Chernobylite’s Xbox Series X|S upgrade is here. We spoke with The Farm 51, All in! Games, and Mataboo to discuss the real Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, crafting the ‘next-gen’ upgrades, and their ongoing support for Ukraine.When Chernobylite originally launched on Xbox One back in September 2021, it was already a well-crafted and visually pleasing world to explore, which is in no small part thanks to the team at The Farm 51 heading into the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ) to take 3D scans of the real-world environment. We sat down with The Farm 51 to chat about the game’s journey from 3D scans to on-screen gameplay and the team’s hopes for what ray tracing can offer the experience, as well as the team at Mataboo who developed Chernobylite’s enhancements for Xbox Series X|S. We were also joined by Chernobylite publisher All In! Games for some insight on how the game is helping to support the people living within the CEZ and the teams’ ongoing efforts to aid the people of Ukraine.Bringing Chernobylite to Xbox Series X|SChernobylite’s Xbox Series X|S enhancements — PS5 and PC Enhanced versions are also available — come by way of a free upgrade for all owners of the original game on Xbox One, and it features both Resolution and Performance modes. Players on Xbox Series X|S consoles will benefit from faster load times and improved controller vibrations, as well as the ability to use the new Performance mode, which ups the level of detail found in the game’s world and runs it all at a silky-smooth 1080p/60fps. Xbox Series X|S (PS5 and PC) players can also use Resolution mode to run the game at 4K/30fps with the addition of ray tracing. On PS5, users also get haptic feedback support and additional Activity Card features.The upgrade launched alongside the game’s third free content update, which adds the new Memories of You mission and the Silent Assassin crossbow. Another paid content pack also launched with it; titled Blue Flames, it includes a selection of cosmetic items like clown masks, flame-based equipment effects, and more. Both content packs are currently only available on PC but will be launching on console this summer, followed by the game’s second season which will introduce a story expansion, a new map, side quests, and more. The Farm 51: Representing those that have been affectedOn April 26th, 1986, the No. 4 reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant caused a nuclear chain reaction that would affect the lives of over 100,000 people. The surrounding area and the city of Pripyat within a 19-mile (30-kilometre) radius of the plant would become the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, and Chernobylite’s creative director, Wojciech Pazdur, remembers the day it happened. Speaking with The Farm 51’s Chernobylite producer, Olga Słowiakowska, we had a chance to learn about the project’s origins, and how Wojciech Pazdur’s memories have helped shaped the Chernobylite project.”His [Pazdur’s] mother and father were scientists,” Słowiakowska explains. “They were the first people in Poland that were aware of the fact that something had happened, even though at the beginning they didn’t exactly know what had happened.” With an interest in science that would eventually develop into 3D graphic design, Pazdur set out to create Chernobyl VR nine years ago, an educational tool that would use 3D photogrammetry to bring the CEZ to users’ homes. “It was out of his personal interest, for sure, but also the belief that it would be great to capture a slice of the world that is very important. That marks a very important event in our latest history. And it can just disappear,” says Słowiakowska. “I’m not just referring to the most current events like the war in Ukraine. But even if we don’t think about the war, the Exclusion Zone could be destroyed in a few months, in three years; we’ll never know because the buildings are abandoned, and nobody takes care of it. It can just disappear.”The Farm 51 began travelling into the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone to scan the environment for Chernobyl VR, with the hope that the experience would help educate future generations about the disaster. It became apparent to the team, though, that there was more to tell than just the event itself. “During these trips to Chernobyl, and when it was possible to talk to people to find out about their stories, it started to become something more than just the history of a place, or just Chernobyl and the history of this explosion. But also, the story of so many people who just lost their dreams, even the loved ones, in one moment,” explains Słowiakowska. “That’s how the idea came. We had a ready-made post-apocalyptic setup, which is the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone itself. We have so many horror stories and thought it would be great to build a story around one or two characters, which represent the story of the people of Chernobyl.””Calling Chernobylite a psychological horror is very important because this is about the human story. We all have fears, and we all really have the same fears — losing your dreams, losing your loved ones, and just having your life shattered in just one moment.”Chernobylite was developed by the small team at The Farm 51 over the course of four years, and Słowiakowska tells us that it would have probably taken longer if not for the 3D scans. Every object in the game exists in the Exclusion Zone, and the team’s many trips gave them the opportunity to recreate it in the best way possible. It wasn’t without its challenges, though, as the CEZ is devoid of any Wi-Fi or reception, so the captured data had to be processed after each trip. “We’ve been scanning for like nine years now, but it’s still a learning curve because new software is available, and we’re still looking for new solutions and ways of optimising the process,” we’re told.The work put in by the team certainly paid dividends for the game’s release on Xbox One and PS4, and we said that “Chernobylite is a lovingly crafted example of what a post-apocalyptic game can and should be,” in our review here on TA. So, what more could possibly be added to help with the game’s immersive qualities? Ray tracing, of course. “Although we have monsters and outer walls in the game, we just wanted to keep it real,” Słowiakowska says. “We knew that applying ray tracing would be possible and it would be available. It wasn’t even a question if [we should] do it or not.”Mataboo: Introducing the Exclusion Zone to a new generationMataboo has extensive experience in optimising and porting games, such as Bloober Team’s Blair Witch and The Medium. “From the start, we knew that ray tracing was going to