Chernobylite

Chernobylite is a first-person shooter-walker with elements of horror. While exploring locations, the player collects resources to ensure the construction of a base and the crafting of useful items, simultaneously shooting enemies and commanding a squad of allied NPCs.

The game takes place in an alternative post-apocalyptic reality of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, more than 30 years after the 1986 disaster. Players can expect a non-linear storyline that intertwines personal drama, science fiction, and horror.

Totalitarian USSR. At the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, under KGB control, a series of dangerous experiments on the substance "chernobylite" and space-time are conducted, leading to the well-known accident with radioactive contamination of the area. Additionally, a portal to another dimension opens, from which creepy creatures emerge, ion storms occur, and entities appear that affect the psyche (but no anomalies).

Over time, the territory of the Zone is handed over to the control of the NAR corporation. Its fighters guard the secrets of the Zone from outsiders and protect scientists who continue secret research until the beginning of the events of Chernobylite. By this time, the Exclusion Zone has aged significantly and fallen into even greater disrepair compared to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl.: lots of vegetation tightly enveloping buildings and streets; machinery embedded in the ground and rusted; collapsing, rotting structures.

And this is not an author's fiction, but realism. The developers visited the real Zone in Chernobyl, photographing numerous landmarks, buildings, and structures, as well as landscape elements. As a result, they managed to recreate the Soviet folk color and familiar architecture, slowly being absorbed by nature.

To create a tense post-apocalyptic atmosphere techniques such as building up danger, the need to look around and react to every rustle, numerous jump scares, and the ghost of a girl violinist appearing in reality are used. Tension is relieved by stereotypical companions, telling stories over medicinal vodka.

The main character is physicist Igor Khimenyuk, a former Chernobyl NPP employee. His measured life away from the Zone is disrupted by an unexpected package with chernobylite and a photograph of his beloved, who went missing before the accident.

Now he wants to get into the destroyed power unit covered by the "Arch" to find out what is happening there now and why he sees the ghost of a girl, hallucinations, and other people's memories in his head. He will be helped by five fully developed companions, each with their own stories, skills, and contributions to the common cause.

The storyline of Chernobylite is well-written and develops on different levels: relationships between characters and their motives; interaction with the Zone; processes that can affect all of humanity. Chernobyl folklore, the theme of time travel, and alternative universes are actively woven in. There are also genuinely unexpected twists.

Each quest, dialogue with a party member, or even a found clue forms a space of decisions that influence the subsequent narrative and can affect the ending, of which there are several in the game. Due to the fantastic properties of chernobylite, there is an opportunity to replay previously made decisions. To do this, the protagonist only needs to die to enter a different reality and change or even completely erase certain decisions from there. The game will recalculate the entire course of events.

Chernobylite does not have an open world; the action takes place in 5 small locations: the village of Kopachi, the Duga radar station, the Red Forest, the port, and the center of Pripyat, each with its unique design and iconic landmarks. The levels will have to be stalked multiple times, completing story missions and personal quests of allies, looking into one corner or another.

The quests in terms of gameplay are monotonous: find-kill-bring. You can always draw your weapon and fight your way through, but there is also stealth, which allows you to sneak past enemies unnoticed, saving bullets and the protagonist's health, the main thing is to find the optimal route. Regardless of the play style, the enemy AI is quite dumb.

For each mission, the protagonist goes alone, where he does not shine with survival skills. He barely aims, does not know how to shoot from the hip, is weak in melee, and each wound turns him inside out. To survive, you need to maintain the psyche, health, and armor at an optimal level, as well as pack the inventory with useful equipment.

Himenyuk's only weapons are a revolver, AK-47, and shotgun. They can be upgraded and even change the type of fire through modifications, and over time, more powerful energy weapons with their upgrades will become available.

The goal of each sortie is not so much to shoot as to collect as many resources and crafting items as possible, highlighted around the hero by a scanner. All the collected loot is spent on base development, weapon upgrades, creating ammo, medkits, and other gear.

The game's passage is not only stealth, action, and horror but also detective work. The player needs to collect clues and memories, restore the picture of the events, and seek out or avoid the truth. All the collected information is processed by Himenyuk, like Sherlock Holmes, in a VR helmet at the base.

However, every extra moment in the Zone makes his position more precarious. The game keeps track of survival days, and with each new day, the chances of success fade, enemies get closer to Igor, and the number of supernatural dangers increases.

Additionally, moving through the game world, you may find yourself in a heavily contaminated environment where strange or even supernatural threats will be encountered. They are caused by the aforementioned "chernobylite," which can also be collected and will be useful for a "good" playthrough.

Things won't be calm at the player's base either. The stalkers who join the squad are just people like everyone else. Their morale and combat spirit need to be maintained by improving the base's condition through building objects (like beds), completing mini-quests for loyalty, and finding compromises when making decisions.

Squad management also includes assigning tasks to each squad member, which they will complete in parallel with the protagonist throughout the day. They may die or get injured — it is worth placing helpers considering their strengths and weaknesses. In the finale, the player and the squad are thrown into the assault on the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, which will sum up all the decisions made, the protagonist's development, and the group's relationships.

As the protagonist progresses, he accumulates experience, which adds up to levels. Чем он выше, тем больше у игрока возможностей, в том числе и для прокачки своих умений. За это отвечают мини-квесты, в которых члены отряда как бы тренируют Хименюка: учат лучше стрелять, быть незаметным, переносить большой вес и так далее.