Foolishly brave streamers are already getting banned for playing Atomic Heart online

For better or worse, Atomic Heart will be launching this month on February 21. The title has been highly anticipated, but also surrounded by accusations swirling around developer Mundfish. It seems that some players, however, have managed to snag the game early and are even taking to Twitch and YouTube to show it off. With only a few measly days to go until release, it seems odd that anyone would risk dancing at the edge of a cliff just to get some views, but here we are again. A Twitch streamer under the handle MazziveRic has been banned from the platform for briefly streaming Atomic Heart to only a few viewers.

MazziveRic managed to stream Atomic Heart for about two hours to a chat of less than 100 viewers before Twitch removed the stream and banned the account. The person also shrouded their appearance during the entire stream. If visiting the page, the Twitch account just says, “Content from this channel has been removed at the request of the copyright holder.” This also correlates with the unfortunate, yet expected removal of the player’s Twitch profile.

Other early Atomic Heart Twitch streams have appeared online as well. While these gamers are foolishly brave, they are also giving fans hope that Atomic Heart may actually be the entertaining first-person experiencing to scratch that Bioshock itch. The title seems to take a lot of inspiration from the franchise, as the player wields a glove that can harness different abilities while also using guns and weapons with the other hand.

Related: Atomic Heart PC system requirements – minimum and recommended specifications

Mundfish has dealt with several controversies during the title’s development. While it is headquartered in Cyprus, the company has been accused of harvesting user data and providing it to Russian security services. Mundfish has denied these accusations.

Atomic Heart also takes place in an alternate 1955 Soviet Union, which has social media wondering why the release date is conveniently close to the anniversary of the war in Ukraine. The company hasn’t earned much goodwill with the response that it does “not comment on politics or religion.” The game’s composer, however, has decided to donate his fee to aid Ukraine in response.