Survival horror sandbox game Chernobylite has been in the works for a while now, but new facets of the game are still being unveiled. Some of those new facets were showcased today at IGN Expo as part of Summer Game Fest 2021. As it turns out, Chernobylite won't just pit players against wild animals, Russian forces, the inevitability of death, and the flow of time itself--it will also feature savage, heavily mutated monsters similar to those featured in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series.
In this trailer, the protagonist Igor Khymynuk is shown fighting for his life, building a base, and gathering allies in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Described as a survival horror RPG experience, Chernobylite follows in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl's mystery-filled footsteps by placing players in the shoes of a man exploring a surreal and twisted Exclusion Zone inhabited by hostile soldiers, mutated enemies, and things that the human mind may not be able to grasp. However, Chernobylite seems ready to push the supernatural envelope where S.T.A.L.K.E.R. left things ambiguous.
The video appears to show Tatyana, Ignor's bride-to-be who went missing during the catastrophe, speaking directly to him. She encourages him to keep going, no matter what, as she is waiting for him and wishes for them to be together again. However, the trailer's eerie imagery and the unsettling fact that her character model seems to be frozen whenever it appears suggest that something unsettling is going on. Odds are good that, in the fashion of classic survival-horror series like Resident Evil, Tatyana has either been dead all along or something even worse has happened to her.
Tatyana also seems to state that Igor will have to sacrifice everything he's built in the Exclusion Zone in order to reach her--including his companions. This could mean that saving her will exhaust the already-strained bonds formed between the other characters, leaving them to abandon Igor, or it could mean something worse. It wouldn't be the first time a survival horror game stepped into the territory of human sacrifice.
One of Chernobylite's main draws is its map, which contains a 3D-scanned recreation of the actual Exclusion Zone near Pripyat, Ukraine. It makes one wonder how many of the game's horrors were created out of whole cloth and how many are based on the very real scars still carved into the earth. Only time will tell if Chernobylite will be added to the ranks of the best survival horror games of all time, but this trailer is certainly memorable.
Chernobylite will release in July 2021 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One, with versions for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S coming soon.
