Draft:Into the Radius

Into the Radius is a 2020 virtual reality first-person shooter survival game developed and published by CM Games. Released in early access on Steam on November 6, 2019, the game was later made available on the Oculus store in February 2020. After officially leaving early access on July 20, 2020, Into the Radius was ported to the Quest 2 in September 2022 and the PICO 4 in March 2023.

Into the Radius takes place within the Pechorsk Exclusion Zone, a mysterious, hostile territory located in Eastern Europe and populated by physics-bending anomalies, aggressive creatures, and powerful, scientifically-significant artifacts. The player, an "Explorer" employed by the United Nations Pechorsk Security Committee (UNPSC), the group tasked with guarding and studying the Zone, completes missions across the game's open world, earning money to spend on equipment, such as firearms, ammunition, and food, as they do so. The game combines elements of first-person shooters, survival games, and horror games, including a wide array of firearms, a hunger and stamina system, and a moody, alien atmosphere.

Into the Radius primarily draws inspiration from the Strugatsky brothers' 1972 novel Roadside Picnic. The game was also inspired by the narrative-focused exploration of Myst, the difficulty and passive storytelling of the Dark Souls series, and the financial success of the 2016 VR game Onward. Critics praised Into the Radius for its atmosphere and immersion while criticizing it for its poor visuals and tutorial. A sequel, titled Into the Radius 2, was officially

Setting
Into the Radius takes place within the Pechorsk Exclusion Zone, an area surrounding the fictional Russian mining town of Pechorsk. On the morning of July 9, 1987, Pechorsk experienced a minor earthquake followed by sudden communications blackout. After a thick fog surrounded the town, Russian armed forces attempted to secure the border, confiscating and destroying all photographic evidence of the event. Within several hours, NATO became aware of the situation via satellite surveillance and fear of imminent war began to spread among the international media after the Kremlin claimed that the disaster was the result of a nuclear detonation. Mutual cooperation between NATO and Russia, however, led to the formation of the United Nations Pechorsk Special Committee (UNPSC), a UN peacekeeping group tasked with researching and managing the Zone.

The Pechorsk Event, as it came to be known, had a profound impact on the landscape and population of the region. Chunks of destroyed structures and terrain float in the air while a constant fog and rain of black ash limit visibility, and a massive black sphere with an orange corona floats in the air above the center of the Zone. The Event also caused the formation of anomalies, dangerous phenomena that serve as deadly obstacles. Anomaly clusters, however, can generate artifacts, valuable objects that can grant abilities such as regeneration and night vision. The Zone is also home to an array of hostile creatures ("Entities") that utilize melee attacks or firearms.

All life within the Zone was thought to have been eradicated within a matter of hours, but some human survivors were eventually discovered by the UNPSC. These survivors, known as the "Changed", possessed altered biology and were unable to persist outside the Zone, succumbing to nonspecific illnesses, severe wounds, or committing suicide within hours of leaving. If one of the Changed dies within the zone, however, they emerge unharmed from the fog at the Zone's border after some time, rendering them effectively immortal. One of the UNPSC's major goals is stated to be finding a cure for the Changed, but the economic and scientific value of the Zone and the artifacts it contains drives the UNPSC to employ many of the Changed as "Explorers", field workers tasked with gathering as much Zone material and information as possible.

Plot
The protagonist, Explorer #61, awakens inside a small forested village within the Pechorsk Exclusion Zone. As they make their way through the locale, the Explorer makes contact with a young woman named Katya (Tamara Ryan), who appears as a white statue. Katya tells the Explorer that she needs help and urges them to follow a marked path into the thick fog surrounding the area, assuring the Explorer that their memories will guide them. Explorer #61 emerges from the fog in front of UNPSC Facility 21, one of many field facilities built by the UNPSC to house and equip Explorers.

After acquiring some basic equipment from Facility 21, the Explorer is assigned the first in a series of increasingly difficult missions by the UNPSC to recover various scientifically significant objects, ranging from special artifacts to lost research equipment, from different areas of the Zone. The first missions take place in Pervomay Route, a section of countryside at the edge of the Zone, while further missions bring the Explorer to more dangerous areas located closer to the center, including Bolotky Village, a small, swampy village near a construction site, and Pobeda Factory, an industrial zone conjoined with a small mining operation. Katya appears frequently near the Explorer's mission objectives, offering fragments of information about her current situation and her previous life within Pechorsk when interacted with.

The final mission brings the Explorer to Pechorsk Castle, a crumbling 16th-century fortress situated directly beneath the massive sphere in the sky. Tasked with reaching the center of the castle, Explorer #61 fights their way through the entity-infested corridors of the castle walls, navigates the anomaly fields that cover its battlements, and battles the top of the keep.

Ending
After revealing and touching the artifact at the top of the keep, the Explorer is teleported to a forested clearing within the Zone. Here, they encounter Katya, who is restrained by an unnamed figure that appears as a black statue. The figure speaks to Katya, explaining that the Explorer is nothing more than a composite formed by the Zone from the ideas of other Explorers while she is, similarly, a composite of the innocents who suffered in the Zone.

