S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl

"S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl" [to 2] (formerly S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Oblivion Lost [7] [to 3]), officially named in the CIS as S.T.A.L.K.E.R., is a computer game in the genre of a first-person shooter from the place RPG and survival horror, developed and released by the Ukrainian company GSC Game World for Microsoft Windows in 2007. Outside the CIS, the publisher was the American company THQ. The action takes place under the supervision of the alienation of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The game borrows a number of terms and imagery from the Strugatskys' Roadside Picnic story and Andrei Tarkovsky's film Stalker based on it; many of the game's levels were created from photographs and documentary footage taken at real Chernobyl nuclear power plants and the surrounding area. As a result of the story game, dangerous "anomalies" and mutants appeared in a new catastrophe around the power plant, also corresponding to wonderful "artifacts". In the event of the emergence of "stalkers" - adventurers, mercenaries and artifact hunters, both loners and entire armed groups; the protagonist of the game Bullseye - one of these stalkers, who has lost his memory and is trying on his way deep into the Zone, reported what happened to him.

Poster of the game in the CIS countries

- Developer Ukraine GSC Game World

- Publishers Commonwealth of Independent States GSC World Publishing

Part of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Announcement date March 27, 2002

Release Dates United States March 20, 2007 (Australia March 22, 2007) (European Union March 23, 2007) (Commonwealth of Independent States March 23, 2007) (Republic of Korea April 5, 2007) (Poland April 13, 2007)

(Japan June 1, 2007) (Worldwide August 31, 2007 (Steam))

Latest version 1.0006

Genres First person shooter, Survival simulator, RPG

Andrey Prokhorov (2002-2006)

Anton Bolshakov

Producer Sergey Grigorovich

Game designer Alexey Sytyanov

Screenwriter Alexey Sytyanov

Programmer Dmitry Yasenev

Artist Andrey Prokhorov

Composer Vladimir Frey

PC platform (Windows)

X-ray engine 1.0

Game modes single player,

multiplayer

Game process

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a first-person shooter with an open world; its gameplay also incorporates elements of other game genres such as RPGs, stealth and survival horror [9][10]. The gameplay is constantly changing depending on the current situation, and the player can complete the same task in different ways[9]. The passage of the game is connected with the execution of a sequence of plot tasks that guide the player through the main locations in the game world - from Cordon to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant; some of these tasks take place in the open world, and some - in rooms and dungeons. Completing some tasks allows you to open new, previously inaccessible locations.

Cordon (location)

Plot

The action takes place in an alternate reality, where on April 12, 2006 at 14:33, the second explosion occurred on the territory of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, for an unknown reason. The resulting explosion caused the emergence of the so-called "Zone", a place within which various anomalous phenomena (anomalies) appear. The reasons for the "second explosion" (the first occurred in 1986) at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant were unknown. Wanting to investigate this situation, the government of Ukraine sends military forces to the Zone. However, the military operation ends with their death. As a result, the territory of the Zone was completely fenced, and checkpoints were built at the main points of approach. Thus, the Zone became a highly protected facility.

After some time, information about mutated animals, as well as about the products of anomalies, the so-called artifacts, objects that have acquired unique properties, begins to come from the territory of the Zone. Wanting to earn money, some daredevils began to penetrate the territory of the Zone in order to extract artifacts. Such people were called "stalkers". Over time, stalking took on a much larger scale, but only the outskirts of the Zone are explored - attempts to penetrate to its center end in failure. At the moment, wild mutated animals and creatures, as well as people (stalkers, bandits, military men) live in the Zone.

Prolog Sobytiya igry nachinayutsya 1 maya 2012 goda. Vo vremya nochnoy grozy iz-za popadaniya molnii razbivayetsya gruzovik, perevozyashchiy tela mertvykh lyudey gruppirovki «Monolit». Utrom sluchaynyy stalker obnaruzhivayet oblomki gruzovika, i v khode ikh obsledovaniya nakhodit yedinstvennogo vyzhivshego — glavnogo geroya. Zhelaya pomoch' i poluchit' nagradu, stalker otnosit yego mestnomu torgovtsu Sídorovichu. Tot obnaruzhivayet u glavnogo geroya tatuirovku «S.T.A.L.K.E.R.» i KPK s yedinstvennoy zapis'yu: «Ubit' Strelka».

