The last few weeks have been extremely intense for us, in connection with the premiere of the Mega Patch and work on bug fixing. However, thanks to this, we brought you the game 95 percent ready. And there is very little time until the full version is released. That is why we decided to focus on these and subsequent reports on specific elements of the game that have undergone huge changes in recent months, if not years. Some of them can be seen with the naked eye, while some need to be told in a broader context.

In today's report, we'll focus on what makes up the core of Chernobylite - the story.

We all know very well that the game consists of many elements: graphics, music, sound design, level design, gameplay, etc. However, we have never concealed that in Chernobylite we attach great importance to the storyline. After the reactions of all players, we can see that the story has drawn a lot of attention. It means we hit the point. However, as the premiere of the last Mega Patch showed, there is nothing that could not be improved.

We’ve mentioned many times that the entire story has been thoroughly redrafted and corrected by us. We didn't just do it for aesthetic reasons - we did this because we wanted to highlight the different layers and aspects of the Chernobylite story we wrote as much as possible. This one is focused on the figure of Igor - a man who tries to solve a mystery from the past and understand his role in the events that took place many years ago.

The attempt to find his beloved Tatyana is not only literal, but also metaphorical - it is a desire to face the past full of riddles and understatements. Just like Tatyana herself. Do we really know who she is? Are the memories of the main character about her real, or are they just his imaginations, fantasies? How do Igor's memories of Tatiana relate to her actual image? A seemingly simple story about a man who is looking for his beloved, with time becomes more and more complex and multi-threaded. Nothing is black and white.



What about side characters? They also play important roles in this game. Because Chernobylite is also a story about dealing with trauma, about trying to give it some tangible dimension and meaning. Each of the characters met in the game experiences something like this. They have to deal with the past and they do it for better or worse. We also have the question of identity. What defines a man? His actions? His past? His origin? His agenda?

To fully exploit the potential of the Chernobylite scenario, we had to make a lot of corrections and changes to the game. We wanted each of the characters to have a personality, and not just an extra in the background. Each of the encountered characters has been rewritten - each of them has new backstories, a new, distinctive way of expressing themselves. They have their own individual attitude towards the player. In addition, we have not only rewritten the plot, but also the dialogues that have been rewritten line by line. In this way, we wanted to better emphasize the mood that we wanted in the game from the very beginning, and also to better reflect the character's individuality. The effects can be seen especially in the dialogues between NPCs and Igor in missions and in the base.






The world of Chernobylite is also made up of other factors that are part of the narrative layer. For example, Ariadna - a mysterious device resembling VR goggles, which is located in Igor's room. With its help Igor can visualize the effects of his investigations that are to lead him to the truth with the disappearance of his beloved.




Ariadna is the heart of the Chernobylite gameplay. All the missions that Igor performs are only an excuse to be able to search the area around the power plant for clues and evidence related to the events of years ago. After collecting all the things needed for the investigation, Ariadna analyzes them and then uses them to virtually simulate the events. Thanks to this, Igor can see the effects of his investigation with his own eyes - memories of events from several decades ago, in which the collected evidence played a key role. This is definitely a more convenient and practical solution than using threads and pins on a cork board.




Only one question remains: how did Igor get such an advanced device? It wasn't like it just appeared in his room. We wanted to expand this thread a bit with Igor's dream, in which it was also important to show who is behind Ariadne's creation.




But wait a minute. Something is wrong. This level is very similar to a level from another game. Specifically, the one from Get Even where Cole Black tries to reconstruct his memories!



Not only that: Ariadna looks like a goggle that someone put on Cole when he was unconscious. Thanks to them, he can visit fragments of his own memories, undergoing "treatment" under the watchful eye of a mysterious observer from a dingy psychiatric hospital.



Goggles are also an inseparable element of the encountered "patients" of this charming place.



So is it possible that the Chernobylite and Get Even worlds are somehow related to each other? Are Igor and Cole characters from the same universe? Maybe yes, maybe no… We encourage you to see for yourself. It is especially worth looking for clues scattered around the game or listening to the dialogues in Igor's dream. You might be surprised.

Take care, Stalkers!

No introductory text. Just a picture.



We did it. We finally did it.

Ok. Let’s move on.

Before we get to the main menu, a quick reminder. A few weeks ago we launched a community art contest. We have been inundated with a lot of different kinds of work. You can see that your creativity has no limits. You can now vote for the best of them. However, we also noticed that among you there are a large number of people who, for various reasons, have not had time to send anything and would like to take part in the competition.

