Chernobylite

 PC
User Score
7.9

Generally favorable reviews- based on 199 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 140 out of 199
  2. Mixed: 29 out of 199
  3. Negative: 30 out of 199

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  1. Aeryx
    Aug 30, 2021
    4
    I feel conned by this game. It tries hard to be Metro Exodus, Stalker and Fallout 76 all at the same time and fails at all of them. The soundtrack is almost non-existent, the grind is terrible and story is shallow and pointless. 10 hours into this thing and it is just a painful chore. The autosave system sucks and is poorly thought out. I can't imagine this game getting a user reviewI feel conned by this game. It tries hard to be Metro Exodus, Stalker and Fallout 76 all at the same time and fails at all of them. The soundtrack is almost non-existent, the grind is terrible and story is shallow and pointless. 10 hours into this thing and it is just a painful chore. The autosave system sucks and is poorly thought out. I can't imagine this game getting a user review average of 8.2. I know everyone wants a new Stalker game but this is not it. Stay away and save your money for better things.… Expand
  2. Pc080972
    Aug 10, 2021
    4
    Could have been great, but there are so many bugs - but worst is corruption of save games, which makes loading a save game a horror on its own.

    You'll spawn in the wrong place surrounded by enemies who starts shooting at you from the start... This has happened to me on multiple save games from different timestamps. The enemies spawned are some already killed at the time of save. Poor    Could have been great, but there are so many bugs - but worst is corruption of save games, which makes loading a save game a horror on its own.

    You'll spawn in the wrong place surrounded by enemies who starts shooting at you from the start... This has happened to me on multiple save games from different timestamps. The enemies spawned are some already killed at the time of save. Poor quality devs.

    It does not matter how the game is when you can't rely on the save games - progress is lost and you're left wondering what else was not saved correctly. I'm avoiding this developer in the furture.    … Expand
  3. CoderX71
    Aug 4, 2021
    3
    This game is "meh".

    its got fantastic graphics and audio, but that's about it. The English voice acting is a complete 180 turn from the tone of the Russian version, and it really feels like the English version of the character is a piss-weak snob who's a snowflake ... seriously. The story is all over the place, there's no real coherent flow to it and the quests are way too easy and    This game is "meh".

    its got fantastic graphics and audio, but that's about it. The English voice acting is a complete 180 turn from the tone of the Russian version, and it really feels like the English version of the character is a piss-weak snob who's a snowflake ... seriously.

    The story is all over the place, there's no real coherent flow to it and the quests are way too easy and boring.

    The crafting / modding system is ultimately pointless, because the player doesn't get any sense the mods make any difference in the killing power of the weapons.

    The reactor exploded because of the what appeared to be an excess of Chernobylite growing. The problem is I have no idea how that ties in with the missions or how it happened. I stopped playing at that point.    … Expand
  4. afgan_
    Aug 5, 2021
    1
    I have completed the game I can say there are few good areas in the game – the story is overall interesting, graphics is good and 3D scanned details of the map are very detailed and realistic, but to be clear right away - not everything was 3D scanned and quality is patchy at best.
    Now the story being strong is a good thing, but the good story could be written into the book – the purpose    I have completed the game I can say there are few good areas in the game – the story is overall interesting, graphics is good and 3D scanned details of the map are very detailed and realistic, but to be clear right away - not everything was 3D scanned and quality is patchy at best.
    Now the story being strong is a good thing, but the good story could be written into the book – the purpose of the video game is to allow you to enjoy the story in the form of a video game and frankly, Chernobylite sucks big time as a game. Game mechanics, feature implementations, “fast travelling” or rather transitions into the gameplay areas are all quite nonsensical and terribly implemented. If anything they are annoying and distracts the player from what is an overall good story.
    Now when it comes to the actual “zone”… there is no zone per se… it contains 6 different tiny areas and you have a “warehouse” which acts as your base and for some reason you can see out of it like from top of a skyscraper, then you simply teleport into the small arena to complete repetitive and basic tasks. To give you a rough idea of the size of the “zone” – it would all fit in the Cordon map of Stalker SoC. And I am not exaggerating – to walk from one side of the map to another takes ~3 minutes.
    It is hard to even explain how repetitive and boring the gameplay is. Wake up>assign tasks>do the same task in the same area over and over and over again> back to home> give food to companions > go to sleep and repeat. To justify the grind game includes the base building which again is fairly basic and frankly annoying. Imagine Fallout 4 base building mechanics, just 5 times more basic and have almost no purpose. It exists solely to justify the need to gather resources and spend them. I have seen somebody comparing this game with “war of mine” just in 3D and it does feel like it. The difference is that war of mine was simple and fun to play little game which does not tyre you and could be played in one long evening and does not require 20-30 hours to complete.