The figure clarifies that the Explorer was led to the center of the Zone as a part of a larger scheme and that nothing can be done to impede the plans of the Radius. It then offers the Explorer a choice in the form of a Makarov pistol; they can either release Katya from the Zone by shooting the figure, at the cost of the player's own life, or give themselves a normal life outside of the Radius by sacrificing Katya. The Explorer will be transported back to the front entrance of Facility 21 after their chosen ending finishes, at which point they can continue to explore the Zone and complete secondary missions, although the path inside Pechorsk Castle will be sealed.
 * If the Explorer decides to shoot Katya, they find themselves standing within a small apartment outside the Zone. Narration provided by "the Consciousness" of the Zone explains that Explorer #61 was given a human form and released from the Radius one year ago and now lives a normal life. However, they still think frequently about Katya and the Zone, aware that the it, and its many unanswered questions, remains.
 * If the Explorer turns the gun on the figure, they find themselves standing in a dark clearing within the Zone. Surrounded by television screens displaying an image of a girl in a field of wildflowers, the Explorer listens as Katya awakens outside the Zone and is given a normal life and family. In her final words to the player, she thanks the Explorer for their sacrifice.
 * Alternatively, the Explorer can reject the binary offered by the figure and choose to shoot themselves. Doing so causes a loud, shrill scream to play but otherwise features no special narration.

Gameplay
Into the Radius is a first person shooter survival game that takes place within the Pechorsk Exclusion Zone, a large open world composed of multiple smaller, interconnected zones. It has been frequently compared to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. video game series. Assuming the role of Explorer #61, the player begins the game at the UNPSC Facility 21, a safe zone where they can store or sell found items, accept and turn in missions, and purchase and upgrade equipment. The player can store various items and equipment in a number of body holsters, including within specialized magazine pouches on their chest, and in a backpack. Items placed within the backpack float freely where they are placed, as opposed to a grid or slot-based inventory. The player can store large amounts of items in their small room within Facility 21, which is equipped with various shelves and racks.

The player can accept missions from a computer located in their room to earn money. Missions typically involve gathering a specific item, such as lost equipment or a special artifact, although some task the player with clearing an area of enemies or taking photographs of certain enemy types. The player can spend their money on various items, including firearms, firearm attachments, magazines, armor, food, armor, and weapon upgrades. Some missions, classified as "priority" missions, upgrade the player's security level when completed, which unlocks better equipment for purchase.

Reception
Into the Radius received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic. . Reviewers generally praised the game's immersiveness, atmosphere, and gameplay loop while criticizing its tutorial, visuals, and general bugginess.

Many reviewers highlighted the game's immersion and difficulty, with Patrick Anderson of COGconnected explaining that "[e]specially in VR, it’s just such a thrill to experience this kind of realism in a video game. The slow and painful progress you make in this world feels so rewarding because you really have to earn it." Doc Neale of 6DOF Reviews echoed a similar experience, writing that "When you head out into the wilderness, you’ll do it with... a sense of ownership and investment in the entire experience, which other survival/exploration games lack." Road to VR's Scott Hayden explained that the "built-in tedium" reflected in the loading and cleaning of firearms and their magazines was "an overall positive."

Reviewers also praised the setting of Into the Radius, which VR Fitness Insider's Adam Braunstein described as "disturbing and highly unsettling". Tony of Use a Potion! explained that, while "Into the Radius doesn’t feel like a horror game, some of the sights across the environment just feel so bizarre that it’s hard not to feel uneasy (in the best way possible)."

Some parts of the game, such as the backpack, were somewhat contentious among reviewers. Neale wrote that, while "[the backpack] seems like a low-effort and clunky version of superior efforts in other games", he came to appreciate that it "replicates the actual feel of frantically sifting through a bag of miscellaneous crap, wishing you’d been more organised." Ryan Ouellette of The VR Grid came to a similar conclusion, comparing the backpack favorably to the inventory mechanics of Diablo and Resident Evil 4 despite perceiving it initially as "under cooked" and "messy". Jan Wöbbeking of MIXED Reality News, however, found the backpack to be "implemented less effectively than in other survival shooters like The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners", voicing that "many objects [within the backpack] simply jut wildly into each other in a confusing manner" and that "[t]argeting and picking up objects with the two triggers of the VR controller is also too imprecise in hectic moments." The game's story also garnered mixed reception, with Braunstein writing that "the intrigue of the story and figuring out just what is happening in this cruel and terrifying world you’re in" was a motivator to continue playing while Ouellette described the story as "tacked on" and secondary to the gameplay.

The graphics of Into the Radius, particularly for the Quest 2 port, were a frequent source of criticism. Kyle Nicole of WayTooManyGames, who reviewed the game on the Quest 2, described the levels as "flat" and the enemy designs as "dull"   while highlighting that the PC version, despite its improved graphics, "doesn’t quite hit its full potential." Ouellette remarked that the game's "generic" models and low-resolution textures made it look "flat and extremely dated" and Anderson wrote that, with its "low-res and muddy" textures and "blocky and last-gen" models, "you definitely wouldn’t call it pretty." . The game's tutorial also attracted the ire of reviewers, with Braunstein describing it as "one of the worst tutorials I’ve ever experienced" and Neale dismissing it as "inept". .