Chernobylite Guide for Beginners

Ready to head into Chernobyl's exclusion zone? In this Chernobylite Guide for Beginners, we'll tell you everything you need to know to get started with this new adventure — and how to stay alive.

What is Chernobylite?

Chernobylite is a first-person shooter from The Farm 51, a game developer that has quite a few projects under their belt already. Without spoiling too much of the story, your mission is to infiltrate the depths of Chernobyl and undertake a risky mission.

You can't do it alone, though — you're going to need men, equipment, and the right knowledge to get the job done. This Chernobylite Guide for Beginners will help get you started on your journey!

Getting Started with Chernobylite

The opening moments of Chernobylite are more or less a tutorial — it will teach you the basics, scare your pants off a couple of times, and let you get your first taste of combat. Don't worry too much about failing here — it's pretty easy to figure out.

There are two early challenges you have to undertake:

How to Get Around the Guards in Chernobylite

One of your first obstacles will be a pair of guards outside of the facility. You have two options: you can either move to the left while crouched and sneak past them or you can openly confront them. Keep in mind that you're unarmed — if they do see you, your best bet is to bluff them. Pretend to be a technician and bring up the fact that they were drinking on the job and you can pass unscathed.

Do I Push the Button in Chernobylite?

Your second major choice is in the control room — do you push the button in Chernobylite? If you do, it will disable the guards and your companions don't have to shoot anyone. If you don't push it, however, your companions will have to shoot them.

Chernobylite is a game that's all about choices and their long-term effects. I honestly don't know what pushing the button will or will not do later in the game, but I decided to heed the in-game warnings and not push it.

Once you've acquired your Chernobylite material, you're pretty much at the end of the tutorial. You'll soon find yourself at your shiny new base; now, it's time to learn how to manage it.

Managing Your Chernobylite Base and Running Missions

Chernobylite isn't exactly an open-world game like Fallout or S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Instead, it adopts an eclectic mix of gameplay where you go out on multiple excursions to retrieve materials and clues for an upcoming Heist. The Chernobylite base serves as the hub between missions, allowing you to craft items, recover, and level up your skills.

At first, you're not going to have much in the way of materials. You should have just enough for the very basics — namely, a Workbench and a Sleeping Area. If you crafted extra healing items during the tutorial, you might not have enough Mushrooms to build a bed. Don't worry about it — you can fix it after completing your first mission.

Aside from crafting items, you have five stats to manage for your base:

• Comfort of a life in base – How comfortable your base is.
• Power excess – How much Power you have.
• Air Quality – How clean the air is.
• Radiation Security – How irradiated (or not) the base is, and what kind of protection you have against radiation.
• Sleeping Place – The number of bunks you have for your companions.

If Power is in the red, your base's workstations won't work. As for the rest of the stats, having any of them in the red will be bad for you and your companions. For example, not having enough Sleeping Places means that one of your companions will have to sleep on the floor and that's going to negatively affect them. Ultimately, your job is to keep everything in the green while also progressing along the tech tree and collecting materials.

You'll also have an option in the "Gardening" section to build Herbs and Mushrooms plots. These will give you 0.5 of each respective resource every day. It's best to put down one or two as early as possible to maximize their return.

Keeping Your Soldiers Fed

There's one final item that's not covered by base stats: Food. You need to ensure that you and your men have something to eat every day. You can scavenge Food while on expeditions or you can grow it within your base. Either way, make sure you have enough at the end of every day — if you don't, your men will suffer for it!

Completing Your First Chernobylite Mission

Now that you've got the basics of a base down, the next topic to tackle in this Chernobylite Guide for Beginners is missions. There's a pair of binoculars on the upper floor — this lets you select a mission for yourself and any of your companions. Despite how the tutorial played out, your early missions will be run solo — don't expect any help while you're out in the zone!

Select a mission for yourself and for your companion. Pay careful attention to the success rate for NPCs — you don't want to give them something too challenging. You can increase their success rate by giving them better equipment and ensuring that they're in good health. Once you have everything set up, it's time to get out there!

Once you've confirmed the mission, you'll automatically take a portal to your starting point. From here, you'll have a waypoint on the compass pointing towards your next objective. Don't rush straight towards it, though — Chernobylite rewards exploration. Locations marked with a <?> symbol are points of interest that are usually worth checking out, and most buildings have some loot in them.

Make sure to regularly use your Scanner's right-click to search for any nearby goods you can bring back. When you pick something up, you'll see the bar on the top left increase slightly; just to be clear, that's your experience bar and not some kind of weight meter. You may also encounter locked doors, but you won't be able to open those without a Lockpick. You'll need to set up your base to craft Lockpicks if you want to open those tricky doors!

Eventually, you'll complete your objective and have a backpack full of loot. Use your Portal Gun to return back to your Base. You can't jump into another mission right away, though — you're going to have to get some sleep first!

How to Sleep in Chernobylite

If you want to sleep in Chernobylite, it's pretty easy — simply head to the door on the side of the base and open it up to discover your room. You can hit the use key on your bed and you'll fall asleep, saving the game and beginning the next day.

Chernobylite Guide for Beginners – Your Second Mission and Beyond

Okay — you've completed your first mission, built out your base a bit, and went to bed. What now?

As it stands, you've already got a handle on the core gameplay loop: do a mission, bring back stuff, expand your base, craft, and repeat. There's more to this game than just that, though — you're trying to uncover the grand mystery of the plot by collecting clues and equipping your men for a massive Heist.

One important point to keep in mind is your equipment. Make sure you have enough ammo and healing items with you — I've had one or two situations where I'm down to a revolver with a few bullets because I had to face so many enemies head-on.

Don't forget to use your Skills Points, either! Each of your Companions can give you some special perks through training. I particularly like Mikhail's abilities to increase what I get from foraging and expand my carrying capacity. You'll meet him pretty early in the game, too, so it's not a bad idea to save a few Skill Points for him.

Your goal, going forward, is to continue doing expeditions to get the resources and information you need to accomplish your ultimate goal. Keep at it — you've got the basics down, and now it's just a matter of putting the work in.

What Happens When You Die in Chernobylite?

We'll address one final question in this Chernobylite Guide for Beginners — what happens when you die in Chernobylite?

The first time you die, you may find yourself waking up in a NAR-controlled prison. It's up to you to escape, and you might even get some help from a NAR soldier if you saved one of them earlier in the game. If you die while attempting to escape, though, you're going to find yourself in an otherworldly realm that actually allows you to change the past.

Chernobylite is a game that presents players with choices that have long-reaching consequences. One of the unique things this game does, however, is give you the opportunity to change your choices after the fact. When you die, you'll head to a realm where you can examine your "memories" (that is, your choices) and decide to change them, paying some Chernobylite to get it done.

Whether you change your choices or not, you'll soon respawn at the beginning of the day you died. Your first death is a freebie, but future deaths might cause you to lose random items — don't die needlessly if you can avoid it!