Some games entertain. Some challenge. And some leave a mark that lingers long after you put them down. Chornobyl Liquidators is one of those games.

It’s a deeply unsettling experience that captures the brutal, hopeless reality of the Chernobyl disaster’s clean-up crews—men sent in to die, shoveling radioactive death off rooftops with no real hope of survival. At its best, it delivers a harrowing, emotionally effective look at the liquidators’ experience, but at its worst, it frustrates with unclear objectives, clunky mechanics, and repetitive gameplay that makes the player struggle for the wrong reasons.

The opening sequence is one of the most haunting I’ve seen in a game. You play as multiple liquidators sent to clean up the radioactive wreckage—only to die one by one in the process. When you take control of the next worker, you see your previous body right where it fell, a grim, powerful reminder that you are not a hero—just another disposable cog in an impossible task. The horror isn’t monsters or jump scares—it’s the inevitability of death. It’s a moment that sticks with you, the kind of storytelling that makes you pause and sit with the weight of what just happened. The sound design reinforces this dread. The music, which feels practically lifted from HBO’s Chernobyl but still works, adds to the tension, making each step feel like you’re walking into a death sentence.

Unfortunately, after that brilliantly executed intro, the game’s mechanics start getting in the way. The gameplay is repetitive—find a fuse box, clean radioactive dust, follow unclear waypoints—which could have worked as a thematic choice, showing the mindless, grueling reality of the job, but it’s not implemented well enough to feel intentional. Instead, it just feels like bad game design. The poor waypoint system is particularly frustrating. At one point, I spent ten attempts just figuring out how to start climbing a building—not because of difficulty, but because the game does a bad job of telling you what to do and how to do it. Right now, I’m stuck trying to turn on fuse boxes with no clear indication of how or where, and it’s the kind of frustration that breaks immersion instead of adding to the experience.

This is where I’m torn. The atmosphere, emotional impact, and historical weight of Chornobyl Liquidators are genuinely well done. It’s the kind of game that sticks in your mind long after playing—unlike something like Sniper Elite: Resistance, which, while competent, doesn’t leave much of an imprint. But the actual gameplay? It’s a chore. And that makes it hard to outright recommend.

If Steam let me give a sideways thumb, I would. As it stands, this is a game I’d recommend with major caveats. If you’re someone who values atmosphere, historical accuracy, and emotional impact over tight gameplay, this might be worth the frustration. If bad mechanics and unclear objectives kill your enjoyment, then this might just make you rage quit. Chornobyl Liquidators is an important game, but not necessarily a good one.

Lots of invisible walls, plus you get stuck in the invisible walls. Not enough direction on where you're going and what you're doing. Overall the game is cool concept and Chernobyl is an extremely interesting topic, but the extra hoops you have to jump through just to not die, get stuck, forced to load a save game, figure out where you're going... they're just not worth it

A good tribute to the men who fought against this disaster. if you can get it on a discount go ahead game is pretty buggy.