Visit the Cafe Pripyat, known to locals as “the Dish” was a natural go-to spot for locals and young people who could relax and chat while sipping a drink on a terrace overlooking the lake. A focal point of the cafe was an interesting, stained-glass mosaic depicting women, flowers, and planets.

It was here, in 1977, that builders celebrated the launch of the first power unit of the Chernobyl power plant. Less than a decade later, all celebrating ceased. While everything crumbles and rusts around it, the mosaic remains intact, an eerie reminder of better days. What will you discover there? Will you find the same Tatyana you used to go to the cafe with?

Join our Discord to communicate with other stalkers or share your thoughts in the comments.

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There are many factors that make someone a skilled gamer. For example, such a person can quickly adapt to a gradually increasing level of difficulty. You know what it looks like: first we are dealing with a summer walk. The closer to the end, the more obstacles, dangers, and things that can potentially cut our heads off.

What if we suddenly change the rules of the game? No gradual increase in difficulty - instead, the screw is bolted to the limit right from the start. “Insane” mode - the game's highest difficulty - was mentioned on the launch day of the Mega Patch and occasionally in some reports. But we never fully said what to expect from it. The time has finally come to show everyone how far away it is from a summer walk.

Small, but significant differences can be noticed at the very beginning of the game, when choosing a mission. First, the background - it is clear that on the lowest difficulty level, there is peace and quiet outside the base window, while in the "Insane" mode, NAR troops are on high alert from the very beginning. This means that our first exit from the base will be very painful. But more on that in a moment.




When choosing a mission, it is also worth paying attention to what chances our companions have to complete them. Here's a little secret: on the lowest difficulty level, we increased the chances of successfully completing a mission for all characters by 20%. The higher the difficulty level, the lower the modifier. As you can imagine, it is -20% on the highest difficulty level. It is therefore necessary to arm your companions well and... pray for success. Because in case of failure, the punishment is extremely severe.

If the mission fails, our comrades' morale and health diminish - plain and simple rule. On the "Very Easy" level, the drops are small, while in "Insane" it hits our teammates four times as hard.



The fact that the influence of negative modifiers in the base (comfort, air quality, radiation, number of beds) has also increased dramatically doesn’t help. In other words, if we don’t prepare ourselves well for the trip to the zone, and we don’t properly take care of our base, then our team will start to drop like flies even after the first night!

Remember when you went to one of the levels, used PDAs and there was a lot of items and resources to collect around? Well, you can forget about it. In the highest mode we reduced the number of resources to just a quarter of what could be found on the easiest dificulty. So you will be tediously running through bushes and dingy corridors in search of all the things that will help your teammates (see paragraph above) and yourself to survive.

The radiation zone does not help in the search, as it covers up to 50% of the entire level instead of 10%. And, of course, there is a Black Stalker circulating here and there - we have halved the time of the Chernobylite storm announcing the arrival of a man in a mask. Time pressure and claustrophobia. What else may be missing? Well, there is one such thing.

As we mentioned, getting out of the base will be painful during the first mission. All levels are bristling with patrolling NAR soldiers. And that, in addition, with the top shelf ones. So, don’t be surprised if, while walking through the forest in Kopachi, you come across not two, but six Heavy Armored Soldiers at once. Then the real shambles begin.



If this is too chaotic, you can see on the gifs below what the fight with one soldier looks like and what is the difference between them.




Of course, you can try to avoid them, sneak up on them. But not only are they stronger, faster (also when it comes to aiming and firing a weapon), but they can also see us from a considerable distance. Probably the best tactic is to avoid a group of soldiers with a veeery wide berth and pray that they will not notice us.

Also, the monsters have been upgraded. Larger creatures attack faster and teleport much closer to the player. Duster, on the other hand, spits acid out 50% faster - there's no chance of dodging the projectile, unless you're bloody lucky. Oh, and don't count on additional loot after defeating your opponents - there may be even less of those.




