Chernobylite

 

Chernobylite has been around for awhile, initially in Early Access for some time, which I didnt pay attention to, but eventually got a finished full release. Years later I picked it up on a big discount, because of course I'll give it a shot - it doesn't take long mulling over the Steam page to see that its a game which broadcasts its self to fans of the STALKER games, which I am. It looks to be more of a good thing, more of something in a specific niche that has a cult following.

You start off exploring some swampy forest, with a voiceover woman calling you to follow her. After a few events setting up the scene, apocalyptic Chernobyl wasteland, evil military presence all around, and mutants, you arrive at this warehouse base greeted by a wounded ally who gives by the name Olivier. Then the real game opens up. Here you get greeted by a bunch of different, and ambitious mechanics. First, the game has a base building aspect. Where you have this one main base where you can open this interface to craft various stations and workbenches. The menu for navigating this is awkward to control, theres no mouse support, and its annoying to operate. At first theres no real point to craft anything, but as things go on you find yourself having to do more and more things (More on this later.)

Then, I was confused how to actually start the main story. Theres a place where you use binoculars to overlook the city, and it lists a bunch of activities you can do. But for awhile I wasnt sure if this was the main quest or what? Because theres also a Heist board next to it, for a few hours I couldnt figure out what Heists even are. Well the Binoculars is indeed how you select quests, the main quests have a red icon next to them, and randomly generated trash activities are the white ones. For the most part these random activities are pointless, its stuff like Food quests, Medical supplies quests, Ammo quests. Just infinitely regenerating quests where you go and spawn in this area of the map and go to a box to get ammo, food, or supplies. I did a few of these by mistake while trying to find out how to do the main quest and it was pretty lame and an unimpressive introduction to the game.

Once I found out how to do the main quest the ball started getting rolling.
The general premise of the game is that you're in this post-apocalyptic radioactive 'Zone', and you're looking for your lover wife...love interest, person, and in the meantime you start off with just one Ally, but as the game goes on it makes a big point to find and collect all the other allies, 5 total. Once you obtain some allies, and they return to your base, this is where the base building and management kind of comes into play. These allies will complain to you stuff like theres nowhere to sleep, so you need to build more beds to make the Comfort meter go up. They'll complain the place is too boring and dull, so you'll need to build things in the comfort/entertainment categories and make those stats go up. They'll complain theres no food, so you have to make sure to get food. You can send companions out on their own side missions  each day, so usually I just made them get food , so its not much of an issue. They'll complain the air quality sucks so you have to build air purifiers, you'll need to manage your power so you have to build generators, and so on. So the game does enforce you to try to engage with the base management mechanics, and for awhile it was kind of fun and entertaining. Its almost like a little mini-version of The Sims, inside Stalker. But after awhile the whole thing became clear it was just a phony facade. Theres no real depth here, you dont have to really do anything or engage with it in any meaningful way at all. All you have to do is the bare minimum (which is virtually nothing) until a companion complains, then you build a single bed each time, or if they say they're bored you build a single TV or radio and if they complain the place is ugly I built a single flower and that satisfied them. I'm not sure what the point of going over and above these minimum conditions are, they dont appear to really benefit in any meaningful way from it. Theres even a mental health system in the game where you can manage your companions mental health, I tried to appease them, but again, I dont really know if it had a meaningful difference.

Though, I would be lying if every now and then I didn't look forward to going back to the base, chilling out with the companions and building some things for them. It was kinda comfy at times. Especially since the game forces you to do one mission at a time, and then go back to base and go to bed. Its a small touch that I guess could be a bit annoying, but it adds to the immersion and makes you feel like youre living there, going through this routine, really being a part of the base and integrating with your little community you are building.

