We’ve all seen our justifiable share of battle arenas, however a battle area within the type of a floating, rotating, principally shape-shifting block? That’s new. It’s known as (what else?) The Dice, and it’s a large multiplayer shooter from Atomic Coronary heart developer Mundfish.
Of all of the 2025 Summer season Recreation Fest bulletins, The Dice struck me, because of its bold hexahedronic design. To be taught extra, I not too long ago sat down for a distant video interview with Robert Bagratuni, CEO of Mundfish, who was accompanied by communications director Christina Omelchenko, who translated between Russian and English in the course of our dialog.
Picture: Mundfish
For a recreation this centered round a particular form, there could be however one opening query: Why a dice? The reply is surprising: “Why not a triangle, or a pyramid, or a sphere? We wish to troll the blokes who consider our Earth is a airplane,” Bagratuni defined.
Apart from the tongue-in-cheek intention to “troll flat-earthers,” there’s a extra critical rationale behind the design as effectively.
“Initially, with a lot of the issues within the universe, in case you consider an ideal form, it’s sometimes thought of one thing aspheric, like the celebrities, the planets, and so forth,” Bagratuni stated. “My dice is a really totally different entity because it’s lit up from the highest by the solar, the place it’s very vibrant in the midst of the day. On the underside face of the dice, it’s darkish, and on the aspect faces of the dice, there’s a twilight zone.”
“This idea provides a lot variability of what you see, how the settings change, and the way the lighting modifications,” Bagratuni added. “Plus, it actually performs along with your mind; the way you understand the expertise. You could be standing on the aspect tile of the dice and have a vertical horizon. It simply provides such a special expertise.”
As if navigating a static floating dice doesn’t sound nauseating sufficient, The Dice will encompass rotating planes that continually shift the lay of the land. Think about operating and gunning throughout a levitating Rubik’s Dice whereas some invisible energy is twisting its tiles — such a fancy design naturally comes with fairly a number of improvement challenges.
Bagratuni stated that The Dice’s idea poses a monumental technological activity for his staff: “It’s a problem for the builders to create a system that permits 1000’s of objects to maneuver concurrently on-line, in actual time. Thousands and thousands, tens of millions, tens of millions of objects.”
However The Dice’s improvement staff got here up with a fancy system to take care of the issue. “We name it a split-rendering system that permits for a easy rotation,” Bagratuni stated. “That is our personal know-how that we developed and are tremendous happy with. It was one and a half years of laborious tech work to ship that have.”
However sufficient about twisting planes. What really occurs on these planes?
As proven in The Dice’s reveal trailer from Summer season Recreation Fest, the die-shaped world is frequented by your fellow gamers in addition to unfriendly monstrosities in all sizes and shapes: a large tumor-shaped creature with claws, one thing that appears like a dwelling tree with a birdhouse caught on its head, and — let’s hope they’re on our aspect — beautiful humanoid robots.
Though some gameplay particulars stay a thriller for now, Bagratuni stated that The Dice entails extra than simply combating and surviving; RPG components, resembling a storyline and character development, will form your journey.
“The expertise of The Dice will certainly be story-driven and never simply raids, grinds, and issues like that,” he stated. “We wish to be sure that there may be deep character development and you may develop your character in several instructions, thus creating a personality construct that’s tremendous tailor-made to the way you wish to expertise The Dice.”
Picture: Mundfish
Set in the identical universe as Atomic Coronary heart, it’s best to count on a sci-fi world filled with anomalies and absurdities, with mind-blowing technological developments and maybe a shady laboratory or two. Based mostly on the trailer, some outdated Atomic Coronary heart acquaintances are more likely to make an look — howdy there, Granny Zina!
Regardless of this sturdy connection, “It’s not mandatory or tremendous essential to play Atomic Coronary heart to know what The Dice is,” Bagratuni defined. “Although after all, narratively talking, The Dice is a vital a part of Atomic Coronary heart’s world and it’s very interconnected with its occasions.”
“I suppose enjoying Atomic Coronary heart could be enriching if you wish to dig deeper into the lore. However what we wish to do is ensure it’s straightforward to leap into The Dice and never get annoyed by not understanding what’s happening.”
I attempted to prod a little bit for extra intel on character builds and sophistication programs, however Bagratuni declined to elaborate. “As we transfer ahead with preparation for the launch, we’re going to be revealing increasingly,” he stated. “The primary trailer announcement was solely a glimpse of what we’re going to present you.”
However primarily based on what I’ve seen and heard about thus far — from its head-spinning physics to its engrossing narrative trappings — The Dice appears to be a artistic twist on the MMO style. As Bagratuni stated in our name, “Loopy issues are occurring there.”
