Chernobylite

Chernobylite offers a deep survival game experience that offers elements of sci-fi, horror and RPG. It's hard to call this a survival horror title, but all the management aspects and the branching storylines will provide fans of the survival genre plenty to enjoy. There are only a handful of areas to go to and while they're decent sized, enemies tend to respawn in the same location upon returning ...

Chernobylite is a difficult game to pigeonhole. Developer The Farm 51 has called it a survival horror RPG, but after spending 30 hours with the game, I wouldn’t say that’s terribly accurate because there’s also quite a strong focus on strategy. I guess a ‘science-fiction survival game with a twist of strategy, horror, and roleplaying’ is probably too long to use as a genre though.

The Polish game Chernobylite is an extremely atmospheric return to the Chernobyl Zone. In addition, it intrigues with the plot, choices and gives a lot of freedom during the game. So do fans of the cult STALKER have reasons to celebrate?

Chernobylite is a rare game that makes you feel the weight of your decisions.

Chernobylite is nearly impossible to put in a specific genre and it feels generally unpolished, but the sheer amount of fun and excitement that it provides makes the game more than worth playing.

Chernobylite combines some cool ideas and implements them in a way that complements the story it wants to tell. Several issues stand in its way, with potential save corruption acting as the biggest road block. Once that issue gets patched out, the core experience will offer up something unique, even if many of its gameplay elements lack depth.

It’s not without its problems, then, but Chernobylite offers an intoxicating blend of horror, survival, base-building and FPS action. Repetition could be an issue for some, and shying away from playing with the poorly-acted English dialogue is highly recommended. Once you’ve settled in to your quest to find out what happened to your long-lost love, however, it’s hard to not feel the urge to do one...

Chernobylite is one of the most inconsistent games I can recall ever playing, with fantastic highs and frustrating lows, leading to someplace in between.

I'm aware my clunk tolerance is low. I'm incapable of overlooking jank when it suspends my suspension of disbelief, and that's a particularly big problem when atmosphere is supposed to be the main selling point. Clunkiness reminds me I am sat in a comfortable office chair in Brighton rather than struggling to survive in an irradiated hellzone.

Thanks to the lack of Soviet transparency, there was, and still is a great deal of mystery around the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Was the fatality count accurate? What about the subsequent cases of radiation sickness or birth defects or weird natural anomalies? Did the meltdown create a rift in space-time and unleash monsters from another dimension? If you believe The Farm 51’s game Chernobyl...

Farm51 definitely has a lot of solid ideas with Chernobylite, especially given how it combines so many different genres into one game. Any time you try to mash up more than one element into a game, though, there is a good possibility that multiple aspects of the game will be left feeling underdeveloped.

Chernobylite is a game that's dripping in atmosphere, but doesn't quite hit the mark in other areas. If you can get past its clunky shooting and stealth mechanics, there’s some fun to be had in base building and people management.