There is nothing else for us to do but say: have fun!

Take care, Stalkers!

Stalkers!

We need to prepare to enter the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone this summer. There are various survival mechanics available in the game and you should know at least some of them if you’re going to survive. Your choices will determine what equipment and skills you get.



Read this part of the survival book to gain valuable insight into the Zone and a preview of what you will find there and how it can help you. You may fully equip your base, but the real test is surviving in the field. There you’ll only have a few options.

Disclaimer: Please note that various gameplay details may slightly change prior to the full release.


Do you know how to craft items and build crafting tools? No? It’s easy when you have the right materials. Collect everything you find in the wild to build crafting tools or, if you really want to save resources, explore the area—sometimes you’ll find an abandoned crafting tool.




The Stove will allow you to concoct simple usables and medicaments to overcome the side effects of staying in the Zone. The following items are created from collectibles you pick up on your missions, so make sure you always have enough ingredients on hand.

• Calming Salts (Psyche)
  
• Anti-radiation Ointment (Radiation)
  
• Healing Salve (Health)

The basis of survival is to have food and medicine. Pay attention to Igor’s statistics: Psyche, Radiation, and Health. Psyche and Radiation are unique to the Zone, tailored specifically to your story. Psyche represents your mental state, similarly to Health reflecting your physical state, and is influenced by the number of kills you make and dangerous encounters you have. Radiation should be kept as low as possible or you’ll suffer from it.




Having a Basic Field Workshop is a good solution if you don’t wish to engage with enemies for supplies or if you want to keep your Psyche in a good state. In it you can prepare Revolver Ammo, Shotgun Slugs, Liquid-Filled Bullets, and Rifle Ammo on your own.

• Gas Mask Filters
  
• Metal Plates

When you need protection asap, anything will do. A Metal Plate is a quick solution for improving your armor if you don’t have a bulletproof vest. It’s not great, not terrible, just better than nothing.

Remember to craft new Gas Mask Filters when necessary. You don’t want to be stuck in the middle of a radiation area without protection.




It’s good to have a weapon, but it’s even better if you upgrade it. With a Gunsmith Field Workshop, you can remove, install, or modify your arsenal. Each modification changes a weapon’s statistics, such as Damage, Range, Stability, Recoil Reduction, and Magazine Size.


Aside from hostile soldiers and radiation, there are supernatural threats lurking in the Zone. The Black Stalker emerges from Chernobylite storms and monsters swarm the area from wormholes. Don’t underestimate the danger these present and prepare the necessary equipment to protect yourself.




A Chernobylite Neutralizer makes Chernobylite storms less frequent, delaying the appearance of the Black Stalker by several minutes. This gives you time to prepare for the inevitable invasion. Use your Stove to craft consumables which are helpful if you choose to run and avoid the Black Stalker or craft ammo and upgrade your weapon before you face him.




A Space-Time Distributor slows down the rate of radiation using Chernobylite’s power. It makes exploration less dangerous.




A Wormhole Blocker limits the number of wormholes monsters can use to travel to our world, decreasing their number on the day following its usage.


When others hunt you, become a hunter yourself with a range of traps. Each of them has a different detection and explosion range and makes a different amount of noise, so you can adjust the traps to your survival style.




Fireworks won’t hurt anyone, but they make a lot of noise and can be used to draw attention.




A Laser Explosive Trap creates a laser beam that, if stepped through, triggers an explosion which deals serious damage to anyone within its range.




A Landmine is simple but effective. Activated on contact, the explosion damages everything caught in the blast.




When the enemy gets close, the trap’s core strikes everything around it with lightning for a few seconds.




Effective against the Chernobylite creatures, an Assimilating Trap drains energy from the enemies in its range.




When a Directional Trap detects movement, it sends a single explosive towards it, killing everyone and everything in its path.

That’s the end of the Survival Book for today. You’re making great progress, Stalkers. Keep it up and maybe you’ll survive in the Exclusion Zone. Join our Discord to communicate with other stalkers or share your thoughts in the comments.


