Into The Radius is STALKER in VR
Do you enjoy deadly anomalies? Dangerous mutants? Exploring the unknowable and untamable? Maybe a certain Ukranian series of games set in the Chernobyl exclusion zone? Do you also like VR? Well then you must try Into The Radius.
Its the STALKER experience, but in VR. Well, it’s not exactly the same. The core elements are there, and the gameplay often feels very similar, and even more immersive. Just minus the other people. There are enemies, just as enemy STALKERs and mutants would oppose you. Yet in Into The Radius they are… stranger. Shadows of something strange, not human and yet shaped like humans. Some with tentacles made of dark particles, others with guns, and all overwhelmingly hostile.
Everything is stranger. The zone of STALKER has many intact buildings, vehicles, roads. All of the scenery there forms some coherent semblance of what once was, though it is covered in mutants and anomalies. The zone of Into the Radius is… different. Eerily still and constantly covered in immovable ash. Rocky black figures stand motionless and crumble to the touch. Like silhouettes in the wake of the raw energy of a nuclear bomb. Buildings can be recognized, and vehicles too, but just as often they float in the air, or their twisted remains stand in the air. As though some invisible giant froze while dismantling it. Gravity is not a hard and fast rule anymore.
Just as the buildings of Into the Radius are recognizable as something that once was familiar, though they are mostly husks, so too is the DNA of STALKER. The hostile black figures, some made of dark swirling matter, and some just like humans but completely devoid of color, fill the role of enemy STALKERs and mutants. The anomalies, and the artifacts which are inside them, are just as common and just as deadly. Though they work in different ways, some infest buildings and are pacified by light, some twist their ways between the trees, barely visible and waiting for an unwary traveler to walk between them. The elements of STALKER are all present, but stranger, different. More unbelievable and more unnatural. Overseeing it all, in the fabled center is not a powerplant, a thing of human construction, but a giant black orb which bends light as it bends the clouds around it. Something unknowable in its makeup, origin, or purpose.
The feeling of traversing the zone of Into the Radius is akin to that of one of STALKER’s underground laboratories. The places where no other STALKERS dare roam. Danger is almost guaranteed, but what form it comes in can be unexpected, and so the oppressive and dilapidated atmosphere leaves the player constantly on their guard.
All that Into The Radius lacks is the camaraderie of other STALKERS. Instead it doubles down on an oppressive and alien atmosphere. There is nothing but the automated systems of your home base and the alien unknown of the zone to keep you company. This is possibly the most alarming difference. Nowhere in the zone of Into the Radius has friendliness or the comfort of friendly NPCs, just degrees of danger.
There is still the excitement and dread of wading through a field of anomalies, detector beeping as you draw closer to an artifact. All the while you wonder if your next step will land you in a anomaly and your death. The tenseness of a firefight and the knowledge that the report of weapons might bring more horrors down on your head. The quiet melancholy of the ruins and monuments to long gone normalcy that you pick over for stashes of supplies. So many moments just like STALKER can be found in Into the Radius. So if you’re hankering for the release of STALKER 2, but want something to tide yourself over, then try Into the Radius. It’s pretty great.