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.

__NEWCOL__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.

4P: How do you tell the story of STALKER? Will there be In-Game-videos, dialogues with NPCs or render-videos?

Andrey: The game will consist of a massive number of various events that will either become known to you through personal exploration or through communication with stalkers, scientists and other NPCs. There will possibly be in-game engine videos for the most crucial parts, but most of the information will come out from the communication. Every time you find out something important it will be automatically registered in the diary that you can always refer to as a refresher.

4P: What influences from RPG can you find in the game? Will there be an inventory system similar to RPGs or experience-based character-growth?

Andrey: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is an action/role-playing game, where we do not provide for growing experience of your character by changing characteristics or levels. We do this pursuing the only goal - the player should work out his personal mastery and skills, rather than those of his character. We believe that changing characteristics, levels and character experience are detrimental to realism we create in the game. As far as the rest is concerned, you have it as virtually in any normal RPG - you travel the Zone, collect artefacts, weapons, reveal spots of anomalous energy, communicate and trade with characters etc. By earning money, buying new equipment and weapons the player can reveal new parts of the Zone previously inaccessible to him. I.e. those, which you won´t initially reach with a pistol and simple detector.

Speaking about characteristics, we compare the player with a soldier on a mission. Prior to the mission, he is trained for it, but once on it, he cannot improve his skills drastically as he´s preoccupied with mission accomplishment. __NEWCOL__Additionally, we believe that classic system of skills can be justified in third-person-view games, when nothing depends on the player´s actions, like in Diablo, for instance. The player can only click on opponent - then dice are cast and, basing on skills, mathematical calculations are done. In S.T.A.L.K.E.R. this is the player´s mastery which grows, and not abstract skills of a model on the screen. If the player has mastered weapon peculiarities, knows weak spots of the enemies, knows equipment and Zone anomalies, has an excellent reaction and accuracy etc - he gets an appropriate result. So everything will be really dependent on the player himself here.

4P: What kind of missions must the player solve in the campaign?

Andrey: Most of the events will be initiated by the NPCs, some of the events may only occur at a certain coincidence. One of the unique things of the storyline is about the characters from the stories sent for the contest. We will transfer them to the game and preserve their tempers and attitudes. When several of them come together, things that were in the stories may happen. The player will not be able to see everything in one go. The dynamic world of the Zone is about every stalker living a life of its own. Some of the major game events or locations will remain static. The player may get involved in the events when they´re started, or in the progress or at the completion stage. Every time the picture will be different. Running through the game once will not be enough to solve a colossal number of various riddles. So, I can´t say the player gets the fullest picture even after he played it through 10 times, but that should make the game more appealing and mysterious, it seems.

4P: The game is described as "non-linear" but what does it really mean for the gameplay? Is it as linear as Outcast or are there many possibilites to solve a problem like in Splinter Cell?

Andrey: We rejected the linear play from level to level in favour of such freedom of actions and movement as was seen in "Elite", "Daggerfall" and "Fallout". The players will travel the vast territory of the Zone, occupying 30 sq. km. Exploring the Zone, earning money through tasks, and gaining experience by combating, stalkers will move along the unrestricted "non-stiff" story line towards the game end.

An entire world of the Zone will open up before the player. He will be able to make the planning of his development and travels deep inside. The story will develop independently of the player´s actions.

Every time on the game start the player will get a new Zone. These are only the important points (dealers´ locations, army posts, scientific camps and so on) which will remain unchanged. Anomalies, artefacts, monsters will be randomly generated at start.

4P: What about the weapons in the game? Can you tell us something about the exotic weapons, which we can only find in STALKER?

