NUCLEAR OPTIONS
CHERNOBYLITE is that rare game that makes you feel the weight of your decisions
Chernobylite is a curious mash-up of ideas orbiting around a pretty stiff first-person shooter framework. But it feels more inviting thanks to its evocative setting and cast of grizzled scavengers. Despite some shortcomings, it succeeds as a game about choice, where you’re constantly faced with quandaries that may meaningfully affect the hero Igor’s journey as he chases spectral visions of his wife around the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
Killing a sketchy character early on might lead to an awkward impasse with his wife later, split-second decisions about whether or not to save stalkers from patrolling army guards will dictate how many allies and enemies you have in the Zone, and at every key point you’ll have companions radioing in to persuade you to do stuff.
Each time you die, you wake up in a dreamscape where you can see how the key decisions you made are connected, and go back and change those decisions using mysterious Chernobylite shards as payment to whatever interdimensional god-force is running the show.
It’s pretty ballsy for a game to lay bare its choice system like this, but
given the breadth of Chernobylite’s web of choices, the devs have every right to want to show it off.
Between 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. When you’re ready, you pick a mission set in one of six regions around the Zone – where you can progress the main story or search for clues. At the same time, you can send out your companions to scout future missions or gather resources.
PRACTICALLY GLOWING
These maps aren’t huge, but they look wonderful. But it’s a shame that there’s not more going on in these finely crafted areas. The only things you find are resources and clues relating to Igor’s story, there is no wildlife and enemy AI rigidly sticks to their patrol routes – never sitting at desks or fighting radioactive monsters or having a wee.
The combat gets a bit tangled between realistic shooter, stealth, and RPG. Beyond a rather pathetic side-dash, there are no mechanics like sliding or cover-firing, while leaping over obstacles is semifunctional at best.
Thankfully, stealth is a viable approach, so I upgraded my revolver with a silencer and became a master of silent takedowns. Again though, this feels a little threadbare as you can’t hide bodies. It all speaks to a combat system that’s stretched between multiple styles without particularly excelling in any of them.
What really gives Chernobylite its soul are the people you recruit to your base. There are five in total, each with their traumas, missions, and stories to tell. I grew particularly fond of Mikhail, always blaring like a drill sergeant about everything from boozy tales, to tarot readings, to an anecdote about radioactive sausages
Combat gets a bit tangled between shooter, stealth, and RPG
distributed throughout the Soviet Union. It’s solid, engaging writing, though I recommend using the Russian audio with subs unless you want Igor to push his voice like an over-eager Oxford academic.
There are a few half-baked quirks in Chernobylite that seem to exist to tick certain boxes. It’s been termed ‘survival horror’, but monster encounters are scarce, and beyond that the very occasional jump-scare, creepy doll, or hallucination of a jittery man in a gas mask doesn’t really justify the label. 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. Mr X he most definitely is not.
Maybe Chernobylite latches onto these recognisable tropes because its greatest strengths aren’t easily conveyed through trailers or genre tags. Its cast of characters and its choice system are genuinely gripping, while its depiction of the Zone is at times breathtaking.
Like its motley crew of mad companions, Chernobylite is a misfit that I can’t help but like.