We listen to your voices. That is why we decided to extend the possibility of submitting works in our competition. Regardless of whether they are newly created works, or maybe they were created months or years ago, and you put them in a drawer - we accept everything (of course, everything must be in accordance with the competition rules). Works should be sent by May 3 at midnight CET.

What about the voting? As we mentioned, votes have already started, and it is impossible for us to stop them. Therefore, due to the extension of the time for submitting works, we also extended the time for casting votes. Voting ends on May 9 at Midnight CET.

Don't hesitate! There will be no second chance!

The rules of the competition can be found at THIS LINK. You can submit your works in the following categories: ART, COSPLAY and VIRTUAL PHOTOGRAPHY.



The highlight of the past week, both for us and for you, was the release of the last Mega Patch, which we called "Final Stage". It was created by thousands of hours spent in front of computers, a lot of new, improved elements has been added. It's also a huge support from our community - thanks to the closed testing you took part in, we knew what needed to be improved before we released the Mega Patch. Thank you again for this help!

In total, we’ve introduced several thousand fixes and improvements to the game. They covered every aspect of Chernobylite, from the story, to gameplay, graphics, to technical issues. You can read about all the most important changes in the post below.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1016800/view/3059609427951998126

Last week was also an opportunity to share with you the release date of Chernobylite. The full game will be released on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in July this year. The current generation console version will be released a little later this year.

By the way, we would like to remind you that today is the LAST DAY when you can buy Chernobylite in the PC version with a 20% discount. In our opinion, it is worth doing this for two reasons. First, you'll get the game cheaper, duh. Second, only those who purchased the game in Early Access will be guaranteed access to the free DLC available after the game's premiere. So don't hesitate - we are preparing a lot of cool things for you!



Although the Mega Patch has been released quite recently, it does not mean that our work is finished. We still have a lot of work to do. It consists of all the elements that we are going to give you back on the day of the premiere of the full version of Chernobylite. For example, the remaining ⅔ Heist - ⅓ of the entire level you can play today, as a foretaste of what awaits you in July.

But these are also some bug fixes that you report to us on Steam and Discord. Probably the most common bug you have reported to us was in the area of missing voice overs. It didn't happen often, and only at random moments, but still.

You can read about the latest fixes in the game at this link.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1016800/view/3059610062004794121

By the way, we make small touches to what is already there. Have you seen what the new portal looks like? It already looks cool, but we want to make it even better. We are working on a solution that will allow a smooth transition between the portal and the loading screen.



Additionally, we are working on new things ... but we won't say anything about them. At least for now. We can offer you a small sneak-peek in the form of a detailed head model. Whose? We will tell about it another time.



Take care, Stalkers!

Yesterday's update broke something in the save for some of you. I am so sorry for causing the problems. Return to base should fix this bug. If you have any problems with the save (black screen, spawn in a strange place), load the previous save and get killed in any way - radiation, monsters. Going through the timeline should fix everything.

General:

• After returning to the base, the game misread the information about the progress of quests, which could lead to many strange errors. We fixed it.
  
• The "Old friend" quest should now end correctly
  
• More fixes in the crash reporter
  
• A few smaller fixes reported on steam and caught by us (blends, music, collisions)

This hotfix solves the most common and serious bugs. If your problem has not been solved then don't worry. If you reported it on the steam forum bug it will be fixed. Or at least we'll try hard ;)

Technology:

• Crash raporter did not work properly in many situations. We have improved its operation.
  
• We fixed the position of the weapon in non-standard aspect ratios such as 21: 9 or 32: 9. PDA should no longer be under the screen
  
• Fixed a rare crash related to the incorrect steam initialization
  
• Fixed a crash related to write errors while streaming data
  
• We fixed one of the random engine bugs. Don't worry Epic, we still love you.
  
• We fixed the infinite loading screen bug. If it still happens to someone, send us a save.

General:

• Fixed a blocker that appeared after the power plant exploded during the "dying tutorial".
  
• Fixed problems with music on the base and during training
  
• We fixed many lines with VO not working properly. Both in Russian and in English.
  
• We have fixed many localization issues in different languages.
  
• We have fixed problems with blending various landscape elements.
  
• We solved some bugs with heistline (it's the equivalent of a fratal timeline to Heist itself)
  
• Some events restarted even though the player had already completed them. We fixed it.
  
