Its cast of characters and its choice system are genuinely gripping, while its depiction of the zone is at times breathtaking (if a little postcardy and non-interactive). Maybe Chernobylite latches onto these recognisable tropes because its greatest strengths aren't easily conveyed through trailers or genre tags.
Similarly, the Black Stalker who beams himself into maps on a timer in later missions is more a nuisance than a threat when you realise he's rooted to the spot and can be blasted away. It's been termed 'survival horror', but monster encounters are scarce, and beyond that the occasional jump-scare, creepy doll and hallucination of a jittery man in a gas mask don't really justify the label-if anything, they cheapen the experience. There are a few quirks in Chernobylite that seem to exist to tick certain boxes. Do you shoot down a helicopter without knowing who's in it? Is a friendly stalker fair collateral when taking out an enemy encampment? To whom do you hand the gun to finish off a key villain (if indeed you choose to execute them at all)? All genuine quandaries, where sometimes you'll be swayed by having to keep one character or another onside so that they're still with you come the final mission.
You'll need to keep up your crew's morale by keeping them well fed, sufficiently bedded, as well as managing their disagreements when they chime in on key story decisions. It all speaks to a combat system that's stretched between multiple styles without particularly excelling in any of them. Again, though, this feels a little threadbare as you can't hide bodies (not that the enemy AI is particularly miffed when they stumble upon the corpse of one of their own). Thankfully, stealth is a viable approach, so I focused on upgrading my revolver with a silencer and becoming a master of silent takedowns. I appreciate how easily enemies blend with the dense foliage, but this is undermined by the big healthbars that pop up above their heads, and their substantial bullet absorbance makes the mechanically 'meh' gunfights drag on a little too long. Beyond a rather pathetic side-dash, there are no mechanics like sliding or cover-firing, while leaping over obstacles is very particular about what it counts as obstacle. The combat gets a bit tangled between realistic shooter, stealth and RPG.
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The developers could certainly have picked up a few tricks from Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl and its sequels about how to make the Zone feel more dynamic. Friendly trader stalkers, meanwhile, simply stand around waiting for you to come to them. The only things you find are resources and clues relating to your story, there is no wildlife (even though the Exclusion Zone is renowned for it) and enemy AI rigidly sticks to their patrol routes or stands in one place-never sitting at desks or fighting radioactive monsters or taking a wazz. As someone mildly obsessed with the crumbling vestiges of the Soviet empire, I find these environments mesmerising.īeautiful and haunting though these areas are, they are a little lacking in substance.
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It gives the areas an intense verisimilitude that I can't stop snapping-grass and shrubbery reclaiming blocky clusters of Soviet apartments, smashed stained glass windows depicting doomed communist utopias, smoggy sunlight oozing through sickly canopies. The Farm 51 actually went to the Exclusion Zone and used 3D scanning to recreate its terrain, textures and buildings. These maps aren't huge, but they look wonderful.
At the same time, you can send out your companions to scout future missions or gather resources. When you're ready, you pick a mission set in one of six regions around the Zone-whether to progress the main story or search for clues. The Farm 51 actually went to the Exclusion Zone and used 3D scanning to recreate its terrain, textures and buildings.īetween missions you hang out in your base, where you can cook, build improvements, explore other peoples' memories based on clues you find, or even just go straight to the Heist mission at the end of the game (where you'll almost certainly die if you've not assembled a crew and equipment, but it's there if you want it). Your choices will affect enemy activity in the area, how many allies you have in the Zone, and at one point even the topography of the game-you can, for instance, destroy the infamous Duga radar at the behest of a man believing himself to be in a good-vs-evil conflict with a Rat King. It's pretty ballsy for a game to lay bare the workings of its choice system like this, but given the breadth of Chernobylite's web of choices and possible outcomes, the devs have every right to want to show it off.
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