    Gameplay is basically rinse and repeat, go into mission a dozen times and you are done with the game. There are basically about 1 hour of actual gameplay, 4 hours of watching the screen as the story is being told and another 15 hours of grind and frustration trying to figure out what the game actually wants from you.
    In the end, this game claims it is non-linear, but it isn’t strictly true either. The story will end the same either way, your gameplay does not affect it, in the end, you can choose the way you want to end the game. Sure decisions will make the difference on who lives and who dies, and that will change epilogues of the NPCs in the game, but it does not affect the end of the game.
    Even the “hyper-realistic” claim is just partially accurate – yes 3D scanned items and buildings are hyper-realistic, but maps are tiny and good quality assets are only 5-10% of the game. The rest of the game has a lot of generic assets which are in varying conditions, some are average, some are acceptable, but others are outright horrible.
    Gunplay is rather terrible; it goes from unrealistically underpowered to broken overpowered in few steps. Enemies are very stupid and blind, but when you alert them they shoot very quickly and with amazing accuracy. Basically, there are two modes for enemies – not seeing or instantly shooting at you with absolute accuracy.
    In summary, then, I do understand this game is very low budget, very ambitious and had some good ideas which sadly were not implemented very well. The story itself is interesting, but game mechanics are just so bad that it distracts from the story rather than lets you play through it. The game world is tiny, tasks are repetitive, game mechanics is not intuitive. Good and detailed graphics diluted with large quantities or poorly placed, scaled and generic assets making the overall experience mediocre at best. Gunplay and gun’s themselves suck, perhaps intentions were to make the game where one does not need to shoot, but playing it stealthily is not an option either.
    Considering the low budget and that it was developed by a small indie studio I guess you can call it even impressive. it clearly was very ambitious, but big ambitions do not make big games, so the most I could squeeze for this would be 3/10.    … Expand
  5. RevivePL
    Oct 17, 2019
    0
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. This game not supose to be released yet. Poor, old graphic from 2015, game full of Bugs and with The most funny animation system ive ever seen. During gameplay i found a lot of reusage levels from developer previous game, get even. I redund The game as soon possible and will wait for The finał release, because nownis still unplayable.… Expand
  6. dwarfPlanet
    Jan 12, 2021
    1
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Well, I'm a huge fan of the STALKER series, and the mods of course, so I thought Chernobylite would be a no brainer. Wrong.
    Graphics are good, but the progression is confusing - maybe I just haven't played long enough to get it yet, I don't know, but it's confusing and ultimately irritating and dissuades me from trying further.
    The err... 'spooky' occurrences are cheesy, second rate - dolls with glowing eyes, phantoms with glowing bits etc. Horror movie cliche devices. They totally detract from any atmosphere the game has. And it has atmosphere, I'll grant that.
    The love interest thing, the Tatyana aspect is again, cheesy. Very, very cheesy. It's a cheap and superficial attempt at creating a backstory and it not only doesn't work, it detracts from the positive aspect of the experience, which is the look of the game itself. And the look is very well done. It's the one part of the game that keeps me hopeful that the devs will ditch the nonsensical backstory and get some writers in who will create something with intrigue and depth to it. Otherwise Chernobylite will remain a hollow experience ultimately.    … Expand
  7. erkmacgurk
    Sep 1, 2021
    0
    Boring, amateurish and boasting possibly the worst 15 minutes initial gameplay of any game in recent times, do yourself a favor and buy something else. This isn't stalker, its a cynical exploitation of the stalker fanboi movement, many of whom are trying to boost the score of a game that will sink without trace.
  8. Splitlivez
    Jun 18, 2021
    2
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. The game had tons of potential, but all that was blown out of the window. The game is extremely broken due to the following:

    1- you can not manual save before critical moments in the story, and the game forces an autosave immediately upon you. Which means that you can't fix anything you mess up along the story.
    2- The stealth system is broken and extremely dull compared to any stealth game I ever played.
    3- Your team mates are 100 percent dependent on you for everything, which means that instead of enjoying the thrilling background, you have to micromanage their stupid needs including their mood, which affects their success rate when you send them on missions
    4- bullets and first aids have to be crafted almost always, which means that when on a quest you have to walk around like a Gardner to harvest stuff which just takes you off the thrilling part of the quest, and turn you into a scavenger simulator

    Such a shame, could have been an awesome game    … Expand
  9. Lozsta
    May 3, 2022
    0
    Mainly all you need to know because the protagonist is a physicist they are unable to hip fire and you are forced to have melee whenever you press fire.

    Good graphics. Horrible mechanics. Good sound. Horrible game. Uninstalled after the first lightening strike gave me a gun and the second one landed me in Pripyat to be presented with a horrible intro on how to use the gun and avoid    Mainly all you need to know because the protagonist is a physicist they are unable to hip fire and you are forced to have melee whenever you press fire.

    Good graphics. Horrible mechanics. Good sound. Horrible game. Uninstalled after the first lightening strike gave me a gun and the second one landed me in Pripyat to be presented with a horrible intro on how to use the gun and avoid being hit.