Prologue

The game begins on May 1, 2012. During an overnight thunderstorm, a truck carrying the bodies of the dead people of the Monolith group crashes due to a lightning strike. In the morning, a random stalker discovers the wreckage of a truck, and during their examination he finds the only survivor - the protagonist. Wanting to help and receive a reward, the stalker takes it to the local merchant Sidorovich. He discovers the main character's tattoo "S.T.A.L.K.E.R." and a PDA with a single entry: "Kill Strelok".

Game action

Waking up in a merchant's bunker on Cordon, the main character does not remember his name and past, so Sidorovich calls him Marked because of a strange tattoo on his arm. It turns out that the main character was transported by one of the "trucks of death" - these are trucks nicknamed by stalkers, periodically appearing, presumably, from the center of the Zone, and, apart from the Tagged One, no one has yet been found alive in them.

The merchant informs the protagonist that he will have to work his way out. The marked one needs to find a stalker named Nimble. He carried a flash drive with important information to Sidorovich and disappeared somewhere near the railway bridge. After talking with Volk, the commander of the local rookie camp, Bullseye learns that Nimble is being held captive by bandits at the ATP. After killing all the bandits and freeing Shustroy from captivity, the main character takes the flash drive from him and returns to Sidorovich. As a reward, the merchant shares information about Strelok: “In general, I learned something from Strelok. There is such a stalker. They say he found the way to the north of the Zone" [to 4].

Sidorovich offers to help in the search for Strelok, and in return, Marked will steal documents that are clearly related to the center of the Zone, which the military found in the building of the former complex of the Agroprom Research Institute. Sidorovich and other merchants need passage to the center of the Zone in order to find the legendary "Klondike of Artifacts". It is impossible to penetrate into the center of the Zone, since the passage there is tightly blocked by the Brain Scorcher. Bullseye agrees and crosses the railway embankment, which is guarded by the military. After that, Sidorovich contacts him by radio and says that the stalker named Fox, who returned from a deep raid, is wounded, and may know information about Strelok.

Upon meeting, the Fox sends the Bullseye to his brother Grey, who is in the hangar in the Landfill. After Bullseye helps the stalkers fend off the bandits, information from Gray leads the stalker to a former digger named Krot, who unearthed the cache of Strelka's group. The protagonist saves the mole, located at the Agroprom plant, from the military, and he indicates the location of the hiding place - the Agroprom dungeon. Marked, simultaneously fighting off the military and mutants, finds a cache in which there was a flash drive used by the Strelka group as a means of correspondence. From there, the Bullseye finds out: the group of the Strelok, in addition to himself, included the Ghost and the Fang. There is also information about a certain mutual friend who provided significant assistance to the group. According to the Ghost's message, Fang died, and the Shooter went to the center of the Zone alone. Having got out of the dungeon, the Marked One finds himself right at the military base, where he steals documents on the instructions of Sidorovich.

Upon learning of this, Sidorovich advises immediately to carry them to the Bartender, who runs the business in the stalker bar "100 Roentgen", located on the territory of the former plant "Rostok". He reports that the documents mention a certain laboratory under the index X18, which is similar in description to the underground premises of the Dark Valley, where the missing part of the documents is located. Two electronic keys are needed to open the laboratory doors. The first one is given to Marked by the Barman himself, the second one is at the head of the bandits - Borov, in the Dark Valley. Having penetrated the base of the bandits, the stalker kills Borov and takes the second key from him. Then he sneaks into the laboratory and finds documents.

Sidorovich reports that the military attacked the base of the bandits and blocked the passage to the Garbage, but there is an old road to Kordon. The labeled one gets out along it and takes the documents to the Bartender. Having received and studied the documents, the Bartender gives a tip on the missing part of the documents located in the X16 laboratory near the lake and the Yantar plant. The stalker passes into the "wild territory", where he sees how the mercenaries shoot down the helicopter of environmental scientists. Rescuing Professor Kruglov from mercenaries, the stalker with his help goes to the mobile laboratory of environmentalists. Their boss, Professor Sakharov, knows the location of the laboratory and the method of protection against psi-radiation. For the latter, he needs radiation measurements. Marked leads Professor Kruglov to the place of measurements, fighting off mutants and zombies. At the end of the measurements, there is a "release" - a sharp surge of radioactive, anomalous and psionic activity. Both heroes survive and return to the lab.

