Hello Stalkers!
The questions about the launch of Chernobylite both on PC and consoles just keep coming back. If you’re eager for information about this, we refer to the news from a few weeks ago, where we’ve laid our cards on the table and explained everything.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1016800/view/3043838585268106021
In the meantime, we invite you to read the latest report. This time, we devote a lot of space to the bug fixes you report to us on Steam and Discord, as well as the ones we found ourselves. The closer to the premiere, the more attention we will pay to them.
Bugs, bugs, bugs
And that's no wonder. We emphasize many times that we want to deliver the game to you in the best possible condition - free from most of the bugs. And these can appear even in moments that are very well known to us. Here’s an example: while recording a video for the presentation of new voice-overs, at the very beginning of the game, we encountered an error that caused the Anton or Olivier dialogue window to be blocked on the screen. That window followed us on the screen until the end. And video recording had to be started again...
However, we’re focusing heavily on fixing those bugs that we find in the final stages of the game, including our mission "The Heist". Probably it won’t be a big spoiler when we say that the errors concern displayed dialogues, teleporters or save points.
And of course optimization, optimization and optimization. The main emphasis was on optimizing materials so that they won’t load unnecessary textures. As a result, they won’t take up more memory than they really should, and the game will run smoother.
Items on the train seats
And now for fans of our graphic works. We’ve improved the brightness and quality of the textures placed on various objects you can find in the trains. We were especially delighted with the mouse. Or at least we hope it's a mouse...
A little fun fact related to these items. As you know, the Chernobyl power plant employees travelled to the power plant by train on several routes, usually in the early morning hours. In these trains it was customary to "reserve" a seat. People threw random items on the seats - a glove, a hat, keys, even money! If there was anything on the seat, it meant that nobody could sit on it. You couldn’t even sit on the opposite seat! This way one person could have reserved a space normally four people would use. Look at the items that can be found on the train in the prologue - they didn’t end up there by accident.
Stairway to heaven
In recent reports, we devoted a lot of attention to elements of nature. As you know, we make sure that Igor spends a lot of time in the fresh (?) air. However, the world of Chernobylite is also made of numerous buildings from the Soviet era that give the whole game its unique atmosphere. Concrete apartment blocks are one of the typical, monumental structures characteristic for those times. They already look very convincing - both from the inside and outside. But according to our philosophy, there is always room for improvement.
We looked at some photos and plans of old buildings and also took into account our experience of living in blocks of flats. Thanks to this, we were able to make a small correction of the height of the railings in the staircases.
As you can see in the photo above, the rails were originally set a bit too low - at the height of the buttocks, and they should be above the waist. In the real world, they would be inconvenient for people who need such barriers. And of course, it's easy to fall through them.
We’ve made changes to every building with stairs.
In the photo below you can see what it all looked like in the game itself before and after the changes. There are definitely differences.
Notes and documents
At the end we left the most interesting, in our opinion, things - one of the best narrative elements of any self-respecting game. In Chernobylite you’ll find a lot of KGB notes and documents, reading which will tell you a bit about the Chernobylite world. Of course, we won’t reveal all of them (because of spoilers), only the most interesting ones in our opinion. Do you like the way they look? Are their visuals convincing to you?
That's it for today!
Take care, Stalkers!