    If I had paid for it I would be refunding it immediately.    … Expand
  10. Tecco
    Nov 10, 2021
    2
    A game with loads of great ideas with terrible implementation, some so bad its worse than actually game breaking bugs.I fx found out that an action i did when i was 5 hours in effectively barred me from being able to finish it and Im like 30 hours in, and just now it's come apparent that the game can not be finished.
    I went through so many frustrating things to get the story for nothing,    A game with loads of great ideas with terrible implementation, some so bad its worse than actually game breaking bugs.I fx found out that an action i did when i was 5 hours in effectively barred me from being able to finish it and Im like 30 hours in, and just now it's come apparent that the game can not be finished.
    I went through so many frustrating things to get the story for nothing, i cant stress enough how extremely frustrating this is.

    Companion reaction to your actions in the game makes no sense, and you can easily loose essential crew needed to be able to finish it, Not even the in game "choice changer" will save you..

    Save system is awful as well, even if you manual save the the save will be the save that the game last think is the "proper time" to save. So spent 30 mins gathering materials? Well too bad! because the game don't think that is part of progress.

    They decided to remove hipfire impacting gunplay in a really negative way, having to "aim" the weapon you are using even though the enemy is right in your face feels bad.
    There is loads of other small issues aswell, that as a whole really lowered the quality of the whole experience.

    On the positive side, the (Russian)voice acting is great, the story(the part i got to see before i was locked out by gamebreaking developer design) was interesting enough to make me battle trough the mountain of **** to see what would happen next.

    The atmosphere of the game is great aswell, gave me the same feeling as i had in stalker and metro, though the game it self are quite different and simpler than those.

    I don't recommend playing this game without a proper detailed guide, something that seems to not exist at this moment.    … Expand
  11. DiegoArmando
    Nov 24, 2021
    3
    Gameplay, visual, all stupid glitches and stupid mechanics, this game that shouldn't have been born
  12. hertzian68
    Aug 30, 2021
    3
    Chernobylite is a frankenstein game of other games mashed together with Slavic obtuseness/janky terrible UI. Metro, Stalker, Fallout 4 etc There's nothing that's particularly good about it all around, go play the games that it tries to mash together, they're way better. The graphics are nice but then the game is very buggy and stuttery at times. The gameplay loop gets very boring after aChernobylite is a frankenstein game of other games mashed together with Slavic obtuseness/janky terrible UI. Metro, Stalker, Fallout 4 etc There's nothing that's particularly good about it all around, go play the games that it tries to mash together, they're way better. The graphics are nice but then the game is very buggy and stuttery at times. The gameplay loop gets very boring after a couple of times. 1. wakeup 2. some sort of mission prompt via radio 3. assign missions for yourself and the bots 4. do missions, some story but mostly junk collecting 4. Assign food rations 5. Perhaps build some stuff in your bunker 6. Go to bed. 7. REPEAT until story over. That's the game mostly. The maps are decent but nowhere near say Witcher 3 size, which with all DLC is 36gb install, this game is about the same size install for a much smaller in game area. You just use the same few maps over and over, mostly empty too. English VO is awful, stick with ukranian and do the subtitles. The base building is from Fallout 4, just in one area and much smaller, no settlers other than 1-2 companion bots. You get 3 guns you can use total: AK, revolver, Shotgun. You can upgrade them, not very interesting. You can build things like armor etc but that involves a LOT of grind, not too interesting. There are bugs of course. You can tell they were trying to cash in on the hunger for more stalker but it's only the setting and themes that are similar. All in all the only thing I can see that's good here are the graphics and they're not really jaw dropping tbh. I'd wait for a drastic price cut, watch yt play etc before buying this. Also the reviews seem to be really skewed and this is an indication of manipulation either by the publisher or some sort of weird nationalistic craziness.… Expand
  13. vova22379
    Feb 4, 2023
    0
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Awards & Rankings

35
#35 Most Discussed PC Game of 2021

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
75

Generally favorable reviews - based on 50 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 32 out of 50
  2. Mixed: 18 out of 50
  3. Negative: 0 out of 50
  1. Merlin'in Kazanı (Turkey)
    Jan 10, 2022
    80
    Chernobylite successfully blends survival, horror and FPS genres with science fiction with its storytelling style and gameplay.
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  2. Meristation
    Oct 21, 2021
    78
    Although it took a bit of fighting from the game's part, in the end Chernobylite´s charm won us over and we were thoroughly addicted to the game´s loop with a great story to top it all off.
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  3. CD-Action
    Oct 12, 2021
    75
    An interesting return to The Zone and a perfect game to help you survive the wait for Stalker 2. Chernobylite is atmospheric, intriguing, sometimes beautiful, but also needlessly bloated with distracting elements that force you to deal with unimportant or repetitive stuff. It has its issues, but first and foremost it’s an original game with an engaging story and I do recommend it. [10/2021, p.24]
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