appear in some form,” says Mataboo elder code sorcerer Batłomiej Kumor. “We also knew that we would need to have a Performance mode for those players who like 60 frames-per-second because it’s getting way more popular.” While offering both a Resolution mode for visual fidelity and ray tracing features, as well as a Performance mode for players that prefer higher frame rates over graphics and effects is a practical way of tackling the divide, select aspects of the game need to be sacrificed to achieve the desired results. “We like to work with the original developer of the game, in this particular case The Farm 51, so we can talk these things over with them,” offers code shaman and Mataboo co-founder Cyryl Matuszewski. “We always work with the developer and try to see their perspective of the game and which parts are the most important.””Let’s say we want to enable ray tracing. We know that the consoles are not as performant as PC, so when we were talking with [The Farm 51], we said that we wanted to pick some special places where this feature [ray tracing] will be enabled,” says Matuszewski. “But in other places, it might be disabled because it’s not visible or because some other aspect of the game is more important.” Chernobylite is developed using Epic’s Unreal Engine 4, and Matuszewski tells us that while the engine is a good tool for adding ray tracing effects to various aspects of the game, such as pools of water and glass reflections, the bulk of the development process for the team is to manually disable the effects on parts of the game that are either not seen or barely seen. Ray tracing on consoles is a fairly new endeavour for developers, with the latest machines being the first time that the Xbox and PlayStation systems have been able to handle the recourse-heavy technology on a hardware level. Both the Xbox Series X and Series S consoles can handle the demands of ray tracing, but even then, many developers are having to sacrifice frame rate and/or fidelity to achieve it, even on the Series X, or bypass its implementation altogether. Mataboo says that the team attempted to have ray tracing available on the Xbox Series S upgrade, but in Chernobylite’s case, “it didn’t work so well. We knew that reflections are easy to do on consoles, but things like water caustic effects were probably not going to make it,” Kumor tells us. “[Unreal Engine] has all of the tools and toggles that we can enable on console, profile the game, see how it performs in real life, and then decide what can make it into the game or not.”Interestingly, while there isn’t a huge amount the team can do in the way of controller functions on Xbox, due to the lack of haptic feedback support, Xbox users have still been given enhanced vibration feedback to aid the game’s immersive qualities. Of course, PlayStation users will see the full benefits thanks to the DualSense controller’s haptic feedback functionality. “Reverberation in the game works the same as sound,” says Mataboo elder code sorcerer Marian Jarmoszko. ” We [just] had to take the sounds of guns and ambient sounds like thunder.”While the upgrades have only just been released, All In! Games’ producer for Chernobylite, Kuba Karolczak, is pumped for the future. “We are extremely excited for what’s going to come. Of course, we know a bit more than users about what is happening within the next couple of months. There’s a lot of cool and exciting things that the users will get to play with.”All In! Games: Chernobylite’s future and helping to change livesAll In! Games’ brand manager for the Chernobylite project, Norbert Litwiński, gave us some insight into the difficulties associated with marketing it during a time when Ukraine is actually at war. Chernobylite’s sales from the very beginning were helping to support people that are living in the Zone, but when the war in Ukraine started, the teams at All In! Games and The Farm 51 started supporting the victims of the war. They then went one step further by launching the Charity Pack DLC on Steam, GOG, and the Epic Games Store. The total net income from sales of the pack will be donated to Ukrainian humanitarian aid projects. The Farm 51’s Olga Słowiakowska tells us that the DLC “will be available throughout this year and next year. That’s how we’re trying to help our friends and the people in the Exclusion Zone. Ukraine in general, but we also take pride in our actions that are diverted to Chernobyl itself.””Even when the when the contract ends in Ukraine, the people will still need money to rebuild the cities, and whatever is connected to that,” adds Litwiński. “So, this is one of the ways of us committing to the cause in the long term.”While Chernobylite’s success is helping those affected by the war in Ukraine, Litwiński also discussed the delicate nature of marketing the game during this time. “The game from the very beginning was helping people who are living in the Zone, and when the war started, we [began] to support the victims of the war,” Litwiński tells us. “So, it was a natural way that connected to the project itself.” Although Chernobylite’s continued success aids in the companies’ efforts to help and support the people in the region, it’s still a game that features violence in a recreation of a real-world environment that is currently in crisis. “We still have a game where you have killing inside the Zone, [and] at some point, we had Russian troops in reality inside the Zone. So, this topic was pretty sensitive to many members of the community,” Litwiński says. “Announcing the [upgraded] game at this time was not easy. We had to be careful not to offend anybody.”Litwiński also touched on the difficulties of gaining support from publications and websites about All In! Games and The Farm 51’s contributions towards the victims of the war. “In some cases, we have noticed that not everybody is giving us support simply because they are afraid of having comments underneath any messages or news,” says Litwiński. Whether that’s from “the people who support Ukraine or who support Russia because we still have to remember that we have a gaming community that is very active in socials.” Litwiński follows up by saying: “I understand that sometimes it’s not very comfortable for supporters or websites to support this kind of news, so as to not bring confusion or discussion underneath their news or videos.” Chernobylite’s Xbox Series X|S enhancements are now available and free for all owners of the Xbox One version of the game. If you own the game on PC and would like to support the team’s efforts to help the victims of the war in Ukraine, the Charity Pack can be purchased via Steam, GOG, or the Epic Games Store.
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