Video Game - Chernobylite

Rob reviews Chernobylite on Xbox Series X...

Chernobylite is quite an interesting title. Part first-person shooter, part base management simulator - with a heavy pinch of survivalist gameplay, Chernobylite sees you venture through the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Zone of Alienation in search of your missing wife.

Set 30-years after the well-documented meltdown, physicist and former power plant employee, Igor returns to Chernobyl in an attempt to find his wife Tatyana. Using experimental technology that's powered by the alien substance - Chernobylite - Igor can traverse through time and space in an attempt to piece together what happened to Tatyana, and ultimately what caused the 1986 meltdown.

 

Igor isn't alone in his journey and as such, you'll have a team of mercenaries at your back. But any team is only as good as its equipment. As such Igor will have to scour the Zone to build and upgrade his base of operations, as well as keep his team fed and relatively comfortable. It's a tough job that requires a heck of a lot of backtracking - but someone has to do it.

Your mission inside the 'Zone' is broken up into days. Each day you're able to venture out to search for clues to progress the story, as well as scavenge for those important supplies. You're also able to send members of your team out to complete missions too, with their success based upon their skills, fatigue, and current loadout. After each day you'll be back at base camp where you'll see the overall success of the day as well as any items scavenged. After this, it's then over to the base management as you'll then need to keep your team fed and provide some comforts to keep their morale in check. 

The base building takes inspiration from that seen within Fallout 4 and players of the title will grasp the fundamentals quite quickly. You're given quite the canvas to create your base and there's a wealth of items, workbenches, and computer screens to place down. While this is all well and good, it's only really you who'll interact with them. Your team members spend most of their time in the same position, yet they'll soon complain about the lack of comfort. It's a shame really as it gives everything a flat lifeless feel, especially when you need to form working relationships with these soulless people.

The characters who make up your team are quite an interesting bunch. They'll have their personalities and motivations for being with you, and you'll need to micromanage their needs to keep them on the side. Each team member is also adept in a certain skill which they'll impart their knowledge if Igor asks nicely. While you'll only start with one teammate, five additional characters can optionally join your team. If you want to skip the pleasantries, Chernobylite's final mission is available straight from the start - however, jumping straight into it is a guaranteed failure. Instead, Chernobylite wants you to play the long game, and taking the time to bond with your team is the real key to unlocking the power plants' secrets. 

When you not solving disagreements, or building a straw sofa, Igor will be out in the wilds of northern Ukraine. The game map is made up of six locations that are inspired by real-life landmarks within the 'Zone of Alienation. Exploring these landmarks is pretty atmospheric and you get a sense of wonder as you explore this abandoned world. This atmosphere is further built upon with The Farm 51 using 3D scans and recreations from the 'Zone'. With this in mind, these areas soon lose their wonder as you'll be seeing them quite a few times. Everything becomes a chore as you'll be exploring the same environment, but this time you'll be looking for a different material to the last. 

Each location also has its threat which comes in the form of the NAR - a military unit that's tasked with patrolling the local area. Much like your teammates, these enemies seem to wander around without any real purpose. They stick to a set path which gives you ample time to launch stealth attacks, or quickly dispatch them in a hail of bullets. When it comes to combat everything feels cumbersome. Weapons fight against you and it's a real struggle to gauge whether you'll hit your target - even if they're in point-blank range. I often found myself resorting to stealth attacks of avoiding enemies altogether as the resulting gunfight just wasn't interesting. It's a real shame as it forces you into a single playstyle when the premise of the game is on exploration and freedom. 

The presentation is a bit of a mixed bag. While the overall design of the world manages to build a fairly decent atmosphere, everything else feels a little flat. Once you've seen everything within the current area, that original wow factor isn't replicated on subsequent visits. Voice acting is also incredibly wooden, and can often feel a little too much during certain scenes. I ended up switching the dialogue to its native style and relied on subtitles - which did offer a far more immersive experience. 

When it comes to playing the game on the Xbox Series X, your offered the staple graphics options of performance vs quality. There's quite a difference between the two with performance mode giving you 60FPS, but locking resolution to 1080p. On the other hand quality mode gives you 4K resolution, but limits this to 30FPS. Naturally, this overall choice will come down to your preference, however, I found quality mode gave a better overall experience. 

All in all, Chernobylite is a game that's stuck firmly in the middle of good and bad. While there are a lot of good ideas, these are hampered by some odd design choices and unpolished gameplay. 

Rating: 7/10

Chernobylite is available now and can be purchased via the Microsoft Store by clicking here.

A code was kindly provided for this review.

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