This will make my first time ever having to request a refund. This is just total garbage. I have been following this project for months, waiting for the release.. and now this? I could deal with it just being a 360 video (you can't walk around, at all)... but the resolution is so bad - nothing at ALL like the screenshots! So disappointing. This should be removed from the store entirely. Do not waste your money or your time.

idk, it's more of a virtual point and click tour.
I'd have rathered it be a recreation of the building you could walk through with real textures and 3d scanned rooms ect.
It's, basically 360 images, some spoken history, and things to click on.

I recently got into VR and as someone with an interest in Chernobyl and who wants to do the real world tour some day, I was excited to try this. Overall, it's extremely disappointing and given that this has been in Early Access for over 3 years now when it was only supposed to be in that for one year, I think it's safe to say that it's been abandoned, leaving early buyers in the lurch.

You don't get to freely move around Pripyat in this title. You have a hub area where you go to different parts of the town. Many of these you also can't walk around, instead just watching poorly translated video interviews and occasionally, a guide. These segments often cut off quickly and are paced in such a way that you have no idea who is talking or at what point in the interview you are. All of the videos (including the helicopter transitions to some areas) are very blurry and pixelated and look like footage from a VCR in the 80s, even though they were shot recently on what as I understand it, were state of the art, 360 degree 4K drones.

In the few areas you can move around in, they're rendered nicely (though not nearly as nicely as the promotional screenshots indicate) but they're very small environments, the teleport movement is janky (though admittedly I'm on a Windows Mixed Reality headset which isn't officially supported) and there's only a handful of interactive objects in each environment, which just result in more narration. If you're hoping for a fully interactive tour of Pripyat and points of interest, you are most certainly not going to get that here.

Even as an educational tool, this falls short. Most of the narration is very basic and goes only into the most surface level history of the accident and what happened to the town. You'd learn far more about the disaster and the result of it by watching the HBO Chernobyl series than you'll get from this. Even when you do get to the nuclear plant itself, the only narration object that talks about the disaster lasts about 30 seconds and it's a laughably vague and basic description of what happened. Why couldn't there be a recreation of what happened in the control room, either with real or rendered characters? Why can't I see an animation that details what actually happened to the reactor? Why can I stand in the prep yard area of the New Safe Confinement construction yet there isn't any interviews with people involved in that project or an explanation of the engineering feats involved in it?

This is overall, a weak VR experience and a very weak tool for learning about Chernobyl and the exclusion zone left behind. That a successful developer like The Farm 51, which recently completed a Kickstarter campaign for their next game, just decided to leave this on sale abandoned and frankly, unfinished is very disappointing and I don't think looks good on them.

If you are curious about the content of this, look up a YouTube playthrough of it. Otherwise, save your money.

It's not often I leave bad reviews, but I'm afraid that this app (in it's current state) really isn't nice to use. It's not true VR, its only photos with 360 view, and the rendering for the photos is too slow, so when the camera is moving over the picture it gives me motion sickness type symptoms. The movement with the controllers is also pretty hit and miss, I can only move every now and again, no matter how often I try.

There are positives in this app in as much as the interviews are quite interesting and the narration can be interesting too. Apart from this, I would either wait until it's either on sale or until the bugs are ironed out.

I will happily update this review if it changes, but for now I would give it 4/10

Not Great, Not Terrible.
It reminds me of museum style VR apps such as the Sistine Chapel or the Anne Frank House. There is a lot of storytelling potential and I applaud the effort of the developers for including as many first hand accounts as they could find. That being said this a pretty raw and bare bones experience at the moment. And considering the state of the world and the fact that this Early access was launched almost 7 years ago, I'm not sure when or if it will ever be finished. I hope it does see completion as it grants a unique perspective on a piece of modern history that is still shrouded in mystery.

Don't really get why this has such bad reviews. It has a few issues - scale in the 360 video/photo scenes is off, and teleporation is clunky - but the photogrametry scenes are top notch, and the tour itself is very fascinating and informative. I've always wanted to visit the exclusion zone and now I feel like I have.

I am a big fan of Chernobyl and its history. I play many game's based in or arround Chernobyl. This VR experience crashed often and it gives you a crappy 360 VR veiw so it does not feel like your there. Im using a HTC vive and a good gaming PC. the cameras there using to map out Chernobyl are embarrassing old tech. I can go to Google images and get the same experience. Even if you are a fan of Chernobyl I do not recommend this. There are a few rooms they made for you to walk arround in but its still not good.

This seemed like it had so much potential, I could have gotten through the 360° videos if they where at least on the proper scale, some photogrametry scenes are cool but you have to go through dreadful pixelated 360 videos where you feel the size of an ant to find those scenes

I had... "played" this VR project back in 2019 since my love for anything Chernobyl just cannot be satiated.
This VR project gives you insights of many key areas in the Exclusion Zone.

While I am positive that I had made a review of this back then, it somehow disappeared...
Also, I do remember the achievements being broken.

Anyhoo... I have a hard time recommending this project. The visuals aren't that nice and the sounds wasn't that good either. You cannot freeroam the project sadly. You're hardlocked into a 360 view.

Granted this is an Early Access project released in 2016 and now in 2021, I wonder if it'll truly be released out of EA.


You may want to just stick with Google Earth instead...

At the very least, pick this up on a sale...

This is really cool! The photogrammy and drone flight views of Pripyat are excellent. I wish the resolution was higher on the 360 vids - the 360 photos look good. The locations themselves can't be beat though.

The teleportation in the 3D scenes was very hit and miss, often not appearing when I pressed the trigger and when it did, being very fussy about where it let me move to. Also I couldn't get as close as I wanted to a lot of objects without the game fading to white. A few areas I couldn't get closer to the windows than arms length.

Don't expect a game - the pace is slow and a little clunky. All in all though, I'm enjoying exploring it and getting a real feel for the city I've read so much about.