Chornobyl Liquidators spills onto Steam

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Authentically re-created simulation inspired by the Chornobyl nuclear disaster available now for Windows PC

Chernobyl (or Chornobyl as it is known in Ukraine) was not a place anyone wanted to be when disaster struck on April 26, 1986. But some were forced to head into hell, not away from it when the No. 4 reactor exploded at the nuclear power plant near Pripyat. It was surely a nightmarish experience best lived only through a computer screen from afar decades after the fact, which players can now do with the release of Chornobyl Liquidators, by indie Polish developers Live Motion Games and Frozen Way.

Players control multiple different protagonists over the course of several months, beginning in the immediate aftermath of the meltdown with the arrival of nameless "liquidators" sent in to clean up and get the crisis under control. These people were "not heroes, yet they were called upon to perform heroic deeds," and many paid for the sacrifice with their lives. You will step directly into the shoes of various liquidators, whether fighting fires and cleaning graphite to decontaminate the reactor's roof, aiding terrified civilians, or later traversing the evacuated "ghost town" of Pripyat as a dosimetrist monitoring radiation. In between the liquidator levels, you'll take control of Sergeant Sergey Aleksandrovich Buryatov, a "former soldier and employee of the nuclear plant," who is ordered to explore the tunnels beneath the facility to search for classified documents for the USSR's Secret Service. Doing so amidst the atrocities all around him will present Sergey with numerous moral choices, whether to "confront the heartless apparatus of Soviet repression and resist the KGB oppressors, or obediently submit to their will." These are not decisions to be made lightly, as the fates of not only Sergey's family are at stake, but possibly the entire world's. 

Chornobyl Liquidators has been meticulously researched and presented in free-roaming, first-person 3D with "a high level of realism" for greater immersion into its irradiated environments. Described as a "commemoration of the disaster and its victims," the game is intended to simulate the actual struggles faced by those who were called upon at great person risk to contain the destruction, though with  fictionalized elements added. There are no mutant monsters to fight, however, just an "invisible and deadly enemy" to combat using only authentic equipment available at the time. Each chapter will have its own unique tasks to perform using the game's "proprietary systems of fire extinguishing, breaking down doors, and more." Survival is a constant struggle under such harsh conditions, and even rising stress levels can decrease performance and "in severe cases, can lead to a heart attack, resulting in death." To maintain your well-being as long as is physically possible, you'll need to control your essental stats through the use of "Propidon medicine or everyday items like iodine, cigarettes, or chocolate." The choices you make and actions you take will determine which of the two possible endings you'll receive. 

If you think you have what it takes to brave one of the worst catastrophes in human history, you can suit up right away as Chornobyl Liquidators is available now on Steam for Windows PC, with development on console ports set to begin soon.