Trivia / S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

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• Dummied Out: Shadow of Chernobyl contains unimplemented code for a variety of features that never made it into the final game, much of which can be found in the Oblivion Lost beta build 1935.

  • Some of the remaining code could cause serious issues; for example, the Yantar lab was still technically affiliated with the Duty faction in the final game, and this could cause a vital NPC to become hostile to the player after waking up from the Blowout if the player was Freedom-affiliated at the time.

  • Many types of mutants are left in the files in varying states of functionality:
    • The ones that were nearly complete were the burers, cats, and chimeras, all of which had their models, textures, and relevant scripting. There's no word on why they didn't make it into Shadow of Chernobyl (although Word of God says that GSC couldn't get the burers' AI to work quite right before release), but the burers and chimeras were re-added for Call of Pripyat. while the cats are slated to be in Heart of Chornobyl as the Bayun.
    • Along with the above functional enemies is an unused Zombie (not to be confused with the zombified stalkers) which behave more like Romero Zombies, being stalkers who've mentally and physically decayed to the point of being like walking corpses that required headshots to put down completely. When re-added by mods, it becomes clear that these slow bullet sponge zombies were pathetically easy to fight or bypass, and that the zombified stalkers presented more of a threat while filling the same gameplay role.
    • And related to the above is the Izlom (Fracture). Design documents describe it as an intelligent mutant with telekinetic powers that would act like a friendly NPC until the player let their guard down, attacking them when they weren't paying attention, but the version left in the game's files is little more than a faster version of the cut zombie enemy with different animations. It was nearly brought back in Call of Pripyat, but there wasn't enough development time to realize the version described in the documents and so it was cut again.
  • A number of weapons were cut from Shadow of Chernobyl with their assets left in the files, including a full-length version of TOZ-34 hunting shotgun (with unbalanced damage values), two PKM machine gun variants, P90 and MAC-10 sub-machine guns, the Browning High-Power Pistol, and several enhanced variants of weapons that were already implemented. Of these, the hunting shotgun returned (with a serious damage nerf), as did the PKM and the Browning High-Power Pistol.
  • The International Scientific Group were originally going to be present in an in-engine intro level/cutscene in Clear Sky, where Scar would lead them before they get killed by an emission. It is unclear if they would play any role in this story beyond the intro, but a faction logo exists in the game files, suggesting that they might have also taken place in the game's Faction Wars.
• Life Imitates Art: Illegal tourists of the real Chernobyl disaster area are called "Stalkers."
• Official Fan-Submitted Content: The Snork mutant came from a contest GSC held to have a fan-made mutant put into the game.
• Saved from Development Hell: The first game, whose original subtitle was Oblivion Lost, and took no less than six years to come out. Calling the game ЖДАЛКЕР (translation: WAITER) became an Internet meme. Astonishingly, when it finally hit store shelves, it was still an Obvious Beta.
• Troubled Production:
  • Shadow of Chernobyl suffered from almost a decade of Development Hell due to GSC's grand ambitions battling with their own X-Ray Engine, along with near-endless feuding between publisher THQ and GSC. The game's direction changed multiple times, a Content Leak involving a full development build being released, developers walking out en masse due to GSC's terrible pay and the constant delays (most of which would move on to make Metro 2033), and THQ's Dean Sharp literally throwing a GSC developer out of his office as he took a hatchet to any feature that got in the way of getting the game out the door.
  • Clear Sky suffered from this too, as the entire X-Ray Engine was retooled for DirectX 10 support halfway through development with only a year of development time, cutting into efforts elsewhere. The final result was a mess of glitches, awful optimization/performance, insanely unbalanced gameplay that flew headfirst into Fake Difficulty, and several bugs that made the game impossible to finish, though patches and fan modifications managed to fix the worst issues.
  • S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 had vaporware status for a time, as it was officially canned in 2012 when GSC ceased operations until they started working again on it in 2018. Then the full scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia's military starting in February 2022 delayed it once again, with development resuming in the Czech Republic in June of that year. At least one developer has been killed in battle.
• What Could Have Been: Due to the aforementioned Development Hell, Shadow of Chernobyl underwent a massive number of changes during development, much of which is restored in S.T.A.L.K.E.R: - Lost Alpha.
  • What became Shadow of Chernobyl started as Oblivion Lost, and was originally intended to be a sci-fi shooter in a futuristic setting akin to Quake before GSC, due to the poor sales of their similarly-themed shooter Codename: Outbreak, opted to put the game in a more grounded setting inspired by Roadside Picnic and Stalker (1979). Even then, the game was initially set in Crimea with the Crimean Atomic Energy Station being the focus of the game. This was changed to Chernobyl in part for better worldwide appeal.
  • Initially the anomalies were planned to be much more subtle. One pre-release report mentioned as an example spotting gravity anomalies by watching for areas where the grass is inexplicably flattened.