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In the previous report, we briefly mentioned why it is worth having a good relationship with our comrades and the importance of this when preparing for Heist. But that's not the only thing you need to pay attention to. You must remember that your comrades are flesh and blood people. Therefore, like every human being, they also have their own needs. If they are not satisfied, this can lead to serious consequences.



First of all, it is important to have food rations in stock after each mission, which will be divided among the team members. Olivier talked about it at the very beginning, briefly, but bluntly - if you don’t feed your companions, their morale will start to drop, and over time they will also start to decline in health. And this is just the beginning of the problems.



Another piece of advice we'll get from Olivier is to make sure there are enough beds for our companions. We are not doing this just for their convenience. The lack of beds means that the characters will sleep on the floor, which will also affect their health and psyche. The health of our comrades is also influenced by the air quality in the base and the overall level of pollution - the more things we build in it, the more pollutants they produce. It is therefore worth adding, for example, a pair of air conditioners.



Okay, but why all these preparations? Our companions' physical and mental health is extremely important. If we send them on missions, and they fail, it will have a huge impact on their health and psyche. If we don’t react in time, the consequences of our actions (or rather the lack of them) will be quickly visible.

For example, if we do not provide enough beds, our teammates will have to sleep on the floor. Over time, they will ask for a place to sleep, in a more or less blunt manner. This should not be surprising, because only by resting on their beds, they can regenerate before their next mission trip.



But that's just the beginning. Consecutive days without providing the necessary means of survival (e.g. food rations) means a further decline in physical and mental health. After some time, our comrades will begin to doubt the rightness of our decisions.





At the same time, they will directly demand medical kits for their wounds.






Constantly ignoring their needs may eventually lead to a situation in which sending companions on missions will be impossible - they will not be allowed to do so by their terrible health.



Even if we give them the best weapons and armor, it’ll be very difficult to convince them to go to the Zone. Not only that - they’ll tell us directly about it.






The day is finally coming when we brought about the situation shown in the picture below.



All companions are on the verge of endurance. They still lack the resources to survive. Each subsequent day brings them suffering, and finally death. Every next day = another victim.




We were not kidding when we said that our decisions have a significant impact on the future. And it's not just about the plot - it also affects what happens around us. That is why it is important to ensure adequate presence in the base. And the higher the difficulty level, the harder it is to stockpile. Especially at the "Insane" level. Will you take on the challenge to keep the team alive?

Take care, Stalkers!

Years of hard work by a small group of enthusiasts have led us to the day you’ve all been waiting for. Last days’ reviews are so great that we feel we're ready to finally announce Chernobylite's departure from Early Access. You asked us about it many times, on every possible occasion, and almost everywhere on the Internet. Today we can inform you that Chernobylite will be fully released for PC on July 28th!

PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions will come later in the summer of 2021. Chernobylite will also come to the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5. Stay tuned for more information.



Chernobylite is a science-fiction, survival horror RPG game set in the wastelands of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Play as Igor, a physicist and former employee of the Chernobyl power plant, who returns to investigate the mysterious disappearance of his beloved fiancée 30 years ago. Take on threats, hostile military and supernatural monsters, survive in places full of dangers and secrets. Make choices that may affect your future. Enter a world filled with adventure, horror, conspiracies, secrets, love, and obsession. Find the truth... and yourself.

Survival in the zone isn’t the easiest one. Dangers await you everywhere, and your companions die if you don’t provide them with supplies, which are dwindling at an alarming rate. Gain experience, learn martial arts and survival. Become better to survive.

Build your base from which you will set off on missions every day. Create weapons, ammunition, armor, and gadgets; adapt them to the needs of you and your comrades. Nobody feels safe outside, make a difference.

Play as you like. All the choices you make affect what the future holds. Do you want to trust your companions, or do you prefer to act alone? You aim to confront your opponents, or do you want to avoid combat? Are relationships with others more important, than a strong desire to find a loved one? Make up your mind. The future is in your hands.

