Reflecting the Cold War in “Atomic Heart”

Abstract

Introduction. The present study is devoted to the study of the influence of artifacts of the symbolic politics of the USA and the USSR on the positioning of the respective socio-political systems in modern video games. The article includes the content of the “Atomic Heart” video game studies and analysis from the point of view of the theory of social memory and symbolic politics. Methods and materials. A certain number of methods were used to solve the actual tasks in the article. In particular, case-study methods and elements of structural and comparative analysis were used. Analysis. The game “Atomic Heart” was chosen as a research case. The choice of the case is due to the high popularity of this game both within Russia and internationally, as well as the connection of the plot to the topic of the confrontation between the USSR and the United States after World War II and the presence of a wide representation of the symbolism of this conflict inside the game (up to the reproduction of real campaign materials). On the one hand, the ways of representing the USA in Soviet propaganda and their interpretation by video game developers are studied. On the other hand, the positioning of the Soviet Union by game designers and screenwriters by exploiting the images and stereotypes of perception that were formed in Western culture during the Cold War is examined. Results. The author concludes that, when forming the in-game symbols, the developers actively exploited the resource of Soviet aesthetics; however, Cold War narratives in Western mass culture works played a significant role in shaping the project’s emotional, semantic, and value content. The main reason for this decision was most likely economic, as the game was created with the expectation of generating the main profit in foreign markets as a commercial product. However, this decision actually contributed to the resuscitation of the functional qualities of the symbolic legacy of the Cold War and the use of its narratives to correct the perceptions of the target audience about the USSR and its role in the confrontation between the two blocs.