The focus on the companions and surrounding systems is quite strong, as mentioned previously, each day you can choose where to send your companions. You can make them do those menial infinite side activities, and it gives a percentage % chance they will succeed. You can give your companions a gun, which I would guess makes them better at succeeding at these outings. After they come back, they can succeed or fail in bringing back supplies. Then, you have to ration out the food. This is a nice little touch, it makes you feel like you are indeed the commander of the base and having to figure out how to divide  your precious supplies. There are multiple tiers of rationing out food to each person, and each tier tells you the effects on the individual companion. Usually, I just do everyone 'Normal' rations, that seemed to keep them happy for the most part. While playing through the game, there are lots of choices you'll have to make which affect the story. Depending on what you choose, some companions will like or dislike it. Eventually your relationship with them can grow to bad or good. But frankly I never really noticed a difference in having good or bad companion relationships besides a foul dialogue box every once and again. The game has all these ambitious features, but they all feel half baked or not really used to their full potential, which is a shame.

So how about the real core of the gameplay? hows the 'gameplay loop?'
I'll just say for starters that the graphics, for the most part are great. The newest 'Complete Enhanced Edition' has DX12 and Ray Tracing. While its implementation is a bit lazy and rough around the edges (weird white flakes at times), it does result in some often stunning almost lifelike visuals of lush forests and nice reflecting puddles of water and enviornmental effects. As for the animations and stuff like that, its not amazing in that department, standard affair, its just the lighting effects and overall quality of the environmental design and aesthetic is well done, I'd say they just about nailed the post-apocalyptic STALKER nuclear wasteland vibe they were going for. It does use Unreal Engine 5, and this is a budget tier game, (AA?) its certainly rough around the edges and at times the development and playtesting feels amateur and sloppy (awful, awful optimization and stutters, bugs, glitches, random techincal problems) still, cant deny that at times the overall end result in the environmental art design can be great.


The game is pseudo open world? Kind of open world? Its like, you start at your base, and when you select missions or side missions you kinda just get randomly teleported somewhere inside the map. You never really know exactly where the hell you are, and I dont think you can even find your base in the real game, its just this sectioned off place that you warp back to with a Diablo style Town Portal device. So you keep teleporting in and out of this sorta open map where you run past the same familiar sights over and over but you cant really freely roam around, its a lot of teleporting cutting off the cohesion. The map is fine enough, as it said the environments do a good job selling the location, there are the infamous or even classic radioactive hazards, geigar counters buzzing sound letting you know somewhere is dangerous (although it never really ended up being that threatening or harmful, even in the worst of spots. I only had to use my gas mask ONCE, and it was by the games force)

With that said, I've got a lot of complaints with the game, sadly.
The fucking writing. The voice acting. Where do I even start?
The game is over the moon with this hopeless romantic, Romeo & Juliet lovey dovey cringe-tastic plotline. Every 10 seconds "My love, oh my love, My sweet" this and that. Its just really fucking corny and cliche. The only plot is youre basically a swooning simp that cant get anything off his mind but finding out what happened to his girlfriend 30 years ago and you'll go to the ends of the earth to find out. Wow how original and clever. Look, that wouldnt be so bad, if the fucking dialogue didnt drone ON and ON and ON....CONSTANTLY. Like there are times where you do nothing but your controls get locked staring at a wall, or a fucking toy doll, or a random photograph, or a teddy bear or some stupid shit, where you hear this ghostly woman voice muttering poetric eyeroll garbage in your ear and the main character replies back in a puppy-dog trite way for 10+ minutes at a time...This is a frequent happening. Its not just that the writing is so horribly eyeroll inducing, its the voice acting too. Oh fuck, the voice acting. I mean, at times its almost so bad its good. There are times where I just sat there with a grin on my face smiling at the thought of these people sitting in some studio booth somewhere recording this garbage with a straight face being paid $7 an hour. But no, since its SO frequent, I was sitting there almost groaning in pain from boredom just wanting to DO SOMETHING. Reminder, it locks your controls and forces you to stare at..nothing, for most of the time this happens. There are no cutscenes, theres no cool budget action scenes, its just a stupid portrait of this womans face and this highschool lovers drama crooning at you. What fucking 'game' am I playing? What is this?

