Atomic Heart turned out to be pretty different than what we were expecting based on the promotional material, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The game’s unique setting, solid combat, and innovative puzzles make up for its shortcomings and allow Atomic Heart to stand out from the crowd in a genre that’s already packed to the brim with great titles.
Atomic Heart’s popularity gave birth to a small but steadily growing modding scene over on NexusMods. While Atomic Heart won’t compete with the likes of Skyrim or Fallout 4 anytime soon in terms of variety, the game already has a number of mods that are definitely worth checking out.
1 QOL Tweaks
This first mod is a collection of quality-of-life tweaks for various aspects of the game. Among other things, QOL Tweaks introduces a walk mode, the ability to hide the crosshair, custom subtitles and dialogue scaling, and more. There’s also a FOV slider, although that’s a bit redundant now because the developers added one themselves in a recent patch. Everything else is still very useful, though.
QOL Tweaks works in conjunction with another mod called APML For Atomic Heart, and you’ll need both of them in order to get access to the features mentioned earlier. Atomic Heart doesn’t have a user-friendly mod manager or merger just yet, so you’ll need to use a Blueprint mod loader like APML instead, especially if you’re planning to install multiple mods. Make sure to read the installation instructions before you start moving or modifying any files.
2 Simple Flashlight
It’s somewhat strange that a seasoned soldier like Major Nechaev has access to some of the best weapons and technology the Soviet Union has to offer but somehow can’t get ahold of a simple flashlight. Luckily, a modder came to the rescue and finally gave our protagonist the ability to illuminate his surroundings.
By default, the flashlight is bound to one of the Numpad keys, but you can rebind it to any other key with a bit of tinkering. The flashlight won’t appear as an option in the settings menu, so you’ll need to use the console in order to set it up.
3 More Resources
Normally, we wouldn’t recommend mods like these since they’re essentially cheating, but we have to make an exception in this case because Atomic Heart is unreasonably stingy when it comes to resources. While the game encourages you to experiment with various weapons, it also makes you pay for an arm and a leg to fully upgrade them.
The More Resources mod increases the number of materials you’ll find in containers by a factor of two, three, or four, depending on your preference. Quadrupling the number of resources is probably overkill, so start by doubling them and see how that feels before you decide to go all out.
4 Easiest Pistol Lock
Using finger snapping as a way of picking locks was a brilliant decision, but, much like any other minigame, the novelty wears out pretty fast. If you’re tired of puzzle locks and want to get through doors faster, simply pop in this mod, and your days of snapping your fingers at lock pins will be a thing of the past.
Easiest Pistol Lock doesn’t remove the minigame but rather lets you solve it instantly by matching just one of the pins with the red light. The mod doesn’t change any of the other minigames, which is a bit of a shame because the color-match locks are even more annoying. Oh well, maybe in a future update.
5 Free Camera
Atomic Heart is an absolutely gorgeous game, so it’s a bit strange that the developers decided against adding a Photo Mode. Mundfish did confirm the feature at one point during development but ended up canning it for one reason or another. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a mod that enables Photo Mode in Atomic Heart (yet), but you can get the next best thing with the Free Camera mod.
The mod is exactly what you would expect and allows you to unlock the camera so you can take better screenshots of the game. There’s a fly mode that gives you a bird’s eye view and lets you take screenshots from above, as well as a HUD toggle. If you’re only interested in that last feature, it’s worth mentioning that there’s a standalone mod called Toggle HUD from a different author.
6 Atomic Heart Vanilla Plus Reshade
There are a bunch of mods that enhance the game’s visuals, but since you can’t install more than one of them at a time without causing issues, we recommend starting with Atomic Heart Vanilla Plus Reshade. The goal of this mod is to preserve the original visual style and atmosphere while dialing all the details up to eleven. The end result is a game that looks significantly crisper and sharper than before.
Now, if you’re looking for something a bit different, you could try Atomic FX, RealVision, or Cinematic Near-Real Reshade Preset. Each of these mods does something slightly different, but they all make the game look better in their own unique way. Just be careful when using graphical mods, in general, because they tend to eat up a lot of resources.
7 Rainy Weather Effect
While we all enjoy a pleasant summer day, it wouldn’t hurt to see a bit of rain on occasion. Since Atomic Heart doesn’t have a weather system, this mod is perfect for those who prefer some doom and gloom every once in a while. Rainy Weather Effect changes the whole vibe of the game, making Atomic Heart feel more like S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
The mod doesn’t add dynamic weather, so you’ll need to manually turn it off whenever you want the rain to stop. Rainy Weather Effect is very much a work in progress, so don’t expect accompanying sound effects just yet, but they are coming at some point in the future, along with a better skybox. For now, the sky is just plain gray with no clouds.
8 Drones Without Repair
Drones Without Repair is pretty self-explanatory. The mod removes the Pchela drones’ ability to rebuild the robotic enemies you destroy. This means you can finally permanently clear areas without needing to hack Hawks. It is worth pointing out, however, that installing this mod will prevent you from farming bots for resources, although that shouldn’t be a huge issue if you’re using the More Resources mod mentioned earlier.
If you want to remove another annoyance from the game, you’ll also want to check out the Blind Cameras mod from the same author. This mod disables the Dandelion cameras’ ability to detect the player and raise the alarm, which is especially useful when exploring underground areas.
9 No Quest Markers
Quest markers can often break immersion, and there’s, unfortunately, no option to disable them. Or is there? Well, thanks to this mod, you can get rid of annoying quest markers for good. Admittedly, removing markers will make it more difficult to find your next objective, but you can simply remove the mod if you ever feel lost.
Quest markers are only an issue during your first playthrough. Once you beat the game, you can explore Facility 3826 in peace without having to worry about them. But until you reach that point, this mod is a must-have, especially since the world of Atomic Heart isn’t that big, and you can easily find quest objectives even without a marker.
10 Stronger Cars
Soviet cars are said to have been pretty resilient, but that’s definitely not the case when it comes to the vehicles found in this game. Atomic Heart’s cars are essentially made of paper and will blow up at the slightest impact. In their current state, cars are simply not worth bothering with; however, they do become viable with this mod installed.
The Stronger Cars mod turns Atomic Heart’s fragile vehicles into full-fledged tanks by increasing their durability tenfold. Some might argue that even that’s not enough, but if you try to avoid at least some of the obstacles on the road, the little red Lada is guaranteed to serve you for a long time. And, more importantly, it won’t blow up in your face when you least expect it.
