The creators of Atomic Heart continue to share details on how they made the game. For now, the publication is only available on the game’s Steam page, which was blocked in Russia and the CIS; the text is presented in English.
It turns out that in the early stages of development, Atomic Heart was a story centered around a female character. The protagonist Sergey Nechaev (P-3) appeared later; originally, the story was supposed to revolve around Larisa Filatova and Viktor Petrov (who were then called Fred and Laura).
Nechaev’s image was not formed immediately. At one point, it was thought that the character could get an exoskeleton, but they later abandoned this idea in favor of more elegant and futuristic concepts.