{"id":1238545,"date":"2026-02-27T05:18:03","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T05:18:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/?p=609494"},"modified":"2026-02-27T05:18:03","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T05:18:03","slug":"atomic-heart-team-wants-to-troll-flat-earthers-with-new-mmo-the-cube","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/atomic-heart-team-wants-to-troll-flat-earthers-with-new-mmo-the-cube\/","title":{"rendered":"Atomic Heart team wants to ‘troll flat-earthers’ with new MMO The Cube"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Two
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We\u2019ve all seen our fair share of battle arenas, but a battle arena in the form of a floating, rotating, basically shape-shifting block? That\u2019s new. It\u2019s called (what else?) The Cube<\/em>, and it\u2019s a massive multiplayer shooter from Atomic Heart<\/a><\/em> developer Mundfish.<\/p>\n

Of all the 2025 Summer Game Fest announcements<\/a>, The Cube<\/em> struck me, thanks to its ambitious hexahedronic design. To learn more, I recently sat down for a remote video interview with Robert Bagratuni, CEO of Mundfish, who was accompanied by communications director Christina Omelchenko, who translated between Russian and English for the duration of our conversation.<\/p>\n

All the world is a cube<\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

For a game this<\/em> centered around a specific shape, there can be but one opening question: Why a cube?<\/em> The answer is unexpected: \u201cWhy not a triangle, or a pyramid, or a sphere? We want to troll the guys who believe our Earth is a plane,\u201d Bagratuni explained.<\/p>\n

Aside from the tongue-in-cheek intention to \u201ctroll flat-earthers,\u201d there\u2019s a more serious rationale behind the design as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cOriginally, with most of the things in the universe, if you think of a perfect shape, it’s typically considered something aspheric, like the stars, the planets, and so on,\u201d Bagratuni said. \u201cMy cube is a very different entity as it’s lit up from the top by the sun, where it’s very bright in the middle of the day. On the bottom face of the cube, it’s dark, and on the side faces of the cube, there\u2019s a twilight zone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis concept gives so much variability of what you see, how the settings change, and how the lighting changes,\u201d Bagratuni added. \u201cPlus, it really plays with your brain; how you perceive<\/em> the experience. You can be standing on the side tile of the cube and have a vertical horizon. It just gives such a different experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

As if navigating a static floating cube doesn\u2019t sound nauseating enough, The Cube<\/em> will consist of rotating planes that constantly shift the lay of the land. Imagine running and gunning across a levitating Rubik\u2019s Cube while some invisible power is twisting its tiles \u2014 such a complex design naturally comes with quite a few development challenges. <\/p>\n

Bagratuni said that The Cube<\/em>\u2019s concept poses a monumental technological task for his team: \u201cIt\u2019s a challenge for the developers to create a system that allows thousands of objects to move simultaneously online, in real time. Millions, millions, millions of objects.\u201d<\/p>\n

But The Cube<\/em>\u2019s development team came up with a complex system to deal with the problem. \u201cWe call it a split-rendering system that allows for a smooth rotation,\u201d Bagratuni said. \u201cThis is our own technology that we developed and are super proud of. It was one and a half years of hard tech work to deliver that experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Atomic at heart<\/h2>\n
\n
\n
\n