• The melee beating sounds should perform much better
  
• We've fixed many smaller bugs with collisions and visuals that you reported through Steam

The construction of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant began in the 1970s. The first reactor was put into operation in 1977 and by 1983, four of the six planned reactors were commissioned.

April 26, 1986.

An experiment was carried out in the renovated power unit No. 4, the purpose of which was to show how long (after a possible failure) the power plant would be able to produce energy for its own operation. The duration of the experiment was planned only for a minute.

Tests started at 01:23. Almost a minute later, the pressure of steam led to the first explosion - the anti-radiation dome was blown up, and the building of block four was demolished. The second explosion took place at 01:24. Only a crater remains from what once was the fourth reactor.

The fire brigade arrived shortly after the fire broke out. The firefighters were convinced they were dealing with an ordinary situation, a fire on the roof of the power plant. Units from Chernobyl and Pripyat arrive there and the fight with fire lasted several hours, until the very morning. They were extinguished by dozens of units, well over a hundred firefighters in total.

The entire local population was evacuated - first within a radius of 10 km from the crash site, then it was extended to 30 km in the following days. Approximately 350,000 people were evacuated, including those from Pripyat, which is today known as a “ghost town”.

For many years the Chernobyl disaster has been the subject of many publications - historical and scientific articles, reports, analysis. Over time, the history of Chernobyl and the place itself began to be used in other media - movies, TV series, video games.

The Farm51 adventure with Chernobyl began a few years ago. Every year we visited Exclusion Zone, where we collected a lot of materials for our projects: the widely commented Chernobyl VR, and our latest production, Chernobylite. The data collected by us consist of thousands of photos, hundreds of hours of recorded videos and countless many with local people. Yes, we make games to be entertaining to players, but we treat everything with due respect. Our Chernobyl adventure continues.

“To Those Who Saved the World”

Chernobylite Team,
The Farm 51

Several months of hard work by the entire team, thousands of hours spent in front of the computers, a lot of tests carried out (also with the participation of our community). The last Mega Patch is finally ready for download for everyone who owns Chernobylite Early Access!

Prepare space on your disks! There is a ton of new stuff waiting for you, as well as significant changes to the story, dialogue, location and soundtrack. In addition, from now on, you all have the opportunity to get to know an impressive fragment of the final, get it right, THE FINAL level - Heist.

Make sure you play the patch before the game officially launches - in this Mega Weekly Report you’ll find the one true... PREMIERE DATE!

Long story short: we’ve got a huge news for you!

We can finally reveal that the gates to the Exclusion Zone in Chernobylite will open on the most popular gaming platforms in July this year! PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions are planned for later release this year.



Don’t forget this, as then you’ll get the chance to sink into a true survival horror RPG experience. One that will require planning, finding allies, team building, and searching for clues to solve the mystery that has brought you to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. However, you don’t have to wait another three months to enjoy the Chernobylite’s offerings, as the final pre-launch Mega Patch has just been added to the Early Access version, including significant changes to the story, dialogues, language localizations, optimization, and soundtrack. Last but not least, this major update will also give you a taste of the Chernobylite’s final level!

It’s also the last chance to grab a PC version of Chernobylite with 20% discount before the final release and get the all upcoming DLCs for free. Only Early Access buyers have guaranteed all future DLC content free of charge after the game’s premiere.



We've never hidden the fact that the Chernobylite storyline is the apple of our eye. All the main and side plots are crucial for the reception of the game as a whole. From your reactions we can see that the story has drawn a lot of attention, and you are looking forward to the continuation. However, there is nothing that cannot be refined even more. This also applies to the plot, which has been thoroughly re-edited and corrected by us.

We tried to highlight the different layers and aspects of the Chernobylite story we wrote as much as possible. This one is focused on the figure of Igor - a man who tries to solve a mystery from the past and understand his role in the events that took place many years ago. The attempt to find his beloved Tatyana is not only literal, but also metaphorical - it is a desire to face the past full of riddles and understatements. These and many other aspects of the plot have been remodeled and, despite many twists, it is a coherent whole.



