An apparent error in the Steam marketplace resulted in it showing an incorrect price when users searched for Mundfish's Atomic Heart. While the problem seems to have been fixed, Steam initially showed Atomic Heart selling for $20 less than its retail price.
Set in an alternate universe version of the Soviet Union, Atomic Heart casts players as the mentally unstable KGB Major Sergei Nechaev. After the launch of a cybernetic device called Thought went horribly wrong, Sergei must battle rogue robots, crazed biological creations, and his own mind to survive and restore something approaching sanity to Facility 3826. A first-person shooter inspired by BioShock and System Shock, many fans of those titles had high hopes for Mundfish's new game. Unfortunately, Atomic Heart has seen mixed reviews, with Metacritic scores landing in the low to mid-70s.
Atomic Heart's launch has not gone off without a hitch and the game seems to be experiencing various issues with some distribution platforms. Reddit user spooner503 was searching for Atomic Heart on Steam when they noticed the search results showed the game as only $39.99. That's also the price Steam showed in the automated emails it sent users about the game. However, this price is inaccurate as Atomic Heart actually sells for $59.99 on Steam. The price Steam displayed was actually that of the game’s season pass, which includes the cosmetic Midas Glove Skin and Atomic Heart's four planned DLC.
Searching atomic heart after release lists the price for the season pass not the base game. Never seen that before fromSteam
The issue appears to have been fixed, and Steam now shows Atomic Heart at its correct price. According to one commenter on Reddit, developers had listed the season pass above the game on its store page. This caused Steam to show the price for the $40 season pass instead of the more expensive base game.
This is not the only case of Atomic Heart having strange issues on various distribution platforms today. For example, one bug prevented some Xbox Game Pass users from completing Atomic Heart's intro. That problem was also quickly addressed and likely caused by an incomplete download or a missing update. However, while that problem was the game not working as intended, some Reddit users seemed to think that Atomic Heart's incorrect price listing was a deliberate trick by the developers.
Whether that's true or not, it isn't the only case of something similar happening on the platform. Other commenters mentioned something similar happening with the Steam release of Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding, while another claimed that Ubisoft does this frequently with Assassin's Creed games. Meanwhile, Steam once listed Supermassive's The Quarry as "Free" for a similar reason. While there is no evidence that the developers of Atomic Heart and these other games are trying to trick their customers, it shows that incorrect prices are a recurring issue with Steam's storefront.
Atomic Heart is out now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
