, more info on this game will pop up sometime soon, but in the meantime, here’s the official teaser trailer.