Weeks of planning, gathering clues and evidence needed to discover THE TRUTH, persuading strangers to join our merry party, gathering supplies and the necessary tools. All these activities, as well as the numerous events that took place along the way, finally led us to the most important point of the journey - the last mission, "Heist".



You have been asking us about "Heist" for many months, demanding specific information, and sometimes also gameplay fragments. We didn't do this for several reasons. The most important of them is, of course, the desire to avoid spoilers (well, this IS the end of the game), and the ability to refine this powerful fragment in even its smallest aspects. You must know that "Heist" shows all the elements that make up the core of Chernobylite gameplay.



"You must gather your party before venturing forth" - this Baldur's Gate quote is a perfect match for the beginning of the Heist mission. During the briefing, Igor has to decide who will go with him disguised as NAR soldiers, who will guard the rear with a sniper rifle, who will hack and who will be doing the diversion. With a full team, the division of duties isn’t a problem. Worse if someone withdraws at the last minute.

Our teammates may choose not to go on the final mission with us. They will turn their noses up if, for example, we won't collect enough tools or evidence to support Igor's theories. In other words, if not everything is 100% finished (i.e. not all the pieces of the puzzle will appear on the board), then there will be doubts among the team, and in the end it may turn out that some will start giving up participation in the mission. Even Mikhail could admit that he may be crazy, but not enough crazy to be part of it.



Another way to discourage people from coming with us on the last mission is to... discourage them from reaching the player himself. During the game, the player will have to make several decisions, which are crucial not only for the development of the plot, but also for the relationship between him and the recruited characters. For example, at the end of the "Hack NAR servers" mission, you must decide whether to delete the data after hacking the NAR servers or look for information about Tatiana. Choosing the second option, the player will worsen his relationship with Mikhail - which is not surprising, because he was risking his life for this mission. There are also missions where making a choice can change your relationship with two characters at once. For example, by deciding to follow the destructive path of Sashko, we’ll gain respect for him, and at the same time we’ll lose respect for common-sense Olga, and vice versa. So it's important to keep the right proportions if we want to have a full team for the last mission.

Everything is planned, the team is tight and ready, the roles are assigned. It's time to go!



We emphasize many times that in Chernobylite, as befits an RPG, all the decisions we make have an impact on the further course of the game. This is something for those who know the game inside out, and you can find another example of it in the chapter above. However, everything that you have seen so far is only a small foretaste of what you can see in "Heist".

In order not to throw words to the wind, we will use examples (avoiding spoilers) to show how our decisions can have a real impact on the game. Well, first of all, you need to be aware that there are so many options to complete this mission. This is evident at the very beginning, when the team has to get to the power plant. The road leads through the main gate, which is guarded by two guards. We have several options to choose from:

a) play a scene in front of the guards about transporting the prisoner



b) shoot the guards from a distance with a sniper rifle



c) choose a different entrance, away from the guards' eyes



Each of these solutions requires a different approach and the right person in the right place. If, for example, the team doesn’t have a sniper, then the choice will be limited to two options, etc. However, if by some miracle we lead to a situation where we’ll be on our own, then it remains a force solution. Very risky and hellishly difficult, but if we've got more than a revolver with us, MAYBE somehow it’ll work.

The phrase "choice is of great importance" can also be seen in the subsequent stages of "Heist". One of the better examples is when a team tries to get through the biogates. These can set off an alarm, which in turn will attract the attention of the guards. So you can ask someone from the crew to hack the gates, and then you can easily pass through them...



...or ask the sniper to distract the guards with a big boom! However, in the latter case, you have to bear in mind that the sniper will have to run away from the guards. This means that he or she will be disconnected from the party, and we’ll lose his or her "services" later in the mission. Maybe they will be useful, maybe not - you won't find out if you don't check it.



