Interview: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Oblivion Lost

Cast an eye over our S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Oblivion Lost news archive and you'll discover that we've been marvelling over the game for almost two years. Impressive first screenshots of the little-known title, at the time, were released way back in November 2001, and since then the FPS has continued to wow us thanks to an outstanding visual quality.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Oblivion Lost is currently in alpha, with the game, snapped up a couple of months back by THQ, due for release in the first half of 2004. Although not there in playable form, the title's presence at ECTS last week presented us with the opportunity to catch up with GSC Game World's senior PR manager Oleg Yavorsky, who we pressed for more information about the upcoming shooter.

So, what's S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Oblivion Lost all about?

Yavorsky: The game is about physical and psychological dangers, because you've got mutants and radioactivity. It's a free world made up of 18 levels in one global map and the player is free to go and explore.

The game is set in near-future Chernobyl, Ukraine, the place of the world's worst nuclear accident ever. We went to the site and took photos and are using about 60 percent of the actual architecture and textures from the real-world location.

We're playing around with some of the actual theories of what was going on in the Chernobyl zone, about some of the rumoured hidden experiments. There's an antenna at the Chernobyl zone, and there's some semi-documentary facts about some scientists claiming that the antenna was emitting psychoactive waves at the US.

We're playing around with such theories in the storyline, and basically the player will need to work out what's going on. You have a storyline, and a number of key quests to accomplish in order to advance the storyline and complete the game.

Ultimately you're attempting to discover the secret behind the zone, what's generating it, what or who is controlling it.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. isn't really a first-person shooter is it, in the strictest sense of the meaning?

Yavorsky: The genre that we're looking at, the way we're describing the game, is a combination of survival, first-person shooter and RPG.

Survival is because you are playing in a dangerous place, full of radioactivity, full of anomalous types of energy. It's FPS because you play from a first-person viewpoint and have a variety of weapons and a variety of enemies to kill. And it's RPG because you have elements like communication, degradation of items and exchange of information - it's basically something like Diablo as a first-person shooter, with the freedom of something like Morrowind.

How big is the playing world?

Yavorsky: It's 30 kilometres square. It's all one global map, and as I was saying you have to freedom to go and explore. The playing world has a wire fence perimeter, and this is patrolled by police and the army.

As a stalker, the player has to move around the zone collecting artefacts. What's the purpose behind collecting these artefacts?

Yavorsky: We'll have something where you can make stuff like in Diablo where you can combine different artefacts, but you won't know what kind of results you'll achieve. In fact some of the results will be positive, while others will be detrimental.

So what do we with the "positive" objects we create from combining artefacts? Is this where the company/corporation involvement that we've read about comes into play?

Yavorsky: First we have stalkers, who locate the artefacts, then we have dealers, who are the guys you come to to sell items and buy new weapons and new equipment. And finally we have companies or corporations that are doing research.

So, for example, British Airways might say that it needs 20 gravitational artefacts, so it will then refer this to the dealer, and the dealer will then send a request to each stalker with a PDA in the Chernobyl zone as a sort of news item.

What can we expect in terms of interacting with other stalkers?

Yavorsky: Well, for example, you start off as a newbie, and then you'll progress to become an advanced stalker, then a veteran stalker and then an elite stalker, and depending on your status and your actions, you are invited to join different stalker factions operating in the zone. You can play solo or you can join factions - it's up to you.

Also, each NPC stalker will have its own personality, its own background story.

Presumably there are benefits to joining a faction?

Yavorsky: Joining one of the factions gives you access to unique weapons and items. And you also get given missions by your faction. For example, you might be given the task of killing the leader of a rival faction.

Visually the game is stunning, the graphics speaking realism. Is gameplay similarly realistic?

Yavorsky: Well, there's the fact that you get hungry in the game, and if you don't eat you can faint. Then we have endurance, which is your physical strength, and there's a weight carry limit - you can carry around 40Kg of weight. If you have a full pack and keep running and jumping, then you lose endurance pretty fast.

You'll also have to sleep from time to time to restore physical energy. You'll need to find a safe place to do this of course. When you sleep, the screen goes black for a small amount of time and then it comes back - in the game world you sleep for around eight hours.

Also, here we have a backpack [points to the screen where there is an RPG-style character/inventory sheet], and you can put items like ammunition into a belt. On the top you have spaces for weapons, like pistol and main rifle; and you can also upgrade weapons to make them more powerful. Also, as I mentioned a bit earlier, weapons degrade, so you eventually get accuracy and misfire issues.

On the artificial intelligence side of things, we have AI that works in two ways, what we're calling offline and online. Online means that within a certain range, NPCs and creatures can see you and interact with you.

In offline, NPCs and creatures more or less carry on living out their day-to-day lives, they interact with each other and kill each other and so on.

Rather than have a health bar, we have a bar that informs you of how badly you've been injured and how much blood you are losing. If you get shot in an arm or leg you cannot die, but you'll be losing blood and this will be dripping on the ground and NPCs can follow these blood trails.

Also, if you get hit in the arm, say, your accuracy with weapons will be affected, or if you get hit in the leg you'll limp.

What about radiation sickness?

Yavorsky: Your character can suffer from radiation, of course, and you can cure this in two ways. One, you can take special pills, or two you can drink vodka.

From what you're saying, it sounds as though the world of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. could almost be described as an offline persistent world. What would happen if you player just stood around and did nothing?

Yavorsky: If you stand around doing nothing for long enough, then you'll end up in the situation where one of the NPC stalkers finishes the game instead of you.

It sounds as though S.T.A.L.K.E.R. will offer excellent replay value - is this actually the case? And how many hours of gameplay will be in there?

Yavorsky: Well, we'll have eight different endings in the game, because of the branching storyline. Including the random quests with the key quests, there'll be around 30 to 40 hours of gameplay.

Stuart Bishop