Having received a psi-helmet capable of protecting the stalker from psi-radiation, Tagged goes in search of the deceased Vasiliev, near whose body he finds a PDA with the coordinates of the laboratory. Having penetrated there, the hero turns off the installation that generates psi-radiation and finds the corpse of the Ghost. In the PDA of the latter there is an entry according to which the Doctor - a mutual friend of the group - knows where to look for Strelok. And where the Doctor is, the Conductor knows, who often visits Cordon. Also, some documents are found in the Ghost. The labeled one gets out of the laboratory and takes these documents to the Bartender. The documents say that the Brain Scorcher is man-made and can be disabled. The bartender gives the stalker a task: to infiltrate the X10 laboratory and turn off the Scorcher.

Marked One finds the Guide on the Cordon, who reports that the Doctor is in the cache of the Strelka group. The Hero learns from the Doctor that he himself is the Shooter, and the legendary Wishmaster is just a hologram. None of those who reached him returned - apparently, they died there. The doctor talks about a cache in Pripyat, which contains a decoder that can open a mysterious door in the Chernobyl sarcophagus.

Marked goes to the Army warehouses, where he protects the Barrier from the fighters of the Monolith group. Then he sneaks into the lab and about.

Merchant Sidorovich

Game endings

The player is faced with a choice: follow the call to the Wishmaster or look for a secret door leading to the secrets of the Zone. If the player chose the first path, the Marked One finds the Performer and makes a wish, then there are false endings, during which the hero dies.

The main character before entering the final teleport in the "inner courtyard" of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, after which the true en

Wish Maker Endings

Achieving one or another ending is determined by the choice and execution (or failure) of various tasks, as well as some indicators of the player (amount of money, rating, reputation).

"Power" - Marked wants to have power over everything, and his soul goes to the Monolith.

"Wealth" - nuts are pouring from the roof (Tagged, deceived by the Monolith, takes them for gold coins), and then the roof collapses (the stalker no longer sees this). As a result, the hero remains under the rubble.

"Apocalypse" - Marked thinks that humanity will disappear, as it deserves it. The world around him disappears into darkness after a series of hallucinations.

"Disappearance of the Zone" - Marked one wishes that the Zone will disappear. The stalker is shown a flourishing surrounding world, but this is an illusion, and the hero actually goes blind.

"Immortality" - Marked One slowly turns into a statue.

Endings involving "O-Consciousness" (first true ending)

If the player has fulfilled the conditions of the endings involving "O-Consciousness", he will be taken to a locked door, which he opens with the help of a decoder. Behind it is a Wish Granter control unit guarded by the Monoliths, destroying which the Strelok caused a system failure. The glitch forced a holographic representative of O-Consciousness to appear, answering the stalker's questions.

"O-Consciousness" is a group of scientists who set a goal to connect with the noosphere and try to control it. This attempt failed, a breakdown occurred, and the energy of the noosphere broke through to the Earth, in connection with which the Zone was formed. To ensure its security, "O-Consciousness" used psi-installations and fighters of the "Monolith". Anyone who tries to get to the center of the Zone falls under their influence, and then goes through the coding program "S.T.A.L.K.E.R." to perform certain tasks or join the ranks of the Monoliths. Some of the coded ones are taken out on the so-called "death trucks" to the borders of the Zone. After one of the trips to the center of the Zone, the Strelok became dangerous for the "O-Consciousness" and all agents were given the task of killing him. Due to an obscure error in the coding program, Strelok himself was among such agents. The player is given a choice: to join the project, or refuse to join and destroy the O-Consciousness.

