G32: Please introduce yourself to our gamers.

I'm Oleg Yavorsky, in charge of public relations here at GSC Game World in Kiev, Ukraine.

G32: Why did you chose Chernobyl to be the game's Zone?

Firstly, here in Ukraine we are surrounded by splinters of Soviet Empire - forgotten productions, catacombs, neglected military facilities and so on. For example, our office is located at a no-longer-functioning Soviet factory. Walking down such objectives can't leave you untouched - it compares to a time that froze, a place of man-made catastrophe. Thus, we decided it's going to be a great setting for the game.

Secondly, the Soviet system was sealed, many facts were kept secret, so even the most harmless objectives or events amassed with unbelievable rumors and legends. For example, it is still not determined what exactly caused the explosion of Chernobyl Power Plant in 1986. The official version claims the regular testing went out of control, however some say CAPP served a battery for secret laboratories and during one of the experiments an overload occurred. Another example is a truly existing gigantic antenna located in the vicinity of Chernobyl. On some of our photos taken on the trip to Chernobyl, the body of the antenna can be seen on the horizon and it's spanning several hundred meters across. According to unofficial sources, the waves emitted by this antenna were psycho-active. The antenna was directed onto Western Europe and there was held a years-long military experiment on psychotropic impact onto the human psyche. And we've got hundreds of such examples. It was around similar experiments that the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. story has been evolving. We've got room for both conspiracy theory and the opposition of special services. Our game sort of expands onto what could have happened in reality. It's a story about post-apocalyptic world with its tragedies, heroes and laws.

Thirdly, it was the accident in Chernobyl itself. A murky and terrifying example for mankind of thoughtless use of high technologies.

All this surrounds us, we live without paying much attention to it. Though, when all the components were imagined together, we realized it's going to be an amazing game concept.

G32: Are there any real places from Chernobyl that we can find in the game's environment?

We went on several research trips into the Chernobyl exclusion zone ourselves to take plenty of photos and see the place with our own eyes to capture the right atmosphere we should recreate in the game. All the notorious sites of the real Zone can be found in the game too, including the ghost city Pripyat, the carcophagus and the exploded reactor, Red Forest, vehicle cemeteries and rotting villages. We did not intend to recreate the exclusion zone in its full authenticity as that would be uninteresting from the gameplay standpoint. I would say the Zone is about 60% authentic. Most striking is that the structures (derelict houses, for example) and environment you look at in the game were actually taken from the real Chernobyl (photoed and then used as textures), so it compares to a kind of virtual tour around present-day Chernobyl.

G32: Taking in consideration the post-apocalyptic background, and the several similitudes with Fallout universe, how much have you actually inspired from this successful franchise?

There are quite a few thing which, consciously or not impacted the developers. If speaking of computer games to have inspired the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. developers, it's System Shock, Deus Ex, Elite, Daggerfall and, of course, Fallout. The atmosphere of the Zone is based on the Chernobyl tragedy, the atmosphere of the collapsed Soviet empire and multitude of secrets bred by this empire.

G32: What's the reason of giving up the vehicles in the game, when you actually rote the code for them?

While testing we realized that the concept of vehicles in the Zone simply didn't work out for us: the complex geometry and terrain of the in-game levels, multitude of invisible anomalies and radiation all don't help the driver in the game. You may drive into an anomaly at 80 km/h and die without even understanding what happened. This forced us to cut the drivable vehicles from the final game, although the entire vehicle physics system was already developed.

G32: Five years of development is quite a big period of time. Were there any moments of hesitation, when you felt that this project is too big for you and you want to quit?

Frankly, after several delay announcements and the growing scepticism of players and press it was quite tough morally for the team to keep moving forward. But all in all we made it.

G32: What were the reasons Stalker was postponed so much? Money or the lack of a publisher?

All the delays were purely development-related. There were many tough elements to do, the AI system implemented in the game being the most complicated one. A-life, as part of the general AI proved one of the most challenging there. At some points we even though the A-life is just impossible to do. However, it's there and now the A-life can happily control a huge number of characters in the Zone, their traveling, life cycles, task accomplishing by stalkers, exchange of items and information in between NPCs, fights in between monsters and stalkers both individually and in groups, etc. It'd be fair to say that combining the storyline contents with A-life part wasn't trivial at all. The thing is, all the story events must be played-through and experienced by the player, but A-life is a totally dynamic system constantly in motion. We managed to find a solution where the story tasks are put inside the A-life world, however until the player has interacted with the former, no A-life events could be happening in the area. Once the player has accomplished his quest, the A-life gradually fills up the spot previously inaccessible to the system (new inhabitants may come to stay in the area, random quests get generated there etc) - so that when coming back to the level previously completed (or even eradicated) the player will find it filled by new characters and events.

G32: Stalker has a huge content, and I think many of its aspects are not very well exploited. Will you develop in the near future an add-on or a sequel to cover these empty spaces?

We're looking at the players' feedback and thinking of what could be next thing to do. No announcements made yet, so keep an eye on our news

G32: The present trend in the gaming industry is the multiplatform products. Do you have any plans releasing the game for the next-gen platforms?

We'd like to move onto consoles as well, however nothing declared yet.

G32: Back in 2001 when you begun the developing process for Stalker, your studio was one of the Eastern Europe pioneers. Today seems that more and more studios from the ex-Communism part of Europe are attracting attention of the big publishers. What are your plans for the future in order to remain at the top?

Keep working with the established franchises, adding console products to the pipeline, possibly extending our self-publishing subdivision... there are quite a few directions to exploit there.

G32: What's GSC next game? Can you share it with us?

Can't tell you now, but it's going to be something ambitious and intriguing.

G32: Any final words for our readers?

Thanks to all of you guys who've stayed with us for years supporting S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and GSC! We'll keep working hard and do our best to not let you down! Good luck and more of good gaming experiences to you!