Chernobylite Review (PC)

My version of Igor is prudent, stealthy, does not even carry a firearm. In the Zone, the noise attracts the attention of humans and other things and that’s always a bad thing. Keep low to the ground, know the terrain, understand the mission, move carefully but purposefully. Take out only people who do not get out of the way. Gather the resources you need but don’t risk a lot for them. Complete the mission, get back to base, upgrade something and go to sleep. Never aim too high, always have food and healing on hand.

Chernobylite is both developed and published by The Farm 51. I played on the PC via Steam but the game will also be offered on both available console generations from Microsoft and Sony, as well as the Nintendo Switch, later in the year. The game mixes stealthy exploration, limited combat, survival elements, and base development with a story centered around Igor’s attempt to find his long-lost love in the Exclusion Zone.

The narrative is engaging, if a little over-dramatic, and the writing is decent most of the time (even if a lot of NPC lines repeat so often gamers will quickly learn them by heart). There are plenty of cliches in Chernobylite but also some beautiful earnest moments. To move towards that final heist objective players have to do missions and improve their base of operations. Each day Igor and anyone he has recruited can choose one of the opportunities that the Zone presents to engage with.

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There are full story missions, which push the narrative forward, but also plenty of side activities. All of them produce resources, which are needed to keep characters healthy and ready for action (always try to have plenty of extra rations), and crafting materials, employed in base upgrading and to create better gear and extras. One might be tempted to give the best stuff to Igor but companions also get shot or irradiated and will require constant care to be useful. The Zone also evolves, becoming more hostile as time passes, and the player can build structures to counter that tendency.

Once a mission is chosen players have to manage to explore, sneak, battle, and more to fulfill objectives. Igor needs to worry about both classic health and about his sanity. Get spotted or go into dangerous areas without good gear and the first will suffer. Kill too many people (without making good choices for Igor) and the second will take a major hit.

The best way to complete a mission is as stealthy as possible, taking only the risks that are really needed, bringing back enough to get one new upgrade or to create another building. I played trying to avoid all necessary contact and detection, especially with the more exotic Zone inhabitants. After around 7 or 8 hours, with more weapons and skills unlocked, actual firefights can happen but they still feel wasteful, mainly because they bring a particularly tough opponent to the scene.

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Chernobylite disappoints when it comes to level design. You will see the same areas again and again and most of them are not too big. This limits player choice and sometimes pushes Igor artificially towards confrontation. There’s also plenty of backtracking that feels unnecessary. The game also has issues with models, especially for humans. They move like their torsos and legs are connected in weird unnatural ways. Apart from stealth takedowns close quarters engagements also feel unnatural. But the gameplay loops are mostly good.

Chernobylite manages to deliver some impressive sights at times while looking like a bargain bin title at others. There are missions where the Zone design, position of the Sun, and colors of the world work together to make the player forget for a little while about the harshness of the universe and his frail nature, offering space to just stop and admire the sights. But the base building seems lifted almost straight out of older Fallout and looks really bad.

A player will spend much more time in the former spaces, which means there’s more beauty than gray and brown ugly textures to look at. The music is very well-chosen and underlines the weirdness that gamers have to deal with, the way the Zone threatens both physically at the psychic level.

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The Good

The Bad

Conclusion