However, regardless of the situation, you need to be careful that each step is well-thought-out. One wrong move, and we’ll not only lose one of the options to overcome the next obstacle, but also... one of our companions. Yes, an inappropriate decision made either now or two minutes ago could lead to the death of a member or members of our team. And that’s thought.



As you can see, there are really many ways to go "Heist", and the mutual thread of connections between the decisions made leads to the most diverse consequences. Which path we follow depends entirely on ourselves. Therefore, it is worth going through the small fragment of "Heist" available in the Mega Patch even several times to know what awaits on the day of the premiere. And it's going to be a very long and bloody hard journey.



Take care, Stalkers!

While building the world of Chernobylite, we tried to give it a deeper meaning. Each level, its surroundings or a specific place on the map should, in our opinion, be something more than just a pile of rubble covered with plants and moss. Ideas came to our minds sometimes accidentally, sometimes intentionally. Some places are the result of a combination of these two factors. The best example of this is the village in Red Forest.

There would be no village in the Red Forest at first. It was supposed to be a huge forest area that could be explored at will. Ultimately, we decided that building a fenced off area in the middle of the map could be the perfect opportunity to achieve one of our goals. Our intention was to show samosely, because it is probably the most characteristic element of the zone. First, we had to come up with an outline for the backstory of this place. So initially it was supposed to be a farm of one man, around which people started to gather. Not long after Shadows and Chernohosts began to roam the area, they put up a great wall around the farm.

It was the easiest thing to come up with a story. Now it was necessary to make the concept come true and develop it so that the whole thing had arms and legs. In short, it was about building a village from scratch. The main emphasis was on the fence and the entrance gate to prevent soldiers and monsters from entering the village. We did it not only for architectural but also practical reasons - creating any event that would involve a sudden intrusion of intruders into the village would be very troublesome.







When the village - or rather its foundations - finally came into being, we were able to test the prototype of the Olga quest on it. It worked well, it played well, but another problem arose - the village was too empty. So we add a few side characters that were only supposed to stand and make up the artificial crowd. Then everything went from thread to ball: NPCs got short texts that they said in conversation with the player, each had simple characteristics (e.g. one deals with pigs, the other is a guardian, etc.), and over time there were also character animations. Over time, placeholders replaced newly designed character models - no more Clone Wars! You can see the effects of the changes we are gradually introducing in the game.




At one point, we had the idea to make the village in Red Forest more open and resemble places from RPGs games. One where the player can enter and, for example, talk to traders. Unfortunately, we had other, more priority things on our minds and the idea died. However, when we look at it in retrospect, the decision to abandon this idea seems right. Why?

As you know, to enter the village you have to go through the guarded gate. And here comes a curiosity: the concept of the gate has changed twice. Originally, we thought over an ordinary gate, opened like a castle gate. However, later we analyzed what we had done so far and came to a fairly important conclusion. Well, the people of the village are wary of people from the outside world. Hence the concept of a double gate, that will allow guards to check who passes through it before they enter the village.




If you put all of these together, it is easy to come to the conclusion why the vision of an open village wasn't the best - there is no point in creating a fully functional place with shops, gunsmiths, etc., if its community isn’t very willing to open up to outsiders.

Speaking of the side characters wandering here and there, we had a lot of fun creating them. We had a lot of freedom to act, we could do whatever we wanted. The wilder the event, the better. NPCs for them were created for the moment - if we have a nice idea and we needed a character for it, we could create a prototype of the event using the "puppet". From this huge mass of ideas, we removed those that we thought were stupid, and we combined the rest in such a way that one NPC would appear in several events. More or less this is how the outlines of the first characters - Vagabond and Volodya - were created.




Having already had a few characters, we started to think the other way around - we thought about how to use them so that they would appear in the game more often than just once. In this way, we have created another wave of events that lead to a reunion, for example, Volodya, who does not want to sell us to the soldiers, Evgieniy annoying the villagers, etc.

