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The story of Chernobylite begins promisingly, however it quickly falls far into the background. This is due to the nature of the game and its gameplay loop, limiting story moments to dialogue between missions, and some limited exposition within certain key missions. Igor never fails to remind you and everyone around you that your eventual goal is to find Tatyana, however aside from the heist at the game’s final act and the simulations, much of the dialogue is centred around secondary characters. This is not a bad thing, as many of the companion’s sub-stories are in some ways more interesting than Igor’s, especially Sashko and Tarakan’s.
While these stories don’t necessarily progress over the course of the game, their pasts and character motivations are revealed in chunks as you get closer to the characters at your base. Your companions and their stories really help to create this familial sense, and when the final act does take place, and you are infiltrating the power plant with your companions alongside you, it does feel like a special moment.
While the story offers two real and opposing endings, choices you make throughout the game can have lasting consequences, with characters dying or not dying depending on your choices. These consequences can range from immediate decisions made, to ones from hours ago, reaffirming a sense of cause and effect. While the middle of the game can feel tedious at some points, even going so far as to be mind numbing and repetitive (depending on the difficulty), the game’s narrative and gameplay wrap nicely in its final act. The heist mission involves the greatest amount of storytelling, action, shooting, choices and budget, with developers The Farm 51 clearly putting a great deal of their resources into ensuring the game leaves an impact at the end – and it certainly does manage to do so.
The game’s final moments have you confront yourself and your actions throughout the game in a visually striking and impactful way. While not everyone will feel the impact that the developers were hoping to achieve, I certainly felt its effects, and it retroactively made much of the game’s more story-light moments click better. Still, the ending isn’t without its flaws. Some of the game’s final moments prove to be predictable, and while some revelations may come as a surprise, others definitely will not. Chernobylite’s main story is serviceable, and even exciting and intriguing at times, however for most of the game’s 25 hour-long campaign, you won’t be thinking about it.