In order to fully exploit the potential of the Chernobylite scenario, we not only reworked the storyline, but also the dialogues that were rewritten line by line. In addition, all dialogue lines in the game have been re-recorded in English and Russian. As a result, the characters sound even more natural, gaining personality and depth. It is worth mentioning that we have prepared a localization for all the main languages ​​in the game: English, Russian, German, Spanish, French, Polish, including the new ones we’ve promised some time ago: Italian, Portuguese (Brazilian), Simplified Chinese and Japanese.

The world of Chernobylite also consists of characters. During your journey, in addition to the well-known and liked faces, you will meet four new characters also important for the plot - Vagabond, Volodya, Hermit, Deserter. So far, their appearances have been only placeholders - today it can be said that they’ve officially entered the Chernobylite canon.

We've also added something to this Mega Patch that you've all been asking for a long time. We added the first part of Heist, 1/3 of the entire level to be exact. We give it to you so that you can taste it. So experience something you await since the day of the Early Access release.



As you explore the world of Chernobylite, you will enjoy new melodies played in the background. They are from a completely new, original soundtrack, composed by the award-winning Mikołaj Stroiński, a talented man who worked with multiple well-known titles like The Witcher 3, League of Legends or Vanishing of Ethan Carter.

Mega Patch also introduces a number of novelties and solutions to improve gameplay. For example, the possibility of arming companions with armor and weapons that can be found or crafted in the base. Thanks to this novelty, our companions will have an easier time completing the tasks we send them to. This is something you have asked us and what we can finally give to you.



It is also worth mentioning that we have improved the save system. From now on, players have three additional autosave slots, one separate for quicksave (operated by F5 and F8 keys). In addition, each save has the appropriate markings in the form of a screenshot from the last moment in the game, a time stamp and the length of the game.

However, it will not always be that easy. We added to the game a new enemy - Heavy Armored Soldier. He is the strongest and most formidable soldier. Armed from head to toe this one has almost indestructible armor. It takes more than just a regular gun to defeat him.



And death can also be painful for our pockets - after each death, the player will lose some valuable random items from the inventory. On the other hand, it is sometimes worth dying in Chernobylite, as we show in the tutorial where we explain why.



We also have good news for those who prefer a pad over a mouse and a keyboard - we've introduced full support for controllers, including PlayStation and Xbox controllers. This is a tribute to those players who appreciate smooth movements throughout the game.

We spent many months to polish Chernobylite - to correct bugs, graphics and increase stability. Everything that you have signaled to us many times. The effect of our actions can be seen in the new Mega Patch. The game has been thoroughly optimized in terms of memory consumption and displayed geometry. Thanks to these changes, the game works much better, is more stable, loads much faster and displays more details in a higher quality.

Additionally, it's worth mentioning that we've completely reworked the graphic settings. Now, individual options should have a greater impact on the performance and a better scaling. Owners of weaker PCs should be particularly pleased with these changes.

Of course, the mentioned changes are only a percentage of what you will be able to find in this Mega Patch. In total, we are introducing several thousand fixes and improvements. Below you will find another portion of the most important of them:

Technology:

• The game has been thoroughly optimized in terms of memory consumption and displayed geometry. The game run much better and more stable, while loading faster
  
• We have thoroughly reworked the graphics settings. Now individual options should have a more pronounced impact on performance and scale better
  
• We optimized this when the game uses data synchronously and when it uses data asynchronously. The vast majority of random FPS drops should therefore be removed
  
• We've added save support in Steam Cloud
  
• We added DLSS support and improved support for Fidelity FX
  
• We've added support for Steam Achievements

Story and graphic:

• The entire storyline of the game has been thoroughly rewritten and improved
  
• All 4 fractal worlds summing up Igor's investigation have been rebuilt, elongated and finished. A minilevel showing how Igor got Arianna's possession as well.
  
• New level: Heist. We've added the first part of Heist (about ⅓ of the total) so you can get a taste of what it's all about before the game's premiere.
  
• All dialogue lines in the game are voiced with new VOs - both in English and Russian
  
• New story character: Vagabond (earlier character mesh was just a placeholder)
  
• New story character: Volodya (earlier character mesh was just a placeholder)
  
• New story character: Hermit (earlier character mesh was just a placeholder)
  
• New story character: Deserter (earlier character mesh was just a placeholder)
  
• 5 new village characters (all earlier character meshes where just a placeholders)

AI and combat:

• New enemy: Heavy Armored Soldier. The strongest and most formidable NAR soldier
  
• We have added new properties to armor. Now wearing them affects how well our enemies can see and hear us
  
