Shadow of Chernobyl is a very derivative work that was heavily inspired by several literary and film classics. Stalker, the eponymous movie from Andrey Tarkovsky, as well as the classic science fiction work Roadside Picnic written by brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (which Stalker is loosely based on), are obvious as their themes and ideas have deep roots in the game. But as one digs deeper it is obvious that old Westerns and the Klondike Gold Rush were on the back of the developers' minds
The Zone is a man made hellscape which is no longer under man's power. When a human finds themselves in it, they are once again under the complete crushing power of a corrupt, alien version of nature itself. Shadow of Chernobyl puts players in a place where the adventurous and the damned go to find wealth in a dark, modern science fiction version of Yukon or the old Wild West. The prize for these people can range from survival to monetary wealth, to advancing science and engineering or defeating mortality itself (if they find the ultimate creations of the Zone).
The game sets up the player to explore this vast world with the protagonist and his (at the start of the game that is) limited backstory. Yes, it uses the tired old amnesia cliche to start the player with a blank slate character and slowly introduce them to the game world. The protagonist, called Marked One, is a blank slate for the player, at least most of the time. This lets players more easily immerse themselves into the game, and sets interesting precedents when late in the game he gets a small bit of personality of his own.
Throughout the journey, many different people will guide Marked One from objective to objective. The game also has 7 endings, not all of which are easily obtainable. There is even an "Egyptian Pyramid" twist in the final levels of the game.
The main attraction though is the Zone which is easily one of gaming's greatest ever locations. Not only its level design (which is excellent, if toned down from the original vision) but the way it can easily layer both ideas and scenarios whilst leveraging powerful iconography. It is a place where every single thing is trying to murder the humans daring enough to enter it, whilst rewarding the most daring of all. Frequently the characters will reference how the current madness for getting the magical artifacts reminds them of the Klondike Gold Rush. An added bonus of course is how the corpse of the dead Soviet empire and its many legends and myths has been used as a basis for the game's science fiction. Especially the most horrifying parts.
One of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.?s most powerful storytelling (and gameplay) traits is its use of a technique dubbed "environmental estrangement." Originally coined by Matt "Steerpike" Sakey, it is a technique that enables developers to imbue games with a wider and subtler spectrum of emotions and an intensely powerful, intensely personal sense of immersion.
In most games, the environment is just a backdrop. It is a part of the experience, but it is not in itself too important to the game's narrative or gameplay. Even exceptionally well made games of the FPS genre like Half-Life or DOOM or Wolfenstein have a "gameplay and the player first" mentality. Whilst they understand the "show, don't tell" aspect of level design their service is ultimately to the player. I am in no way saying that is bad or inferior, but it is different to what Shadow of Chernobyl's world is made to do. The world in all 3 S.T.A.L.K.E.R. titles and most fan made mods was made to be a world first, something for the player (or even humans in general) second. The player character is not the protagonist of this story. The Zone is, it is the center stage character and the best developed one in the entire series.
As video games advance as an art form we have seen their emotional range expand. Shadow of Chernobyl can evoke all of the "simpler" feelings such as sadness or terror or anger and it manages to make them feel incredibly strong. But that is not its limit. More complex, subtle emotions which very few video games manage to convey are simply and instinctively communicated from the environment and the game's major, universal themes. Melancholy, resentment, respect for thy fellow man even (at times)?a very impressive thing for any game to do.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl uses environmental estrangement, a combination of writing, iconography, and world design to snatch you from our real world and put you into another one; one that is unwelcoming, aggressive, alien, alluring. Creating strong emotional and thematic connections to this fictional world is the reason why so many fans love the Zone. The very dare against nature which humanity won in Yukon's Gold Rush and the Wild West seems to make all of the Zone's danger even more beloved for gamers worldwide.
Key to this is not only the internal consistency of the game's world and universe and general world design, but also the advantage of it being based on a real location. GSC Game World is a Ukrainian game studio so they had easier access to the actual Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and they used it to full effect by methodically modeling parts of their game world according to the real one. Capturing the eerie real world location was a hard task, but they managed to pull it off. In accomplishing this task, they were able to transplant the lauded feeling of loneliness that exists in the real Exclusion Zone. To be fair, from a high level geographic overview the game's world is not close to the real world Zone, but that is hard to notice as one plays the game.
As for more standard ways of storytelling, Shadow of Chernobyl knows how to expand its own lore and universe really well. For example, for those that can understand it, the chatter of NPCs around the campfire contains inside-jokes, references, Zone jargon and many stories about events within the game world.
Apart from that it also makes good use of a PDA Encyclopedia system. Within it, as time passes and bodies are looted, one can find stories, folklore of the Zone, backstory and information on anomalies, mutants, enemy factions and areas. The game's writing here is simple, somewhat informative but often ominous enough or incomplete enough to get the imagination going. This is perfect especially for the monstrous creatures and terrible hellholes the player will get to fight. Usually they are not all that difficult, but the very atmosphere and expectations imagination can create do make these encounters more stressful and memorable.
Now lets speak of the big problem with the game's storytelling, and that is how well it communicates its main plot. You see, whilst Shadow of Chernobyl mostly succeeds in the monumental task of tying the players to its own world and making them feel more alive in it (just like many of the people in the Zone) and even showing respect to both the real Chernobyl disaster and its literary and cinematic inspirations, it simply fails in communicating the simpler messages to its players. Its in-engine cinematics are not a good fit with the game, not all important dialogue is voiced (which is an issue to some gamers but not necessarily a flaw) and a lot of secondary dialogue and diary entries may be missed by even experienced and attentive players. The game would have benefited from being slightly rewritten and paced in a different way, so the overall experience of understanding its story completely may be a challenge to some for no real reason (since the actual storyline is simple, themes notwithstanding).
Another fairly big issue is that the game lacks strong characters bar the actual Zone itself. Yes, the level of the background NPC in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is much higher than in other games, but the actual story related characters are mostly just decent. Nothing more, nothing like the intense character-driven storytelling witnessed in Tarkovsky's work. Very few of them undergo any significant development or are deeply layered.
The factions the game shows us are all very interesting in concept and ideals, not to mention equipment and tactics, but they also feel somewhat underdeveloped. The ideals are there, the writers did the hardest part but not much more was done.
Overall Shadow of Chernobyl is a big step forwards for video game storytelling. It is an example of why immersion, themes, world design and gameplay are tied and work best together to create a true, deep video game only experience. It also manages to stand as a good example of remediation to both literature and cinema's finest whilst still keeping its video game identity. The emergent systems and deep gameplay loop (to which we will get to in a second) make for a personal and unique experience. Creating your own world from scrap with mostly background text and imagination and doing so without downplaying the real tragedy that was the Chernobyl Nuclear meltdown is extremely impressive.
But when you aim so high with high concept ideas and themes, the devil is in the details and execution. And Shadow of Chernobyl has many, generally small issues piling up to hurt its main storytelling. Roughness can be awesome in gameplay, and in moderation to storytelling as well, but there is a limit to how much it can work. Excellency in ambition, victory in many of the hardest storytelling parts, but a disappointment in the smaller, usually easier to write or establish parts.