For awhile I could look over the annoying writing and plot, because I figured hey, the game has all these ambitious mechanics, the basebuilding, the weird mission selection screen with the companions being sent out on their own little adventures, the crafting and building your own guns and ammo and armor, the cool inventory screen where you have to micromanage your resources and gear like Inventory Tetris (I like that shit), the promising combat and gunplay, and even the writing with the companions isn't at least embarrassingly stupid, like the writing and voice acting with the various companions you come across is almost endearing and entertaining, these characters are kinda memorable and fun to listen to and watch the relationships progress --- but it all comes to a grinding halt. You know why? The game has no gameplay.

The game has no gameplay.
I'm not kidding, theres barely anything to DO in this game.
And you know what I realized? This is developed by The Farm 51.
The Farm 51.
The guys that made Get Even, a game I gave 3/10
Why?
No gameplay.
The whole game is just walking around from point A to B then getting stopped and listening to 5 minutes of shit writing and embarrassing voice acting, rinse and repeat. Maybe once every 2 hours you'll engage in some combat or gameplay for more than 30 seconds, but then its right back to it.

Yeah, its not changed much. Sure, this game is better, much better, but I could tell something was up. I kept holding out, waiting for interesting missions, waiting for fun memorable levels and objectives, waiting for challenging combat and gameplay. It just never, ever came. Hell, for most of the game the few enemies you do come across, you can simply walk around them. Just walk around them. Dont wanna fight them? No big deal, they arent usually in the way of the box you have to loot, or the computer you have to interact with. Just sneak past them with the incredibly forgiving crouch sneak.
I mean really, theres hardly anything to get invested in here outside of the writing and plot.
It took me 14 hours to beat the game, I would wager 2 hours of that was actual uninterrupted gameplay, not just walking from point A to B, but actually being challenged and having to interact with the mechanics and combat and gunplay. 2 Hours.

At least half of the missions in the game are literally
Spawn in map
Woman talking in your ear some hopeless romantic Edgy Sad Tragic trash
Follow compass to location
Arrive
Pickup a photo of woman in her Whimsical dress and Reminiscence about your beautiful relationship for 5 minutes
Controls get locked, stare at wall while this happens
Ok, controls unlocked, oh look a new objective.
Run to objective
Oh look a coin
Pickup coin
Controls locked again, stare at wall and listen to another 5 mins of reminiscing about your beautiful relationship and that one time you had a coin that you flipped and blah blah blah blah
Quest Complete!

Yes, those are the "quests" in this game. No monsters, no enemies, no challenging thoughtful encounters. Just listen to some melodrama.
I'm not joking when I mean atleast half of the missions in the game are like this.
What the fuck were they thinking? Who is this made for? It reminds me of those romance novels middle aged housewives would read. What the fuck? Wheres the Bloodsuckers, Underground labs, Survival horror, Pig dog mutants, Bandits, Anything? Where is it? --- Doesnt exist in this game, sorry!

There are a few missions where you actually do something interesting. One mission you go into this science base to collect data, only had to kill like 5 guards. Another mission you go into an apartment building and get attacked by a few mutants, probably a highlight of the game because it gave me some horror vibes, but the mutants are not that terrifying looking, they look kinda comical. Another moment you crawl around the Prypriat (I think) apartment complex while running away from the military and they storm in after you, probably the most engaging mission in the game, actually had to try and use my items and ammo. I cant really think of anything else off the top of my head, all the other missions you dont really do anything but collect an item or get to some point where you talk to a bunch of NPC's and have to make a decision that affects the story like "Blow up this thing or not?"   "Trust this guy or not?"  "Interfere with this or not?" but not much actual engaging gameplay moments.

