Chernobylite is a story driven sci-fi survival horror game in development over at The Farm 51. The following preview is based on the Kickstarter demo provided to us by the developers.
The things we do for love. Throughout the years, video games have shown us that love can turn a hag’s heart half-circle, damn an innocent girl whose heart clung to the hope that another loved her when he did not, make a stern Jedi warrior abandon her teachings and embrace the dark side and even drive a hitman with a heart of gold to sign a pact with evil to avenge his loved one. Don’t get me started on real-world stories. The latest in line to join the list of lovestruck madcaps is Igor, the hero in The Farm 51’s upcoming survival horror, Chernobylite. What would you call poor Igor who travels to one of the most irradiated places on Earth in the faintest hope to find his long-lost girlfriend? Insane? Maybe. Dedicated? Yes. Lovestruck and melancholic, refusing to move on? Definitely.
Silent Hill 2 meets S.T.A.L.K.E.R
Life was good for Igor. A respectable position as a physicist in the Chernobyl power plant, a loving girlfriend and the vigor of youth. Time once again proved that nothing is persistent. April 26, 1986, was the day no one could forget. 350,000 lives, including that of Igor, was changed forever. The shadow of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe stripped the lives of many, left its mark on generations to come and turned Pripyat into the land of dead memories and lingering shadows.
That day, Igor lost something that was very dear to him. Tatyana, his girlfriend soon-to-be wife went missing, or at least that is what poor Igor believes. 30 years past and the shadows of Chernobyl still haunts Igor. Mentally unstable, tormented by PTSD and throbbing memories of the past, Igor is inept to move on. Tatyana is calling to him from inside the parapet of the zone. He can see her in his dreams, her slender figure in a blazing red dress contrasting against the oppressed colors of Chernobyl, wandering, waiting for their long-awaited reunion. Closure is what Igor’s been looking for in the past 30 years and now, all that stands between him and Tatyana is the slumbering threats of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
Ah, the things we do for love. The last time I saw something like this happen in a little town called Silent Hill, it didn’t end well for our poor hero James. But Igor is a man on a mission and nothing will stop him from achieving that much-needed closure. The threats he will have to face is not merely physical. Aside from armed assailants and military personnel, Igor has to confront the past, present, and future of the Zone as well as his own. The journey will be long and perilous. Scavenge, make jagged alliances, build and survive. Sanity is a fragile thing and truth is often vexatious.
Scavenge, kill, build
From the opening moments, The Farm 51 makes clear indications that Chernobylite is not your average survival horror. Just like the story, the gameplay itself is aimed to be non-linear and dynamic. The core gameplay is divided into three segments of which the 3D scanned recreation of the real Exclusion Zone forms the backbone. In each day, scavenging and exploration of linear, yet reasonably sized levels take place in the morning, followed by tackling dangerous missions in midday and culminating in crafting and expansion of the player base in the evening.
In the current build, there is only one time-bound mission location available called the “Eye of Moscow” but players will be able to revisit the same location in subsequent days to complete different objectives. After exploring the areas outside the base for a bit and collecting some resources, trying my hand at the crafting system and interacting with a ‘cheeky breeky’ companion in the base, it was time to start my first real venture inside the zone. When starting the mission, the player is sent to an ethereal transitional level which serves to provide background information and advance the story. The level, while not entirely open, is reasonably sized and is filled with crafting components, areas of interests, hostile and non-hostile characters. The particular mission had a 20 minute time restriction, so naturally, it stressed me out a bit and I found myself constantly looking over my shoulder as well as the ticking timer.
There was still roughly 4 minutes left when I bit off more than I can chew and succumbed to death due to fatal gunshots. To my surprise, instead of sending me to a game over screen, Chernobylite spawned me inside the transitional level where I found out that failing a mission doesn’t necessarily mean game over. As far as I know, your decisions have far-reaching consequences and each mission is a small piece in a large puzzle. The show must go on!
The first thing to grab your attention in Chernobylite is the excellent atmosphere and the looming sense of dread. The 3D scanned imagery of the Zone looks good at times, but some parts of the surroundings stand out and refuse to blend in with the rest. The lighting, in general, is extremely good and so are the shadows. The anti-aliasing is too blurry for my taste and the chromatic aberration is too strong as of now. But I expect these visual problems to be ironed out by the time Chernnobylite officially launches. The same can be said for some of the gameplay mechanics. Pretty much all aspects are in alpha stage right now and it’d not be fair to judge the game based on the gunplay present in this version. Like I mentioned before, everything is subjected to change.
A little bit of this, a little bit of that
While the current build of the demo is rather short, it does a decent job to give you an overall idea of what Chernobylite wants to be. In Chernobylite, you’re not a hapless survivor whose only option of defense is to run away and hide in the shadows. But that doesn’t make you a super-soldier decked out in exo-suits and scream “lovi, pedrila!” at roaming bandits. It doesn’t have an open-world with beef gates in-between, nor is it a corridor shooter. Chernobylite wants to fit in the gap somewhere in between. By combining the muted color palette and oppressive atmosphere of S.T.A.L.K.E.R and Metro games with survival-lite mechanics and base management seen in recent survival sims, Chernobylite wants to build its own niche. Non-linear storytelling and dynamic mission structure are aimed at to make sure that no two playthroughs are the same.
At the same time, this is a considerable undertaking for the studio. There are so many elements to the gameplay that, if not implemented and balanced properly, can break the game. It remains to be seen if Chernobylite will put an end to the ongoing battle between true freedom of choice vs the illusion of one when it comes to the story, how polished the final combat will be, and how strong the storytelling will be. Chernobylite is still very early in its life and no doubt that the Kickstarter funding will contribute to fulfilling its bold objectives. This demo is not, in any form indicator of the final product and the devs have promised that the demo will not be content locked and will be updated as development goes on. It serves to present the players with the ideas and design methodologies The Farm 51 are going to follow in Chernobylite. If you ask me, the demo does a good job of letting people know what it wants to be and where the priorities lie.
Chernobylite isn’t set for release until Autumn 2019. So there is enough time to polish up the gunplay, bring the visual fidelity to an even level and make necessary performance optimizations. I’ll be here when it finally launches with a bottle of my favorite vodka, sausages, and someone to play melancholic guitar strings by my side. Ah, the things we do for love.
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