This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster in the former USSR. The devastating nuclear catastrophe took the lives of 31 people and left over 100,000 square kilometers of land utterly uninhabitable, due to nuclear fallout. To this day, the area is a now a deserted city, frozen in place, over-taken by nature. In honoring the memory of the lives that were lost and the people that were affected, a group of Polish game developers have worked on Chernobyl VR Project, a project that will combine documentary elements into the VR.
Reality 51, the name of the studio that created Chernobyl VR, made a 360 “making of” video of their game (featured below), which is comes via Polygon:
Chernobyl VR is a VR documentary that gives players the ability to fully immerse themselves amongst the eerie and desolate ruins of Chernobyl. The VR almost gives you a real life experience of what you would imagine the desolate lands you would find in the Fallout series or in Resident Evil’s Racoon City.
Chernobyl VR has been out for the Oculus Rift since July, but this Monday September 28, it came out for the HTC Vive. In an interview with Polygon last month, developer Wojciech Pazdur of Reality 51 said that the game is more geared towards getting an interactive educational experience. In an interview with Polygon developer Pazdur said that instead of making it a game where you’d shoot monsters he wanted to respect the sensitive topic of the Chernobyl disaster in a country recently troubled with war.
We decided we need to go serious because after visiting the Ukraine and seeing how sensitive this subject is for many people, we have realized that we cannot create some kind of horror game or action game or something like this. Then these people would not be very happy about a VR game. They are very grateful that we are showing the story of their country because Ukraine is in a very difficult position, because it’s in the center of Europe but it’s still in a state of war. Just no one gives a shit about the war, but there are still people dying there. The country is relatively poor and it has a number of issues.
The Chernobyl VR is more of walking simulation rather than an actual game, it’s an educational experience that allows its wearer to walk to ruins of the deserted city. The video is now available for both the HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift for $14.99. A portion of each purchase will go directly to those affected by the Chernobyl disaster.