The Compelling Zones of Metro and Stalker

The Ukraine-based GSC Game World produced the first-person shooter RPG involving an alternative rendition of Chornobyl, dubbed the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone. The game takes place in the present day, though much of what happened in the Zone involves near-supernatural anomalies that have produced mutants and all kinds of menaces from which stalkers, or in the case of GSC Game World’s franchise, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.s, traverse in hopes of making a killing financially. The backronym refers to the sort of clientele that dares to venture into the Zone: Scavengers, Trespassers, Adventurers, Loners, Killers, Explorers, and Robbers. 

In the game, players take on the role of one such stalker suffering from amnesia and soon made to be “the Marked One.” Your goal is to hunt down and kill another stalker named Strelok. The game’s semi-open-ended RPG gameplay gave players numerous opportunities and a narrative that scales across seven different endings. The game was a critical hit and gave GSC Game World worldwide acclaim for a game that managed to take its source material and make it unique. It also was quite the juggernaut in terms of technology, offering a high-end PC experience with extremely challenging gameplay. It’s no wonder GSC Game World’s title became important bedrock for other games exploring an alternate Zone to follow.

Though Metro 2033 and its sequels take place in a fictional rendition of a destroyed Moscow, and in fact do not outright involve concepts of the Zone, the game was developed based on Dmitry Glukhovsky’s novel of the same name and the developer, 4A Games was founded after its developers worked on S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. This resulted in a game that captures much of the same radioactive desolation of its spiritual brethren while adding in more of a subterranean narrative. 

Players will find themselves living in the subway tunnels of Moscow (hence the name Metro), where humanity has fled all the radiation and monstrosities living above the surface. Similar to the Zone, Moscow bubbles with a sort of captivating menace that draws players out of their tunnels, wearing their gas masks while waving their weapons against the uncharted land. Where GSC Game World crafted a complex world that focuses on RPG elements and often intense gameplay, 4A Games opted to instead weave a storyline and atmosphere for players to follow. Players found the choice refreshing, offering a spiritually similar “Zone” to the actual Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, while still existing in its own ecosystem, including two sequels, Last Light and Exodus.

If S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is one end of the Zone and the Metro games are the other in terms of combat/RPG versus storytelling, indie developer Farm 51’s Chernobylite rests somewhere in the middle. A marvelous game development story on its own, the development successfully crowdfunded (the goal was $100,000 and they ended up raising $206,671), Chernobylite is a blend of the RPG elements found in GSC Game World’s masterpiece while still maintaining focus on story and atmosphere that 4A Games achieved with the Metro trilogy of games. 

In Chernobylite, players don the role of a physicist formally of a Chornobyl Nuclear Plant still grieving from events that happened at the plant so many years ago. The Zone has become overrun by both nature and unnatural occurrences and it is up to players to reclaim resources, craft a team, and discover the various sinister sources feasting on the Zone. The game does a remarkable job at conjuring atmosphere amid a nonlinear storyline and it’s quite easy to look at the game as a successor to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. but without giving it the disservice of being a stopgap game. It’s wholly its own experience and worth the time spent exploring this rendition of the Zone.

And then there’s the much-anticipated sequel to GSC Game World’s hit. Stalker 2, or S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2: Heart of Chornobyl has been long-awaited by players as the game that picks up where the first ended, this time with next-generation graphics, a (somehow) more ambitious storyline, and more. Though the developer has offered a glimpse at the game through timed trailers, the game has slipped past its handful of release dates. Due to the war in Ukraine, the game is postponed indefinitely, and it is uncertain as to when exactly the game will emerge. Yet it acts as a door or perhaps a window into the Zone as it stands at the apex of a very uncertain time in human history. 

Where the first game took its inspiration from tragedies of decades past, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 finds itself directly in the middle of one. Players remain hopeful of both the health and safety of GSC Game World’s employees and that development may one day resume soon. As with the nature of the Zone itself, in concept, it is full of anomalies and capable of dangerous yet also remarkable things. It also acts as a bridge for hope, and the next-generation sequel acts as hope for the series.

Featured image from "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl" via GSC Game World.