• Opponents now react better to their surroundings. They hear worse in the rain, see worse in fog, and spot the player's flashlight
  
• We've added the ability to create a thermal sight for a rifle and shotgun
  
• We've added the ability to convert the shotgun to a semi-automatic fire mode
  
• We've improved how soldiers react to a melee attack. Igor's fist should no longer be the ultimate tool of destruction
  
• We added AI state indication. The player is informed whether the opponents are in combat, whether they are looking for him, whether he is being chased by a black stalker and how long it will all take
  
• We improved the performance of covers. Opponents should no longer use covers that do not offer them any real protection
  
• For the hardcore players, we've added a new difficulty mode: Insane. If Chernobylite is still too easy for you, be sure to try it out

Gameplay mechanic:

• We've added the ability to arm your companions with armor and weapons. You've asked for it so often, so… Surprise?
  
• We've added 3 new armor types, one for each tier
  
• We have introduced severe punishment for death. Each time a player dies he will lose some valuable random items
  
• We improved the save system. Now the player has 3 additional autosave slots, a separate quicksave slot (supported by F5 and F8), and each save is tagged with a screen, timestamp and playtime length
  
• We updated the descriptions of items and clearly indicated how the items are used
  
• We have added to the description of all crafting tables which specific items can be built with them

Redesign and balance:

• We spelled out and updated all of the in-game tutorials. We are aware that Chernobylite is quite a unique game and a lot of its mechanics needed to be explained more literally
  
• We have thoroughly balanced the amount of resources and items on the levels. Recipes needed to craft items and build structures in the base have also been balanced
  
• We rebalanced all base stats
  
• We have balanced the game difficulty levels. Now very easy should be really simple and accessible for players who just want to quietly learn the history of the game
  
• The sounds and musical direction of the Quests have been greatly improved
  
• There are now many more soldiers in the NAR secret prison, and getting out of it now requires more attention and cleverness
  
• We have redesigned the armor status bar. Now it should more clearly inform about the current and maximum strength of the armor

Quality of life and feedback:

• In the fractal timeline, memories that have only been slightly modified do not require interaction anymore
  
• We have added the ability to disable the laser aim indicator. Use it if you want the fight with soldiers to be more like a classic action game
  
• For people who don't want to die, we have introduced an additional tutorial that will explain why it is worth dying in Chernobylite sometimes
  
• We have greatly improved the performance of the game on low and high FOV
  
• We have added ADS support in the game options
  
• We have added the ability to split stacks into any parts
  
• We have added the ability to call the quickuse menu with mmb for those who keep forgetting where they assigned what ... and the ability to handle it with a scroll for those who do not want or cannot use it in the classic way
  
• We've added an icon in inventory that shows what item is currently being used by Igor.
  
• We have added the ability to disable head bobbing

And that's all! Now there is nothing else to do but download the Mega Patch and get ready for your summer trip to Pripyat. You have a long journey ahead of you, but its end is worthwhile. Also, don't forget to visit our Steam account, where we will be streaming Chernobylite every day.

We are already in mid-April. It means May is nearly soon. And hence the straight path to the longed-for summer. A hot period is brewing. Literally. Especially when we finally release the last Mega Patch and most importantly - our game in version 1.0.

We have another surprise for you. As you can see, we've livened up our YouTube channel a bit. A few weeks ago you could see "Chernobylite Monthly" - a video summary of last month, which will also include some behind the scenes materials.

Last weekend, we uploaded another material - "Chernobylite Lore". In this new series, we're going to take a closer look at Chernobylite's primary and secondary characters, their background and skills. We started with the man Igor spends most of his time with and who is a crowd favorite at the same time - Olivier.

Enjoy watching :)



We started our competition for Community Art quite recently, but the first works are already being submitted to us. We can't reveal too much yet, but we can say one thing - the quality of your work is high. This shows that the willingness to win is very high.



But it's not like we're giving out prizes only to winners with the highest number of votes. In each category, we’ll also select people whose works have impressed the The Farm 51 crew. They’ll also receive nice gifts from us.



Works can be sent by the end of April 25. That's a lot of time to do something cool to show off to others. Therefore, do not hesitate!



We focus all our strength on fixing various bugs, both in the game itself and in the last Mega Patch.

The first group includes, for example, a bug that caused the game to crash literally at the very beginning of the Enemy List. Another rather unusual bug touched… the staff of Tarakan. During the conversation with the character, the cane was able to bend strongly in all possible directions.

