We had the chance to have an extensive and exclusive interview with the developers of the highly anticipated action-RPG S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Oblivion Lost. GSC Game World told us, among other things, what influenced them to create S.T.A.L.K.E.R., what players can do in the vast world they created and what sets the game apart from its competitors. And of course we asked them about the release date and the multiplayer-modes. See what they had to say.
4Players: First of all: Could you give us some general information about the game, its story and basic setting?
Andrey (GSC Game World): The idea of making a game set in Chernobyl Zone was pestering our minds for quite a long time. Additional inspiration for the project came from the works of Strugatsky brothers. So, in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. we have two parts of a whole united - Chernobyl Zone and "Roadside Picnic".
The background story for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is built as a hypothesis of real events to have taken place in the 1980´s. Back in Chernobyl there functioned an immense antenna, which, as acknowledged by many specialists, radiated psychoactive waves. On some of our photos, taken during the trips to Chernobyl the body of the antenna can be vividly seen on the horizon. According to the unverified rumours, a long-term military experiment on psychotropic influence on humans was held. Those are semi-documentary facts and rumours. The storyline of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is built around similar experiments, propped by conspiracy theory and opposition of special services. With our game we as if think up what could happen in reality. This is a story of post-nuclear world with its own laws and characters. The game is a survival action/RPG.
4P: Is the complete scenario one large area or is it divided into different parts?
Andrey: The game world - Zone, is a huge 30 sq. km area around Chernobyl. We try to recreate the atmosphere of a true industrial and ecological catastrophe of Chernobyl. All the zone sights will be easily recognisable. Photo and video materials acquired during the trip to Chernobyl provide us with the necessary basis for recreation of the exclusion Zone. Textures and architecture will be utmost real.
The game Zone partially replicates the area around Chernobyl atomic facility and lost city of the power plant workers - Pripjat. Plus, all the levels are modeled according to photographs of real exclusion zone objects - derelict settlements, villages, factories and bases, cemeteries of radiated vehicles etc. Though, it´s worth mentioning, we did not aim to recreate the zone landscape in full detail, for that would hardly be beneficial for the play. Naturally, the player will encounter a huge number of anomalous areas - from simply mysterious and inexplicable to mortally dangerous, many of them invisible.
