Watch the Gamescom demo for Chernobylite, a Stalker-meets-Metro nuclear survival-horror story

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I'm not 100% sure what's going on here, but it can't be good

The Chernobyl disaster has inspired a number of works already, from the recent Chernobyl TV series to the Stalker games, but the folks at The Farm 51 may be working on the strangest adaptation yet: Chernobylite, a non-linear survival-horror game revolving around the titular nuclear meltdown. Chernobylite received a spiffy pre-alpha demo at Gamescom 2019, and while it's light on the survival and crafting elements The Farm 51 describes on the game's site, it does introduce its eery world and our main character, Igor. 

Chernobylite is set 30 years after the Chernobyl catastrophe itself. Even after all this time, Igor is still looking for his girlfriend, who was at the scene of the catastrophe and has been missing since, on account of her communicating with him from beyond our reality via some sort of crystal dimension. It's about as weird as it sounds, and it only gets weirder when Igor is assaulted by visions of Chernobyl victims and, more literally, by masked soldiers who can access the same mysterious dimension. 

Wild sci-fi elements aside, Chernobylite sounds like a gritty survival game very much in the vein of the Stalker and Metro series. Igor has health and energy bars to maintain, he carries a Geiger counter to monitor radiation levels, and he's got a backpack full of stuff he can use to craft weapons, protective gear, and other supplies. It would've been nice to see more of that in the Gamescom demo (though you can see a bit in its old Kickstarter demo), but we at least get a look at some of the decisions driving its non-linear story. "Detonate or mind control" is a hell of a decision. 

Chernobylite is scheduled to release on PC this fall. If you need more nuclear survival right-stat-now, Metro Exodus is still great and it just got a new DLC chapter in Metro Exodus: The Two Colonels. 

Austin Wood
Austin Wood
Senior writer

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree. He's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.