For the second group - bugs found in the Mega Patch - there was a whole lot of them and of various severity. Most often, there were minor bugs. Like the one that made some items found large.



TimTolle, who found the bug, swears he didn't kill the soldier by throwing that big metal plate at him.

But there were also larger ones that we had to think a little longer about. One of the bugs reported appeared in Ariadna. As you can see on the gif that something is obviously missing. Something big.



But we must admit that the effect itself looks quite impressive. Maybe we’ll use it in the next game ;)

In addition, we are working on a lot of things that STILL not be seen. But they are also extremely important.

1. We are finishing language localizations. All the languages planned so far are now playable.
   
2. We are finishing optimizing the game. Thanks to this, we are lowering the hardware requirements of the game - they will be different than you can read on the Steam website (which will soon change. Stay tuned). In addition, the game will look much better and run much smoother even at low settings. We have mentioned it many times, and we keep our word.
   
3. We are preparing a new roadmap. It will contain information not only about the release date, but also about other updates that we also plan after the premiere.
   
4. In the context of point 3 - We are working on new content for the Mega Patches and DLC coming post-launch.

Another portion of news that await you in the upcoming Mega Patch. Say hello to a new enemy in Chernobylite: Heavy Armored Soldier. His name is not a coincidence - he’s the strongest and most formidable NAR soldier. Armed from head to toe. It takes more than a gun and a ton of patience to defeat him.

In addition, he looks pretty good.





Although he has one undeniable disadvantage - he cannot do such good breakdances as his colleagues.



Now, for the sake of balance, a portion of facilitation. We decided to strongly rebuild all tutorials in the game. We are aware that Chernobylite is quite a unique game and many of its mechanics require more detailed explanation.

Therefore, we supplemented the tutorial screens with new and additional explanations and help icons.




Take care, Stalkers!

"Fixing the bottle in the vodka drinking animation" - we read in one of the devnotes. We’re still waiting for the results.

About the results, we invite you to read the report. Because a looot is happening in the project.

Mega Patch testing is in full swing. For weeks you’ve been flooding us with videos and screenshots from the game, pointing out where the problems are. Thank you once again for all the materials, and we ask for more. Because thanks to you Chernobylite is getting better and better.

And now news for those who didn’t get to register for the tests. In recent days we’ve come to the conclusion that you also deserve some specific information on what to expect from the Mega Patch. Therefore, from today, in each report, we’ll reveal, piece by piece, the new stuff and fixes that some of you are already testing.

For starters, something you've been asking for a long time and quite often - we've added the ability to arm our companions with armor and weapons. Let’s call it... a reward for your patience.

Let's start from the beginning. So far, when approaching a NPC, we could only talk to them. Now, as you can see in the attached picture, there is an option "Show Equipment".



After selecting this option, it takes the player to the next screen. On the left is Igor's inventory, and in the right column - NPC’s weapons and stats. When you hover the cursor over a weapon or armor in the inventory, you can see how they affect the NPC's stats.




Appropriate armament of our companions will make it easier for them to complete the missions on which the player sends them.



To avoid accusations of being heartless people who like making others suffer, we’re offering you a helping hand at the same time - we improved the save system. From now on, players have three additional autosave slots, and one separate slot for quicksave (operated by F5 and F8 keys). In addition, each save has appropriate markings in the form of a screenshot from the last moment in the game, a time stamp and the length of the game. We mentioned this novelty in one of the previous reports. And soon it will appear for everyone in the Mega Patch. Like other new stuff. But more on that in the next episode.



The Mega Patch is one thing, but a lot is going on in the game as well. We’re fixing and patching everything we can. Including even the smaller bugs - such as getting rid of the sound of blows from gas damage, or implementing a slightly different animation of removing collapsed tunnel waste in the secret storage.

But it's also a longer fight with the adjustments. All this to make everything work more efficiently even on weaker PCs and consoles.

You can see these changes in the screenshots below. Improvements and optimization affected the character models, as can be seen in the examples of your favorites - Sashko and Kozlov.





And for fans of 3D graphics, we have something special - a cross-sectional 3D model of the KGB agent character. Here you can see how the character is created in the smallest detail before the appropriate textures are applied to it.



Finally, we present to you the new format that has taken off on our YouTube channel - Chernobylite Monthly. We intend not only to summarize the most important information from last month, but also to show behind-the-scenes materials, such as interviews with creators and making of. We invite you to watch and subscribe to our channel.



