One of the more confusing quests in Atomic Heart is called “Bug in the System,” and it requires players to finally locate Petrov, the scientist supposedly responsible for the robot outbreak. Petrov is located inside of the Computational Center, which players need to find first. After they have done that, which only involves following a quest marker, they will receive an updated objective.
This objective is to “Find Petrov at the Computational Center,” and you will be taken to the outside of the center to try and make your way inside. Once again, all you’re doing is following quest markers to get inside the building. However, at one point, you need to unlock a door that has a key disk lock on it. Players can follow another quest marker to find the necessary key disk, but this can result in nothing being found.
This is where the quest to find Petrov can get confusing, so allow us to explain in the Atomic Heart guide below.
Find Petrov in Atomic Heart “Bug in the System” quest
At the time of writing, it appears this key disk is bugged (ironically, given the quest’s name). For some players, the key disk shows up just fine on a white table next to a dead body and a radio on the roof of the Computational Center. However, for others, the key does not appear, leaving them trapped in this area, as they can’t open the locked door to get further inside the building.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be a concrete fix for this current bug with Petrov’s quest. You can attempt to restart your game and try to load a farther-back save, but that doesn’t seem to be working for most players. Fans have reported they needed to start a completely new save in order for the key disk to appear.
If you don’t want to do this, as you will likely be several hours into Atomic Heart, you will have to wait for a patch from the developers. This isn’t the best answer, but it’s the only one that doesn’t involve starting an entirely new game.
For those lucky players that did end up finding the key, you can take it and then proceed directly to the locked door. Do not use that key disk on anything else besides the locked door inside the Computational Center. If you do, you will not be able to progress the mission and will be trapped in this area of Atomic Heart. Once you use the key on the locked door, head further in and you will be able to progress the Bug in the System quest.
We’ll be sure to update this article if and when a patch comes through for the missing key disk in Atomic Heart. If you want to read our other Atomic Heart guides, you can check out how to increase your FPS on PC, how to fix the FOV issue, or where to find the Dominator gun recipe.
Published: Feb 22, 2023 01:08 pm