Chernobylite

The game doesn't seem very fleshed out and is rather "meh" overall. There is no open world but only a handful of open, but relatively small levels in which the missions take place. Every time you visit them, some minor events are changed. The main missions themselves are pretty boring so far. They don't really push the story forward nor are they presented in an exciting way. Looting starts to feel like work very quickly and unfortunately there is little variation in the items lying around. Base building and crafting is present, but implemented in a very basic way. I had already built ~75% of all available furnishings and workbenches after the 3rd mission. There are only three different weapons - revolver, shotgun & rifle. You can build and place traps, but they're completely useless and not worth wasting resources on. In general, confrontations bring mostly disadvantages and you spend most of the time sneaking past or stealth killing your foes. The stealth system is only ok-ish at best. There are only 3 types of enemies in the game: Soldiers, Mutants and the Black Stalker. The english VA is really bad. Most of the actors don't have Russian accents, which kind of takes away from the atmosphere when everyone is speaking perfect English in the middle of Chernobyl. The delivery of everything is uncomfortably unnatural, too. Some of the subtitles don't match what is said. Really ruined the tone of the game for me. Graphics and atmosphere are nice and performance is good. Animations are meh and most NPCs & companions look all the same. Sound design and music is fine so far. Companion mechanics are very basic, too. Skill system is very boring. Click train, yes, thank you, done. Skills rarely impact gameplay in a noticeable way. The writing is just awful. Choices often have little context or reasoning behind them, same goes for the companions and main character. The whole thing left me puzzled more than once. Better play Stalker or Metro instead, tbh.

Suffice it to say this game is a shell for some good ideas but those that are there are poorly implemented. Confused system used to determine npc good/bad state. Highly broken AI. Small world areas that become boring fast. Story is mediocre at best. Maybe they'll expand this at some future point but for now I just can't support it. They have a pretty nice graphics implementation. They really should look up mSV and understand what that means. The usage in the game does not correlate with any metric I could find. 2/5 overall. Don't buy in my opinion.

When I read the reviews of this game I was really worried about the time limits that everyone was talking about. As a person who hates being timed/stressed in games for no reason, this was a real turn off for me, but I bought the game anyway since I I read there are other ways to avoid the time limit. However, I have never seen a time limit on my screen or anything like that. I haven't time any of my missions to see if they get to 30 minutes, but I always feel like I can finish them relatively quick on the hardest difficulty. The part that takes the longest for me is just stealthfully killing all the enemies. If you want to explore, I suggest doing the actual mission first since you have a portal gun which lets you leave at basically any time. From what I've read, the time limit isn't a "Game Over" or "Mission Failed" time limit either, it just means something will come after you, and you can either escape from it or kill it to get more time. It's not game-ending, especially since you can build walls and traps (if you have the materials) to help protect yourself. If I actually encounter this problem, I'll edit my review talking about it, but for right now it doesn't seem to be an issue at all, as enemies in general seem to be relatively easy to get away from if you run away far enough lol. Not to mention there is a machine in your base that you can build which extends the time until the 'storm' appears. I don't know how much by, but if you really are worried or are hindered by a time limit, just build that. Overall, the game reminds me of a Fallout 4/Far Cry 3 mixup from certain aspects. Not saying it's as good, but you have to collect resources to build things to improve your base like in Fallour 4, but with the stealh-takeout of outposts feel of Far Cry 3. Gunfights aren't the best, but it's best if you avoid those altogether and stealth kill anyway. It makes you manage your resources and think about what you're going to do next. Great game for the price

The first half hour of playing I wanted to return it. Haha I'm not into crafting and thought that this would be the majority of the game. I'm glad I stuck it through because I love this game. Its been a minute since I've looked forward to coming home to play something. The atmosphere is great...desolate and dark yet calm and relaxing. The music is a perfect fit. If you're into documentaries or other games featuring Chernobyl, you will like this. It's like Metro (which I also love) but less chaotic and more "lonely". The graphics are great, I'm still rocking a 1070 and had no issues with Ultra. The only issue I had was that every once in awhile it would freeze at a mission start or waking up in the base. But definitely not a huge issue for me. It's hard to believe it's an indie game.

There is one feature of this game that is not mentioned in official description - you have limited time (about 30inutes) to complete each mission. At least in the existing build. So if you want a game with thorough and unhurried exploration of the territory - do not buy it, at least for now.