Key Takeaways
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Chernobylite 2
offers a customizable protagonist, a shift from first-person to third-person perspective. - Improved animations feature characters without gas masks, with better facial expressions than its predecessor.
- The game transitions to a full open-world setting, allowing seamless travel between different areas in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
2020’s Chernobylite was a very strange game from indie developer The Farm 51, set in the real-life Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, complete with maps produced from a 3D scan of the area. The game mixed shooting, stealth, survival, resource management, exploration, and roleplaying mechanics to create a surreal experience that mixed history with science fiction. Although perhaps not the best-known of indie games, Chernobylite did get a decent amount of attention on its release and developed a devoted fanbase. The first game also left open some questions, but for a long time the possibility of a sequel seemed remote. That is, until 2024, when The Farm 51 released a trailer for Chernobylite 2: Exclusion Zone, which revealed some interesting details about the sequel. A few months later, they released a second gameplay trailer that showed even more interesting aspects.
While the first trailer fueled some concern that Chernobylite 2 was turning into a looter-shooter, the second trailer implied a detailed and atmospheric world reminiscent of the first game. Much of the plot is still hard to discern, but there are some interesting things that can be uncovered from the glimpses we’ve seen so far.
7 A New Protagonist
Players Will Get To Create Their Own Stalker
Chernobylite centered around a set protagonist, Igor Kymynuk, whose face was intentionally concealed by the first-person perspective. Even his character portrait shows him wearing a hood and mask that obscures most of his features. One thing Chernobylite 2 showed in its trailer was a change in this regard. This time around, the player will customize their character.
The trailer appears to show options for different outfits, gas masks, and hairstyles. Hopefully, the game will include a gender option as well, though this is harder to discern from the trailer alone. An option to play a female protagonist would be a nice change from the first game, and it would also be great to have other women in the cast besides Olga.
6 Perspective
The Immersive First-Person Has Been Dropped
Chernobylite was structured as a first-person game. Outside of the opening and closing sequences, the entire story took the Half-Life approach, where everything happened through Igor’s eyes. This can be a powerful narrative approach, especially since it restricts the player to the main character’s frame of knowledge. In other words, information about the plot is only revealed to the player when it is known to Igor.
However, Chernobylite 2 is trying something different. In the trailers, gameplay is shown in both first and third-person perspectives. According to the game’s description on Steam, the player will be able to switch between first and third-person during regular gameplay, but will automatically move to a third-person perspective for combat. This decision has a practical reason behind it, as the use of third-person is meant to give the player a clearer view of their situation.
5 More Ambitious Animation
Actual Facial Animations This Time Around
One detail players will quickly notice on starting up Chernobylite is the way characters are animated. Every character’s face is covered by some sort of gas mask, and many of them are also wearing hoods. The only way to tell what they look like is the portrait that accompanies their subtitles. This decision was practically motivated. Facial and hair animations can be really difficult to pull off, even for AAA studios. Face-concealing gear like gas masks make sense for the setting, as does headgear that obscures the hair, so The Farm 51 clearly took advantage of this fact to avoid the animation hassle.
However, it looks like Chernobylite 2 might be trying something different. In both trailers, several characters can be seen without gas masks, and there might even be an option for the player to go without one as well. The gameplay trailer also shows two different characters speaking and displaying solid facial animations while doing so. It seems the developers have access to better resources this time around, or perhaps are just building on their experience from the first game to produce more detailed character models.
4 Open World
More Room To Explore
The original Chernobylite took place in a 3D-scanned rendering of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, but it was not a fully open world. While there was room to explore, it would be more accurate to say the map was broken up into regions that acted as mini-open worlds. At the start of each day, Igor decided which region he wanted to visit, and which ones to send his companions to.
Chernobylite 2 seems to be trying a different approach. Instead of breaking the map up into smaller regions, the game is taking the more ambitious decision to make an open world out of the zone, allowing the player to seamlessly travel between areas. Whether or not the sequel will be using the same 3D-scanned map as the first game remains to be seen, but it could be a huge improvement.