STALKER this is not. As much as it wants to be.
I kept trying though, I was getting invested in collecting the companions, going back to the base and building it up for them. Seeing what kinds of crafts and upgrades I could get, theres a level up system too where you get XP for doing things and get points you can allocate, through the various companions they teach you things. Its very basic, the companions teach you different things, I just spent my points in the basic stuff like More health, more damage, carry more inventory slots, run faster, sneak better. By default, various actions you do will damage your psychological state. Sneak killing enemies is one of them, each time you do it you'll get your psyche damaged a bit (makes green vines go all over your screen) its not that big of a deal, you can just use items like Vodka to get rid of it, but theres a perk that makes it so you dont get this psyche penalty from stealth kills, so I got that one too. But other than that its just basic stuff. I'm just saying there were things I looked forward to seeing how they played out and developed, but at the end I realized just how shallow and under-implemented they were. It looks promising at first, but it takes a few hours to figure out its all a facade of depth.

The itemization isnt even that fleshed out either. You start off with a revolver, then you eventually craft some things in your base that lets you create other guns. You cant really pickup guns off enemies, they are all broken for whatever reason, but you can craft yourself..a few guns. You can craft: An AK, A Shotgun, A crossbow, A Makarov pistol, and I think thats it....besides some niche plasma energy weapons that I never bothered using because you only got access to them around the end of the game and why bother, because once you get the AK47 the game is over, you just fully upgrade it and everything else becomes irrelevant. Not very exciting or interesting weapons or itemization. Even the animations and presentation of the weapons isn't very satisfying.

The actual gunplay is fine, it actually does do some interesting things here, the AI uses voice comms a lot and will call out stuff about you, which is fun to listen to. They have this unique line of sight mechanic where it shows you where the AI is looking at and it turns a different color when hes about to shoot, encouraging you to try to duck and dodge around and time the bullets, which was fun and innovative. But really the game rarely throws more than 3 enemies at you at a time, and usually theres no point to even engage with them because its so easy to avoid them. There were a few memorable and fun firefights in the game, but its few and far between all the cringy stuff.

The games biggest strengths, and why I even looked forward to playing at times, were the almost so bad its good companion writing and voice acting, especially characters like Mikhail and Sashko. The odd inclusion of the Sims like basebuilding and companions management, that made me want to figure out what they were going for, and the fact that this is all wrapped into a STALKER silhouette, but sadly the game just doesnt deliver on meaningful FUN gameplay content, its so up its own ass with the plot and writing it just turns into an annoying slog. They paid the writers more than they did the gameplay testers or something, I don't know. They did the same thing with Get Even. I don't think they'll ever learn. MAKE INTERESTING MISSIONS WITH GAMEPLAY. Sure its possible to make a game where it has tons of writing and voice acting and its worth it, just wasnt executed in an interesting way here for me.

Oh yeah, the story is also a devolves into a complete convoluted clusterfuck ontop of all this, too. Time travel nonsense, rewrite history over and over, redo your past decsisions and mistakes, die and come back to life in an alternate dimension...its just all too stupid I stopped really caring about any of it towards the map. Finally when I figured out what the Heist is, its the final mission where you can only successfully do it once you have all the plotlines and companions quests completed, I just didnt care anymore. This Power Plant heist was supposed to be this epic big grand finale. But nothing happened. Nothing. Killed like 3 guards...again. The rest of it was listening to scripts and voice acting and making a few trite decisions on who gets to hack what or create a diversion where. At the end of the game I was opening Steam Overlay every 30 seconds to multi-task and occupy my mind somewhere else, everytime the long drawn out voice acting started again. Thats how bad it got. When the credits rolled I just let out a sigh like, ok finally. There was ONE boss fight, at the end of the game. And it was pretty much a joke. They even tried to do the STALKER big plot twist with the identity thing at the end too, I just rolled my eyes. Of course the game has all sorts of multiple endings and I think I got one of the bad ones, but by that point I just wanted it over with, and I care so little about going and doing any of the clusterfucked time travel stuff (If possible, I didnt check after the ending credits)

The game had so much potential, but I just have no confidence in this developer anymore. Is the game worth playing? Yeah, its a fucked up, weird novelty, with some ridiculous and hilarious writing and kinda charming side characters, with a cringe worthy main plot and main characters, and almost virtually devoid of interesting gameplay moments, but set in a interesting post-apoycalyptic environment. A real mixed bag of missed opportunities.

5/10