Nuclear power has remained somewhat spooky to a lot of people. This started with the use of atomic bombs in World War II and continued after the famous nuclear disaster. Although there shouldn’t be any fear for nuclear power, since it’s the safest and most clean power source, developer Volframe raises the fears. This is a horror adventure at Chernobyl, called S.W.A.N.: Chernobyl Unexplored
S.W.A.N.: Chernobyl Unexplored is a sci-fi, first-person, puzzle, horror game, which takes place shortly after the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant disaster. You as the player take part in the research expedition and be one of the first people to get inside the S.W.A.N. Institute since the reactor failure. You’ll discover the place kept secret by ZSRR authorities. You’ll experience things that go be beyond the limit of human imagination.
What happened at Chernobyl?
For those not familiar with the disaster that happened at Chernobyl, let me give an explainer. On the 26th of April 1986, reactor unit 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant broke down, which led to an explosion that caused radioactive material to spread across Europe. The science-fiction horror twist starts to happen 9 months after the disaster. A team of scientists received signals coming from the S.W.A.N Institute. Scientists decide to venture inside the Institute to explore the place and rescue people that are probably still alive inside.
Horror but not the way as intended
The first thing I noticed while booting up the game is that the intro movie/splash screen lags. Which isn’t a good sign going forward. The game starts off with a short back story about what happened at Chernobyl and about the S.W.A.N. institute. This opening movie really sets the mood for what is to come. This also gets you up to speed on what happened at Chernobyl.
As mentioned S.W.A.N.: Chernobyl Unexplored plays like your classic first-person horror game, similar to games like Amnesia, Soma and Outlast. Sadly the game does not measure up to these games nor to the quality presented in the opening movie. The whole game runs with some of the worst framerate I have ever seen. This is a really scary thing, but I don’t think that is what they meant when they said it was a horror game. The framerate is so bad, that is hard to keep track and see what is happening and where you are going.
Jumpscares are the name of the game
The game goes is mainly focused on one thing only, and that is the jump scares. It gets you in an uncomfortable mood by the presentation and sounds but ultimately does not offer anything all that scary. The jump scares are really random too. For instance in the beginning there is a telephone you can interact with, after some eerie sounds, you get jump scared because the telephone just randomly explodes. Rooms you already went to randomly open. On top of this, the game is quite buggy. I for instance had a bug where the scary lady was not appearing so I had no idea why the area I previously visited was radioactive all of a sudden. This makes it really vague about what you should be doing and where you should be going.
Lackluster presentation
Outside of the gameplay, there are also things that bother me. One of these things is the menus. The menus are really static with nothing going on. Besides this, the menus are awful to navigate due to the fact that it’s unclear when you have selected an option. There is no music represented in the game in any way. There are only eerie ambient noises which are great for setting a mood, but this could also have been done with a little bit of eerie music. And don’t get me started on the quality of the game over screen.
Conclusion
There is absolutely no reason to buy S.W.A.N.: Chernobyl Unexplored. If you are into the history of Chernobyl I suggest watching a good documentary or a fictional series with the same name. If you want to play an actually good horror game that is worthwhile just pick up Amnesia, Soma, Outlast, layers of fear or any other game than this. These cost a bit more than S.W.A.N.: Chernobyl Unexplored, but it’s an actual good investment.