3 Chernobylite Evolution?
Chernobylite Might Be Even More Powerful
Chernobylite got its title from a mysterious resource that has a prominent role in the story. It actually has a real-life inspiration — Chernobylite is an actual radioactive compound that can identified to have formed as a result of the Chernobyl Disaster. The game portrayed it as an anomalous resource that thrives in radioactive environments, and revealed that it has some strange properties. Among other things, Chernobylite can mess with people’s heads and the fabric of reality. Igor made extensive use of the substance, given that he is a professor with a lot of experience studying it. However, there was a dark twist. He eventually discovers that Chernobylite is actually an extra-dimensional parasite, and Igor has the choice to let it destroy Earth or sacrifice himself to stop it.
In Chernobylite 2, it appears the parasite has returned, and it also seems that players will get some new insight into just what it is capable of. Players will recognize some things from the first game. Chernobylite can still create portals and bend reality to its will. It also has the ability to create monsters, including some new ones not seen in the first game. However, the appearance of one character suggests something new. A man visible in the gameplay trailer, identified in subtitles as “Borya”, seems to have been infected or consumed by Chernobylite. He has pale skin, green eyes, and bits of the substance embedded in his skin. The standout moment is what appears to be a boss fight, in which Chernobylite is able to take an old abandoned excavator and combine it with pieces of other machinery to build itself a mech suit. Evidently, things are going to get a lot crazier this time around.
2 Return Of Familiar Mechanics
Big Parts Of The First Game Are Expected To Come Back
In addition to survival, Chernobylite also included a management system where Igor needed to build a base and organize a team. Base construction was an interesting mechanic, especially since functionality was not the only thing to worry about. Igor also needed to ensure the base met the needs of his team, meaning he also had to build things that ensured health and comfort. Team management was also a challenge. At the end of each day, Igor had to distribute food, and sometimes make tough decisions when there wasn’t enough to go around. He also needed to make sure everyone was properly equipped. It was easy to slip up and not too enough for one companion, sometimes to a point where they could die or desert the group. In the latter case, they could even come back during the game’s climax and cause problems for Igor.
According to the Steam description for Chernobylite 2, players can expect to see some of these mechanics return. Team building is listed as a feature, with the statement that “Each of your mates is a potential teacher, ready to impart their knowledge and skills.”.This suggests a returning feature from the first game, where the player can spend skill points to be trained by their allies. Base construction also seems to be returning, adopting a similar structure of building items using collected resources and trying to balance practicality with comfort.
1 Black Stalker Returns?
Somehow He’s Back, Despite the First Game’s Ending
Throughout the events of Chernobylite, Igor’s primary nemesis was a mysterious enemy known as “The Black Stalker.” He was an imposing man easily recognized by his large gas mask and glowing green eye ports. He terrorizes Igor throughout the game, often showing up in the middle of the zone at inconvenient moments. Quite often, running is the best option. He was a big enough part of the game that his face (or rather, mask) is prominently featured in the game’s promotional art. However, he was eventually defeated. Igor gets to face The Black Stalker in a final showdown that reveals a few (literally) game-changing secrets. Players saw him die, and it seemed he was gone for good. So one can imagine the surprise when the trailer for Chernobylite 2 was released and the first thing they show is… The Black Stalker, alive, and standing in the Red Forest.
This obviously begs some questions about what he is doing here. The most obvious answer is he was somehow brought back after the events of the first game, but there are other possibilities. One potential explanation could be that this is not actually the same Black Stalker, but someone else who impersonates him, or who sees themselves as a successor. Another possible explanation could be that, despite the “2” in the name, Chernobylite 2 is actually a prequel (similar to Red Dead Redemption 2), meaning The Black Stalker is still alive at this point. Whatever the reason, it seems the character will be making a big comeback in some form.