Finally, we had to give each of these characters their own characteristics. It was a must because it turned out that we had too much fun creating the next characters, forgetting about the need for consistency. In addition, we wanted to avoid the situation of the player dealing with inert puppets with no personality. Fortunately for us, this bug has been fixed and our joyful creativity has gained a soul.

Thanks to this, the player can meet on his way Vagabond, who cut his teeth on capitalism and has the qualities necessary to achieve success in a new, crazy world - he just has the talking. Therefore, in the dialogues, he often mentions his business contacts with, among others, Donald Trump, Bill Gates or Vladimir Putin. Semyon, on the other hand, is a man who has seen many things and experienced many. However, you can see that the staves are in the wrong place. Just listen to his theory that Hitler and Stalin were conspiring to create the NAR and the creatures prowling everywhere to enslave the Ukrainian people. And there is also Locksmith, who, while looking for his brother, is not afraid to enter the darkest and most strange places. He rejects any thought that his brother is dead.




We have created a real gallery of curiosities, impossible to forge. You won't find two of the same characters in Chernobylite. It's worth getting to know them all.

We would like to take this opportunity to encourage you to our new initiative. When we’re doing research the history of our game, we read a whole lot of books and notes about events from the past. We decided that the knowledge we obtained in this way seemed too interesting to hide it in a drawer. That is why we publish short stories every week on our Facebook profile, which were created as a result of reading all kinds of helpful materials. An excerpt from one of the stories can be found below.

“The Fate of Balts - Part One

Fears and Distractions

There was a series of chilly nights in June 1986 in Chernobyl. The continental climate caused a painful difference between daily and nightly temperatures. Fortunately, Sergeant Major Edgars Ozoliņš from the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic and other officers were lucky enough to receive greatcoats. The privates from his company have been issued typical Soviet quilted jackets. They would still freeze anyway at night and sweat profusely during the day while removing radioactive waste in special uniforms that were impossible to wear and caused burns. Only then would the company receive Soviet uniforms from the Afghan War. (so-called Afghankas)

But at least there were a lot of distractions to choose from. Despite the Chernobyl disaster, the FIFA World Cup would still go ahead as planned in Mexico. It's been less than two months since the accident, and the world seemed determined to go back to normal, even though the danger was far from over. No wonder: the Soviet propaganda machine was working overtime to keep the impression that everything was under control. The Americans went with that narration simply because they were interested in not drawing more attention to the possible dangers of nuclear installations in their own country.

And so that summer, the world - very much oblivious to the consequences of the Chernobyl Disaster - watched in awe as Diego Maradonna scored the Hand of God goal against England and led Argentina to win the Cup. Soviet Union footballers put up a good fight in the group phase. They have defeated Hungary 6-0, won against Canada 2-0, and drew 1-1 against France. Dynamo Kyiv's Igor Belanov was a star of the show and was named the European Player of the Year for 1986. But despite his brilliant performance Soviet Union eventually conceded to Belgium 3-4 in the knockout phase."



If you liked it, we encourage you to read the full version of the first part and the second part on our Facebook profile.

Take care, Stalkers!

We've been telling you about what's going on behind the scenes of Chernobylite's development for a long time in our weekly reports. Sometimes we show some concept sketches, we show step by step how we create 3D objects, we talk about the changes we made and what we followed, etc.



There have been cases where changes to one element in the game have gone so far that it has turned into something much bigger. One of them, and perhaps the most important for the entire history of Chernobylite, concerned the fractal worlds. Their design changed several times until we finally worked out the shape you see today. The road the fractals traveled was extremely bumpy. And we have evidence for this.

Before we show what has happened with fractals recently, we need to answer one most important questions: how did it start?

One of the first concepts assumed that after entering the fractal world, the player would walk on the surface of... inside a large sphere. On paper, it was even interesting: while exploring the new world, the whole level rotated together with the player. When he looked up, he saw the rest of the level upside down. However, at times everything broke in almost all possible ways and a few impossible - the player often got lost in where the “up” was at the moment and positioned himself sideways. Also, during testing, people had a hard time getting it all figured out, they got lost, and some people got sick. So at the end the project was thrown into the trash.



