Chernobylite: Change the past, Igor, and see where it leads you

Using a heady, oddball blend of in-engine renders, living concept art, and live action video footage, Chernobylite makes me scratch my head. In a good way. My head needs some scratching lately when it comes to video games, so this "Tatyana Story" does manage to keep this Russian survival RPG on my Geiger counter.

Narrated by the titular Tatyana, she metaphors about the post-nuclear setting shedding its snake skin so you have to learn it over and over again. If that were the premise of an everchanging roguelike, that'd be amazing. But I think Chernobylite will be much more handcrafted, albeit in a nonlinear fashion, time hopping to a past that you can change, and searching for Tatyana through the 3D-scanned open-world Exclusion Zone.

Being survival-horror in nature, there are dead people in gas masks and hazmat suits, ghosts you can never reach that turn to ash when you get near them, and creepy photographs and mannequins that hit the edge of your vision and your flashlight.

Chernobylite is coming July 2021 to PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.