Andrey: We plan over 30 types of firearms, cold steel and artefact weaponry. Weapons will correspond the time stretch from the 1970s to the early 21 century. I.e. you will see both time-proven Kalashnikov submachine guns, and models of weapons just planned to be added to arsenals, such as FN 2000 assault rifle. Weapon types (excluding artefact ones) are going to be quite traditional for games: knives, pistols, shotguns, machinegun pistols, assault rifles, sniper rifles, machineguns, grenades, grenade launchers. As the game is set on the territory of CIS, in Ukraine, the weapon models will, accordingly, be those produced in USSR/Russia. Though the best western "pieces" will not be omitted too. __NEWCOL__All the weapons are close in looks to their real prototypes. We will try to maximally accurately render the parameters of weapon shooting and the comparative efficacy of various models. Though we do not target to become a virtual special forces simulator. I.e. certain simplifications will also take place. Talking about interesting peculiarities, we will have quite a worked out physical model of weapons, owing to which piercing of various surfaces, shock waves, splinter and pin-point explosions as well as other goodies will be implemented. Weapons will wear out through time.

What´s going to be the artefact weaponry is something for the players to experience as they play the game through.

4P: Can the player drive some vehicles?

Andrey: The player will find a variety of vehicles in the Zone - cars, trucks, jeeps, armoured personnel carriers and helicopters. The player will be able to control virtually any vehicle, but for APCs and helicopters. Mere buying a car will not be enough, as you are also to take care of fuel and protective equipment for your vehicle to go through dangerous zones.

4P: Will the player fight against hordes of "mutant monster" enemies? What other enemies can we expect in the game?

Andrey: Multitude of opponents are planned for the game, to start with army soldiers guarding the Zone border and up to uncanny mutated creatures frequently abnormally abled with such skills as telepathy or telekinesis. Underground dwarfs, telepathic controllers, senseless zombies, packs of blind dogs, hordes of rats and many other monsters can be expected in the gameJ. Controllers will take control over soldiers and stalkers, as well as coordinate the actions of zombies. Dwarfs and rats set up underground communications, while blind dogs will prowl about wastelands and dumps of radioactive trash.

4P: Please give us some infos about the phenomenal graphics of STALKER and the engine you used.

Andrey: The game will be powered by an exclusive in-house X-ray engine. The capacities of this engine compete with any other contemporary technology of a similar kind in the market today. The engine is versatile and allows for a great variety of things, basically using the average graphic card to the full. Owners of most advanced DirectX 9 video boards will benefit from the possibilities of our integrated brand-new DX-9 render we work on right now. In a nutshell, the engine will enable up to 3 000 000 polygons per frame, feature bump-mapping, soft shadows cast by all of the objects onto everything; fog; particle system with real physics, screen post-processing, shading, wind, reaction to pressing, turbulent flows, dynamic change of day and night; weather effects etc. This is just a small exerpt of what X-ray can and will do. For more detailed information click the link .

4P: Can you specify the system requirements as of now?

Andrey: The minimal specifications for the game are:

P3-600 MHz/Athlon, 128 Mb RAM, GeForce 2 64 Mb (or equivalent). Recommended - P3-1.2 GHz/Athlon, 256 Mb RAM, GeForce 3 64 Mb(or equivalent).

4P: What about the violence in the game? Is there animated blood and gore? Do you plan a censored version for some markets?

Andrey: The game will have adjustable settings including those for gore/blood, so you will be able to tweak it to your best liking or turn the gore off completely.

__NEWCOL__4P: What kind of multiplayer-modes will be integrated? Will there be any original modes specific to STALKER?

Andrey: We will have multiplayer part in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.. What´s planned are standard popular modes, such as Deathmatch, Team Match and Cooperative, as well as new types of network battles (MutantsVSHumans, for instance). The main focus of attention for the players, as we believe, will be the Cooperative play - a mode to play the game through in a team - a virtually on-line game, where more than a dozen players can join in, and the Team Match - team play a-la Counter-Strike (on dedicated levels).

4P: Can you tell us something about the release date of STALKER, especially regarding the german market?

Andrey: The game is planned for release at the end of 2003. More details on release in Germany will show up later.

4P: Will there be a console version of the game?

Andrey: We are considering porting the game to Xbox, but unlikely before the PC version comes out.

4P: Will there be a playable demo version? If so, when will it be released and will it be a singleplayer or a multiplayer demo?

Andrey: A demo is planned, but we cannot provide any details on the exact release date for it. It will also become clear later what kind of a demo this will be.

4P: Thank you for answering these questions good luck and success with S.T.A.L.K.E.R.!

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German Version