  • Early builds featured such things as larger maps, drivable vehicles, a "faction wars" system that involved dynamic warfare between the factions^note which would be officially implemented in the Clear Sky expansion., dynamic emissions^note which would debut in Call of Pripyat., and more. Much of this was stripped down or removed when the developers had serious technical issues making all this work, as well as other gameplay elements interfering with these features.
  • Several mutants were completely cut from the game. One concept was the Tark, a mutant horse that was part of a contest held by GSC to have fan-made mutant designs entered into the game (it lost to the Snork). Another was the Rat (not to be confused with the Tushkano), which would be harmless at first but could be infected by a "Rat Wolf" that would turn them into extremely aggressive hoard attackers. Design documents for Clear Sky describe gun-wielding humanoid mutants called Morlocks that would've been encountered in underground areas.
  • Sin was a faction originally planned to be in Shadow of Chernobyl, their presence was mentioned in some of the leaked builds and promotional material, but they were cut from the game and their role was filled by Monolith, while their 3D models were given to the bandits.
  • The new weapons added into Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat, such as the PKM and Protecta, were originally intended for Shadow of Chernobyl. Among other cut weapons were several fully-automatic handguns, assault rifles, a number of sub-machine guns, a minigun, and a number of unique variants of existing weapons. At one point, it was intended to be able to use artifacts to enhance weapons and ammunition, such as firing toxic bullets.
  • The AI was considerably more complex in earlier builds, being capable of throwing grenades, scavenging dead bodies, searching for artifacts, healing the wounded, and being able to roam across the entire gameworld on its own accord. At one point, the developers bragged that the AI was so complex and human-like, it could beat the game on its own. In the end, the AI had to be toned down significantly due to technical issues and to prevent the game from being too frustrating. Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat would both reactivate a number of these cut AI features.
  • The storyline originally had a free-form structure involving the player and AI stalkers attempting to find the secrets of the Zone, with the storyline dynamically unfolding depending on the actions of the player and AI stalkers competing for these secrets. It's not entirely clear how close GSC got to realizing this idea, but they claimed that it was nearly complete before negative feedback from playtests and THQ demanding a more linear game scuttled this version of the storyline and forced them to rework the game into a more conventional experience.
  • A number of quests were simplified for various reasons. One example is that the Wild Territory firefight between the Mercs and Ecologists was meant to be a stand-off, with both sides attempting to convince the player to help them and the player free to choose either side.
  • Several maps were cut from the game, with quite a few having made it late in development and being playable in development builds:
    • A prototype Swamps map exists in development builds of Shadow of Chernobyl, but didn't get far before it was scrapped. It would be completely rebuilt for Clear Sky.
    • Lab X-18 was going to be inhabited by two races of mutant dwarfs (burers and karliks), with the final boss being a "dwarf king." Said mutants were modeled and textured but ultimately never coded properly, though the burers were split away from the idea and made into an enemy mutant.
    • The map "Darkscape" was a linear driving level as part of a scripted setpiece escaping the Dark Valley Lab, with the player evading the pursuing military and facing several roadblocks. It was effectively finished but cut from the final game when driving mechanics were also cut, and at least two other levels also focused on driving were cut before any significant work was done.
    • Cordon and Yantar were initially much larger in scale. They was likely cut down simply for being too large and uninteresting, especially as story rewrites cut down the amount of quests in the game significantly.
    • The "Dead City" was cut when the game's story underwent rewrites. It was going to be a plot critical location where Marked One would be captured by the Mercs and meet Doc, who would inform him that he is actually Strelok and start the journey to unlock the true ending. The city was split between Mercs and Bandits, both of which were hostile to the player. Despite being effectively finished it was cut late in development, possibly due to lacking sidequests.
    • A map called "Generators" was cut from the game without having a clear purpose, much to the chagrin of players given its incredible, otherworldly design. It was placed somewhere near the CNPP and was likely planned to be part of the game's True Ending, but it got canned with the story rewrites.
    • Related to the Generators was the "Monolith War Lab", an underground complex that was also likely part of the game's True Ending at one point. It was later reused with alterations for Lab X-8 in Call of Pripyat.
    • Clear Sky was meant to have the Pripyat Underground, a level meant to bridge the gap between Limansk and the finale. The Limansk Hospital was originally an unrelated level that was shifted in when the Pripyat Underground was cut, but ideas from it were reused later for both the Pripyat Underground and Jupiter Underground levels in Call of Pripyat.
    • There was originally a plot point in Clear Sky where blowouts would create clones of Stalkers who got hit by them, and Scar would eventually have to confront a double of himself. The idea was cut due to risk of making the story too confusing, however, a leftover of this idea exists in the final game in the form of an easter egg where one can find a dead copy of Father Valerian in the Red Forest (that was also meant to have a unique .223 pistol).

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