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It’s been revealed on the PlayStation blog that an in-development VR project that recreates Chernobyl and Pripyat will be coming to the PS VR. The Chernobyl VR Project is in development by The Farm 51, the studio behind Get Even, and is an interactive journey into the abandoned city of Pripyat, the surrounding areas and the nearby nuclear plant.
This project is being created both as an interactive visual tour and an educational insight into capturing the stories behind the event. It’s going to be bleak, tragic and hopefully representative of what Pripyat was before Chernobyl disaster to what it’s become now.
In the years that’ve followed since the disaster in 1986, there’s been a curiosity of sorts and even a mysticism around the whole event (which has continual ramifications to this day), what happened and how it affected the people there. The Chernobyl VR project is being developed as a means of conveying what it’s like to actually be there. Thankfully geiger counters and unfathomable panic aren’t a requirement for the experience.
The developers have taken to this project with a degree of intensity and understandable trepidation, visiting the site and cataloguing their research utilising a number of 360 videos, panoramic shots, 3D scanning of the many infamous locations and buildings, stereoscopic videos and more.
What is immediately apparent from the blog post is the continual theme of abandonment, loss and continual decay. The Farm 51 PR Manager, David Biegun, said that during research they could see ‘everyday objects left behind by the populace during the evacuation, as they were told they’d return in a few days. 30 years later we came across rooms that seemed frozen in time, untouched since they were originally vacated.
Chernobyl VR project will be released on the PS VR, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. Currently in its early access stage, the experience will be coming to the PSVR with a release to be confirmed at a later date.
