The expansion titled Annihilation Instinct takes place after the game's ending, with players on a mission to uncover "the truth about NORA's story" amidst AI chaos. 

The DLC is set in a new swamp area of Atomic Heart, featuring new enemies, weapons, characters, and a boss. Among the new characters is the mysterious Professor Lebedev. It also introduces a new glove ability called Technostasis that allows time manipulation. A teaser for Annihilation Instinct can be seen in the video above.

Annihilation Instinct is now available for purchase on all platforms, but it is included if you have the Atomic Pass or Gold or Premium editions of the game. 

Atomic Heart was first released in February and immediately drew controversy over the alleged Russian origins of its developer, Mundfish. Racist cartoons were found in the game post-release, leading to an apology and removal by the developer. 

Despite the controversies, our deputy editor Chris Tapsell found some positive aspects in the game. In his Atomic Heart review, he described the game as a collection of ideas from other games, criticizing it for being derivative and overly ambitious. However, he acknowledged that the individual parts of the game were often quite good.