One more announcement for our talented community. We are starting a competition in which there are extra prizes to be won. What do we require from you? Creativity. For more information see this link.

Take care, Stalkers!

Every week we claw our way through the tons of materials we're working on Chernobylite. It’s a lot of videos, photos and sketches that we are happy to share with you. And suddenly we come across this:





Working on reports is a new adventure each time.

Either way, we say “hello” to you all and, as always, we encourage you to read the new report!

We recently started testing the last Mega Patch, which will be available to everyone before the official launch of the game. There are quite a lot of changes, fixes and novelties. So, to check them all out, we needed an extra pair of hands to help us out in the open. And we decided to look for those among people who know Chernobylite best. That's why last weekend we gave some of you access to the Mega Patch's closed tests.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1016800/view/3030332860923490188

The response was bigger than we expected. However, players reported bugs in a very neat and thorough manner, so we decided to expand the test group. Thus, there were over 170 daredevils among you who wanted to help us test everything we have to offer in the Mega Patch. We can already firmly say that your help is invaluable to us! Our Steam forum was bursting with all your bug reports and shortcomings. And these were the most varied.


By Vehrr


By Eshalom

There were even typos.


By Speedwagon

The movies you made were especially helpful.




By HUNSTOP


By jmmy

There were also funny bugs…



...and the creepy ones too.



You reported bugs not only related to the graphics or gameplay - you also gave us signals about missing or broken sounds and voice overs.

Thank you once again for all your bug reports and… we ask for more. Those who have only recently opened their e-mails and saw invitations to test - play and send us your observations.

Meanwhile, we get back to work. The Mega Patch will not patch itself.

Take care, Stalkers!

We've quickly gathered the needed tester base, so the registration is now CLOSED. Thanks all for your precious support!

We are fully aware that you’re waiting for the final version of Chernobylite and today we can say it’s not just around the corner. It’s already leaning and aiming at you.

We want to invite you to closed testing of the English version of the last Mega Patch before we release it next month.

The short and simple plan is that now we’re starting the closed tests of the Mega Patch, make it public in April, and then we’ll ask you to wait only weeks till the game is finally released and leaves Early Access (we’ll be able to give you the final game release date in April together with the public Mega Patch). The testing group will be limited to 100 people only, so don’t hesitate to register - we’ll send the access codes to the first 100 players who register HERE.

It was promised that we’ll deliver the last Mega Patch on Q1 2021 and we truly want to fulfill this promise. The only issue why we can’t do a public Mega Patch release today is because in the meantime we started to work on more language localizations and this process is not over yet. Thanks to cooperation with our publisher, All in! Games, the game will be localized into several additional languages, but this is taking a bit longer than our original timeline presented on the Roadmap of Early Access. The original story dialogues have been fully rewritten and character voices were recorded from the scratch, so it’s not just an update to the text and voices you may know, but it’s a true 2.0 version of the initial story. That’s why we had to restart all the text and dialogue work for all the languages.

• You’ll get access to the testing branch of Chernobylite on Steam, meaning you’ll download the game again in a special version prepared for this opportunity. Register below with your email and within the next few days, you’ll get access to the testing branch.
  
• You’ll be able to play the latest version of the game with all the content updated comparing to the previous Mega Patch but only in English.
  
• The game will allow you to take a look at the part of the final Heist mission, but the game endings are still not available until we release the finished game.
  
• The game is strongly optimized and cleaned up from most of the bugs and glitches you were experiencing in previous versions...
  
• ...but you can still find some bugs and glitches and this is why we need your help.
  
• You’ll lose your progress from the previously saved games (it will happen anyway after the final release, but here it’ll happen sooner).
  
• We’ll be updating the game version on the testing branch many times within the next weeks, so you may expect both improved content and new bugs from time to time.
  
• You have a chance to get cool physical rewards if you help us and to be mentioned in the game credits.

• Playing the finalized game till the ending is still not here - if you want to have a smooth and fully enjoyable player experience instead of helping us in quite a demanding testing task, it’s better if you wait for the final game.
  
• No language versions other than English are available at this moment. We’ll be adding other languages to this testing version as soon as we’ll get them implemented and primarily tested internally - what is the matter of the next weeks.

• It makes sense for both you and us only if you’ll spend quite a time on playing the game and report any bugs or issues you’d find to our Steam forum.
  
