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 an enormous multiplayer shooter from Atomic Coronary heart developer Mundfish.
Of all of the 2025 Summer time Sport Fest bulletins, The Dice struck me, due to its bold hexahedronic design. To be taught extra, I lately 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 throughout our dialog.
Picture: Mundfish
For a sport this centered round a particular form, there might 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 imagine our Earth is a airplane,” Bagratuni defined.
Apart from the tongue-in-cheek intention to “troll flat-earthers,” there’s a extra severe rationale behind the design as properly.
“Initially, with a lot of the issues within the universe, for those who consider an ideal form, it’s usually thought-about one thing aspheric, like the celebs, the planets, and so forth,” Bagratuni mentioned. “My dice is a really totally different entity because it’s lit up from the highest by the solar, the place it’s very shiny 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 might be standing on the aspect tile of the dice and have a vertical horizon. It simply provides such a distinct 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 posh design naturally comes with fairly a number of improvement challenges.
Bagratuni mentioned that The Dice’s idea poses a monumental technological job for his group: “It’s a problem for the builders to create a system that enables 1000’s of objects to maneuver concurrently on-line, in actual time. Hundreds of thousands, hundreds of thousands, hundreds of thousands of objects.”
However The Dice’s improvement group got here up with a posh system to take care of the issue. “We name it a split-rendering system that enables for a easy rotation,” Bagratuni mentioned. “That is our personal know-how that we developed and are tremendous happy with. It was one and a half years of arduous 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 time Sport Fest, the die-shaped world is frequented by your fellow gamers in addition to unfriendly monstrosities in all sizes and styles: an enormous 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 mentioned that The Dice entails extra than simply combating and surviving; RPG components, akin to 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 mentioned. “We wish to ensure 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, you must anticipate a sci-fi world stuffed with anomalies and absurdities, with mind-blowing technological developments and maybe a shady laboratory or two. Based mostly on the trailer, some previous Atomic Coronary heart acquaintances are prone to make an look — good day there, Granny Zina!
Regardless of this sturdy connection, “It isn’t needed or tremendous necessary to play Atomic Coronary heart to grasp what The Dice is,” Bagratuni defined. “Although in fact, 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 taking part in Atomic Coronary heart could be enriching if you wish to dig deeper into the lore. However what we wish to do is be sure it’s simple to leap into The Dice and never get pissed off by not understanding what’s happening.”
I attempted to prod a 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 an increasing number of,” he mentioned. “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 to date — from its head-spinning physics to its engrossing narrative trappings — The Dice appears to be a artistic twist on the MMO style. As Bagratuni mentioned in our name, “Loopy issues are taking place there.”