Another concept came with the launch of Chernobylite in Early Access. After entering the fractal world, the player was thrown into the very center of a large labyrinth, from where he was to get to the luminous pillars that unlocked parts of the plot.



Along the way, it was necessary to defend ourselves against a horde of soldiers who were to be something like Ariadna's protection or firewall. Again - in theory, everything looked fine. But in practice, the player felt as if he were participating in a Doom deathmatch, which did not fit the style of Chernobylite at all. But who knows, maybe we'll come back to this idea one day.





What does it look like today? Well, as you know very well, each fractal world is a simulation that can be entered with the help of Ariadna - a mysterious, and advanced technological device, created by Igor. However, to use it, you first need to find clues scattered throughout the game that will help you understand what happened to Tatyana: letters, photos, e-mails, newspaper clippings, and items such as a music box. All the evidence and clues go to the blackboard in Igor's room. After collecting all the necessary elements, Igor can see with his own eyes the secrets behind the disappearance of his loved one.



An important part of rewriting the plot and dialogue - as we have informed you many times - were the changes we introduced to the fractal worlds. It not only took a lot of work and time. This task was also a big challenge in terms of coordinating and connecting all the dots again. Also, because many assets for these tips were already done - we wanted to find a solution that wouldn’t require creating everything from scratch when redesigning the fractals. We had to modify a whole complex web of dependencies, linking the clues to Igor's relevant comments, and figure out how they translate into specific parts of the fractal plot.

Secondly, we had to pay close attention to aligning the fractal worlds with the places in the story where the greatest changes occurred and check for contradictions. In other words, we had to make sure that the information we convey through the simulation in Ariadna was consistent with the important plot points in the game, which are most often determined by confrontations and conversations with key characters in the game: Black Stalker, Semonov, Kozlow, etc.



Rewriting the script is relatively simple, but introducing changes in such a way that the entire intricate structure works together despite huge changes is not exactly easy. It’s especially true for the changes concerning not only the written content, but often also the place and time in the game, where we find clues that later activate the fractal simulation through Ariadna.

The changes also meant a lot of work for graphic designers who had to rework (sometimes several times) such assets as letters, documents and e-mails to apply the changed content to them.



It was also a big challenge to avoid spoilers after we introduced changes to some characters, such as Boris and his backstory, and the relationships between him and the main character.

But perhaps the greatest challenge was the fact that the story is non-linear, and the main quests are arranged in such a way that you can complete them in almost any order you want. So we had to think about which quests we could add clues and evidence to, to be sure that the player would be able to collect all of them, no matter how the game was played.

The same goes for our companions - their role in fractal events had to be tailored to take into account that they may or may not appear in a specific playthrough, depending on the decisions made by the player.



The place and time of fractal events also changed. All this needed to be reflected both in the levels themselves and in the dialogues conducted by the characters. The narrative in fractal worlds in particular needed to have rethought its timing. Previously, dialogues were much longer and took place over the course of one scene. It quickly became apparent that forcing the player to watch two talking heads for too long is neither fun nor interesting. You could say it was simply boring.

The effect of the changes introduced by us (e.g. the division of one long level into several smaller ones) can be seen, for example, in the scene of the conversation between Boris and Tatyana, which takes place in the fractal world. Now the course of this sequence is more dynamic. Before that, the player simply stood in front of the café and could not do anything. Now he has to take a walk around to unlock all stages of the fractal and push Igor's investigation forward.



In the diagram below you can see an example of one of the investigations conducted by Igor. You can see how the rudimentary evidence and clues he has gathered lead him to solve one of the cases. What he sees with Ariadna and what he hears is up to them. What is this evidence and what does it mean? We won’t tell you, and we won’t show you - you have to figure it out yourself.