• We’re closing the game development so we should focus only on looking for the technical and gameplay issues related to the existing content. I.e. it’s very important for us to know if the difficulty balance is OK or not for any of you. Or if the game works smoothly on your current PC rig. But it won’t help if you ask us to add the possibility to drive the vehicles or hunt the animals, because we simply have no option to add new content or features here.
  
• But if you have any suggestions about the possible expansion of the game in the future upgrades after the release (like DLC or the sequel), we’re more than happy to get them collected HERE.

Just to make sure once again: if you’d like have the fun from playing the 100% polished game, we recommend you to wait until we release a final version of Mega Patch, and if you like to finalize the game story till the finish, please wait for the end of the Early Access.


Back in 2015, we visited the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone for the first time attempting to collect some data for the experimental VR documentary about the catastrophe in 1986. We couldn’t imagine that it’ll lead us to the point when today we’ll be sharing with you the (almost) finished role-playing survival horror game that tells the alternative story of the infamous incident.

Now we’re just about to end the craziest and biggest project that most of us have been working on. From the 3D-scanning of the real Zone, through the atypical non-linearity of the story, to the insane will to recreate some of the tiniest details of this beautiful and dark world - we tried to push our skills and tools to the limits.

A game like this wouldn’t be possible to make without your help. In the harsh reality of the video games industry, the unusual projects like Chernobylite usually end as small and unnoticed indie titles or turn into the bigger but much more safely crafted mainstream productions. But thanks to you, our Kickstarter and Early Access supporters, we could develop the game according to our original vision and immediately share it with you through the updates on Steam and GOG. The ideas we had a few years ago are here all the time, but their execution was strongly driven by our players’ feedback and countless discussions we had on Steam forums, Discord, messengers and direct emails.

And this is why we’d like to ask you once again to help us with the final testing phase of the Chernobylite. You could ask “why?” and the question would be perfectly valid. Well, we’re doing very excessive tests with your participation since the Early Access launch in 2019. And we believe that the high quality of many aspects of the game we’ve reached during this time is clearly your contribution. In our team, since the beginning of the development, we had some internal testers working on checking the gameflow and looking for the bugs within the game all the time. Moreover, for the last 6 months, we’re cooperating with a professional testing team that guides us from the Beta stage of the project to the soon-to-be release on many technical issues and bug fixing processes.

But let’s make it clear: a game like this (and Chernobylite definitely is not the biggest project in the world), in its original form, before it’s cooked and uploaded to Steam or GOG, contains almost 700.000 files, located in nearly 40.000 folders. It includes about 130.000 of various objects (models, textures, animations, sound files and so on) and we don’t even try to count the lines of code and parameters written in programming and scripting languages. For a team of fewer than 30 people, it’s virtually impossible to make sure that all these elements are working bug-free in all game scenarios that are available within the non-linear Chernobylite story. So we know that game still contains some bugs and the remaining weeks of development time before the final game is released we would like to focus entirely on the bug fixing and optimization of any remaining elements of the game that can be found as problematic for you.

And while we are talking about it… While fixing these major bugs, such as a bug where soldiers in Kopachi could shoot through walls (we have Counter-Strike flashbacks. You know - the mighty Desert Eagle), we came across something interesting.

As you well know, there are quite a few narrative elements in the game that help you understand the world of Chernobylite, such as newspaper clippings, notes, and official documents. But there were also numerous events scattered across the maps, which showed Igor pictures from the past. Thanks to this, players could see with their own eyes what was happening in Chernobyl during and after the disaster.

But there was one scene that caught our attention - that one event located in PripyatPort. It must have slipped out of our heads, because the cutscene lacked the character disintegration. Oops. Fortunately, the bug has been fixed, as can be seen in the attached picture.



These are the kinds of things we want you to pay attention to when testing the Mega Patch. Sometimes they can be like the one shown above, and sometimes they can be more minor like objects penetrating through walls.



Another small variety. We've always been a bit bothered by the fact that the characters recruited by the player appeared in the base and… that's it. They all stand in one place and barely move. We decided to change this a bit by implementing very simple animations of our NPCs, who now interact with specific buildings in the base.



A slight change, but thanks to this we’ll avoid the impression that the base is only a storage for dummies. Although, as you can see below, we still have to improve this and that.



We dare not ask Mikhail what he is doing...

Take care, Stalkers!