Joining the "O-Consciousness" group - The shooter lies down in a capsule, sensors are attached to his body. The capsule is closed. Next comes the scene with the Doctor, who, standing in the swamps, talks about the possible fate of the Strelok. Reasoning that the Strelok "will get out of any mess", the Doctor leaves with his dog.

Unichtozheniye «O-Soznaniya» — Strelok nachinayet dvizheniye po nadzemnym kommunikatsiyam i blokam stantsii cherez sistemu teleportov k konechnoy tseli. Posle vybrosa na poverkhnosti zemli sokhranyayetsya smertel'nyy radiatsionnyy fon. Prodvizheniyu meshayut otryady «Monolita» i kolebaniya zemli. Po dostizhenii tseli nastupayet istinnaya kontsovka, podderzhannaya razrabotchikami v prodolzhenii igry. Strelok popadayet v pomeshcheniye s kapsulami, v kotorykh pokoyatsya tela uchastnikov proyekta «O-Soznaniye», i rasstrelivayet ikh. Stsena smenyayetsya, skvoz' gustyye tuchi probivayetsya solnechnyy svet, nebo stanovitsya yasnym. Pokazyvayut mir, polnyy zeleni, slyshitsya peniye ptits. Strelok osmatrivayetsya, posle chego lozhitsya na zemlyu v travu, odnovremenno rassuzhdaya o pravil'nosti svoyego postupka:

Destruction of the "O-Consciousness" - the Shooter begins to move along the overhead communications and station blocks through the teleport system to the final goal. After the release, a lethal radiation background remains on the surface of the earth. Progress is hampered by the Monolith units and ground vibrations. Upon reaching the goal, the true ending comes, supported by the developers in the continuation of the game. The shooter gets into a room with capsules in which the bodies of the participants in the O-Consciousness project rest, and shoots them. The scene changes, sunlight breaks through thick clouds, the sky becomes clear. They show the world full of greenery, the singing of birds is heard. The shooter looks around, after which he lies down on the ground in the grass, while discussing the correctness of his act:

^{- I don't know if I did the right thing or not. I'll probably never know. But I made a choice. I hope he was correct.}

The ideas of the game world "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl" are based on the story of the Strugatsky brothers "Roadside Picnic", the film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky "Stalker" based on it, as well as on the real exclusion zone of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant[15]. The developers considered the idea of ​​creating a game based on the exclusion zone long before the development of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.[16] However, the idea of ​​creating a product based on a mixture of "Roadside Picnic", stalking and the exclusion zone arose on the eve of the second official announcement of the game in March 2002 [17]. The new concept involved the search for artifacts in the exclusion zone in the Crimea, at Cape Kazantip. The center of the Zone was to be the unfinished Crimean nuclear power plant near the town of Shchelkino[18].

Initially, the concept of this project, which then had the working title Oblivion Lost[k 5], had nothing to do with Chernobyl. As the developers themselves confirm, its plot was similar to the plot of the Stargate movie. The game was supposed to take place in the future - during the galactic empires, with thousands of inhabited planets and sentient races. According to the plot, the journey between the planets is carried out with the help of portals - a recent scientific discovery. The player and his group are part of the vanguard and play the role of pioneers - the first to meet new, previously unknown and possibly dangerous worlds[20]. Aztec buildings were supposed to be in the game[21]. This idea managed to move to the development stage - the company's employees created a working version of the "first" Oblivion Lost

However, the concept of the game, similar to Stargate, seemed secondary to the developers. As part of the creation of such a game, it was necessary to work out many virtual worlds, which a small company could not afford[21]. The team realized that creating an "ultra-realistic" game world would be a better fit for them than creating a fantasy one[22]. In addition, the developers wanted to find an idea that was unique in the gaming industry to stand on a par with the best developers after their first big project, and they understood that their current idea, which repeats things already created, does not meet such requirements [21]. On March 29, 2002, they went on an excursion to the exclusion zone[23]. This was the last step towards the decision to completely replace the concept: it began to relate directly to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the area around it[21]. According to Yuriy Besarab, PR manager of GSC Game World: “When we started development, we wanted to create a “what if” scenario based on real and very terrible events in 1986, when the fourth power unit at Chernobyl exploded”[24].