Take care, Stalkers!

So far, we've covered some major changes in Chernobylite that came with the newest Mega Patch. For example, we wrote about the second storyline of the game, about non-one-dimensional characters, about Ariadna technology, about the character's armament system and the new difficulty level. So it's time for us to talk a bit about other changes to the game - those that are invisible to the naked eye, but equally important from the player's point of view.

https://youtu.be/mMByTn2y9bA
The vast majority of new stuff can be found and activated in the main menu. Let's start with the bigger things. As you know, in the options you have the option to disable individual elements of the user interface, such as the health bar, experience bar, ammunition counter or enemy detection indicator. It is useful for those who are disturbed by this kind of things while playing, as well as for amateurs and professionals of virtual photography.

This noble group was joined by the ability to disable the targeting indicator for NAR soldiers. We decided that this option will be especially appreciated by those who want combat with soldiers to be more like a classic action game. Without this "help" and after starting the game in Insane mode, playing Chernobylite will be even more challenging.




But don't worry. To die in on the battlefield doesn't always mean something bad. In the world of Chernobylite, death often means getting out of a hopeless situation, but also a chance to… correct past mistakes. After death, Igor is able to use the chernobylites gathered during his journey to change decisions made in the past in order to influence the present and the future. Complicated? Don’t worry. We've added a small tutorial to the game that explains in more detail what this system is all about. In short, with its help we tell you that in Chernobylite it is sometimes worth dying.





This is a certain novelty which, we must admit, helps us a lot as well. It happens that from time to time we have to check or test something on a map in the game. It often requires us to fight our opponents. We were tormented by the fact that when we wanted to replace the weapon, we had to go deeper into our memory to remember under which key THIS PARTICULAR WEAPON was assigned. In the end, we said "enough" and changed that. The quick access menu can now be called up with the middle mouse button (MMB). In addition, we gave the possibility of using it with a scroll - a convenience especially for those who don’t want or cannot use it in a classic way.



Another minor change: we added an icon in the inventory to denote an item that is currently being used by Igor. A slight change, but it makes a big difference.



It is also worth mentioning some important technical issues. First, we've greatly improved the performance of the game on both low and high FOV. Regardless of whether you set the FOV modifier to mini or max, it will not affect the quality of the game in any way.




We also added ADS support in the game options. From now on, each of you can freely set the aiming sensitivity to whatever value is convenient for you.




And the last important news: we added the ability to turn off head bobbing. A brief explanation for those unfamiliar with the term: head bobbing in FPS games is the swaying of the camera up and down as the character walks to simulate the way a person's body moves when taking steps. A pretty cool effect that enhances realism. But for some players, it can cause motion sickness. Therefore, turning it off may reduce this risk.

Finally, something that all of you have been waiting for. Earlier this week, we announced the winners of our community art contest on our social media! We were impressed with all the works you sent to us and the number of votes cast for them. It was difficult to pick the winners, but we somehow managed to pick the best works!

In the "Art" category on the podium there were:

1. Domingos Galeno


2. NoatakKapech


3. Ghost


The authors of the works awarded by the jury in this category are:
Adam Sokołowski
Mihail Yuriev
Nika Schumankin

In the "Cosplay" category, the following were on the podium:

1. FerdinandMighold


2. Tomasz Szostak


3. Ghost


The authors of the works awarded by the jury are:
lisa_bkv, stevenson soupcan
Stuart Cowell
Jaime Díaz
Poul Hudson

In the "Virtual Photo" category on the podium there were:

1. Ghost and NoatakKapech (ex aequo)



2. FerdinandMighold


3. Draven Redgrave


The authors of the works awarded by the jury are:
Draven Redgrave
David Fall
Jack1_1Hammer
TheGuyInTheSpacesuit

Congratulations to all the winners and the awarded! Now there is nothing else to do but wait patiently for contact from us. ;)

Take care, Stalkers!