S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl is a first-person shooter survival horror video game developed by GSC Game World and published by THQ in 2007 following a long development. The game is set in an alternative reality, where a second disaster of mysterious origin occurred at the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, causing strange changes in the area around it. The game features a non-linear storyline and includes role-playing gameplay elements such as trading and two-way communication with non-player characters. In the game, the player assumes the identity of the Marked One, an amnesiac man trying to find and kill the mysterious Strelok within the Zone, a forbidden territory surrounding the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. It is set after a fictitious second Chernobyl disaster, which further contaminated the surrounding area with radiation, and caused strange otherworldly changes in local fauna, flora, and the laws of physics. The background and some terminology of the game are borrowed from the Russian novella Roadside Picnic and its film adaptation Stalker. A prequel, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, was released in 2008. A sequel, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat, followed in 2010. There are also multiple fan remakes trying to restore the cut content from the original version of the game like S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Oblivion Lost Remake. Setting S.T.A.L.K.E.R. takes place in an area called the Zone, which is based on the real-life Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and partly on the settings of the source material, Boris and Arkady Strugatsky's science fiction novella Roadside Picnic and Andrei Tarkovsky's film Stalker, as well as the latter's subsequent novelization by the original authors. The Zone encompasses roughly 30 square kilometers and features a slice of the Chernobyl area extending south from Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant; geographical changes for artistic license include moving the city of Pripyat into this area (it is actually to the north-west of the power station), although the city itself is directly modeled on its real-life counterpart, albeit smaller in size, and features in-game recreations of many actual locations from the city. The term Stalkers was also used for the scientists and engineers who explored the interior of the Chernobyl sarcophagus after its hasty construction in 1986. In addition, the Zone is also a term used to refer to the 30 kilometer Exclusion Zone around the power plant. In the game's backstory, after the initial Chernobyl disaster, attempts were made to repopulate the area, primarily with scientists and military personnel. However, in