In addition to the aforementioned literary works, the concept of the game, according to the developers, was significantly influenced by other computer games with free non-linear gameplay, such as Daggerfall and Morrowind. They also mentioned the games Half-Life, System Shock, Deus Ex as sources of inspiration.

Development History

The project was developed from 2001 to 2007. During this time, the game changed its name three times, and with it its story concept. The development of the game began with the creation by GSC Game World in 2001 of the game engine X-Ray Engine, which meets modern requirements for those times. The developers decided to create a project called Oblivion Lost based on this engine[21][26]. In early September 2001, information about the game was first published[20][27]. On November 13, the game was announced[28][29][30]: a game page was opened on the official website of the company, where screenshots, concept art of the product were published, as well as information about the plot, features of the game and its engine[31]. According to one of the statements on behalf of the company, the game was announced a year and a half after the development of the X-Ray engine began and six months after the start of its creation[32]. Russobit-M was supposed to be the publisher of the game in the CIS countries, the publisher in the rest of the world had not been chosen by that time[33][34].

The genre of the game at that time was defined as a team sci-fi 3D action, its plot was similar to the plot of the movie "Stargate" and was in no way connected with Chernobyl. One of the builds of this version of Oblivion Lost - # 1096 - unauthorizedly got into free access to the Internet. This build is playable, contains one map, and is based on the abandoned buildings of the Aztecs[21].

In early 2002, the team planned to visit the Crimea to prepare materials, but at the same time, Grigorovich watched a documentary about the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and decided to move the game to the Exclusion Zone in the Kyiv region[18]. In 2002-2003, GSC employees went to the exclusion zone twice and took photographs[35]. The first trip turned out to be unsuccessful: the developers were not allowed to pass at the border of the zone, by the second trip the team received permission to visit[18]. The excursions proved to be an important source of inspiration for the creation of the game[25]; the developers stated that while walking through the exclusion zone, they felt the gloomy atmosphere of this place and decided to later implement it in the game[36]. The creators promised that a significant part of the game world would be based on a real exclusion zone, reflected in photographs taken over two trips[35]. On April 11, 2002, a press release was published regarding the new gameplay and story[37].

In March, Dmitry Yasenev joined the team and began developing an artificial intelligence (AI) engine called A-Life. Another team continued to work on content for the game, including the introduction of the first vehicles. At the end of March 2002, the team announced the restart of development and made a full announcement of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Oblivion Lost[18].

Shortly before changing the concept of the game, the developers decided to change its name. On March 26, 2002, prior to the press release of the new game concept, a trailer for the game was released showing its new title, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Oblivion Lost[38]. On March 27, GSC Game World officially announced the change in the name of the product[39]. Initially, a variant of the title "Stalker: Oblivion Lost" was considered, but the developers were unable to obtain copyright for the word "Stalker"[21]. The meaning of the name was not disclosed - the creators promised that it could be understood directly during the game[16]. Also on March 27, the developers announced the expected release time of the game - early 2003[39]. In April, information about the release was specified - the third quarter of 2003 [15].

During the development of the game, on which 160 people worked[18], GSC Game World actively published screenshots of it. In November 2002, the developers published a video demonstrating image quality, the X-Ray engine and gameplay elements, including the process of driving a playable vehicle[40]. Earlier, in the second half of October of the same year, the official website of the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Oblivion Lost[41] was opened. GSC Game World's technical partner at the time was Nvidia, and the developers promised to include support for the shader capabilities of the new line of GeForce FX GPUs[42].

On May 7, 2003, the global publisher of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Oblivion Lost, an American company THQ, was officially announced, other contenders were Activision, Ubisoft, Codemasters, Vivendi, Eidos, and others.[18][43]. GSC Game World signed a contract with THQ to publish the game worldwide, with the exception of the post-Soviet space, where the game was to be published by another company[22]. The American publisher sent its producer, Dean Sharp, to Ukraine (we will return to him later), to supervise the development and monitor the publisher's money[18]. The release time of the game was moved to the second quarter of 2004[44].

In February 2004, by decision of THQ, the name of the game was officially changed to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. The reason for the name change was that the publisher considered