ITR DEV DIARY #3

The Narrative

Hello explorers!
ITR was originally designed to have gameplay and story closely interwoven. The game avoids separation into purely cinematic story cutscenes and interactive gameplay episodes. Players are always engaged in the gradual unravelling of the story in every moment of the game.

However, limited resources and a higher priority on gameplay didn’t allow us to fully realize the majority our ideas for lore and story in ITR1.

In the sequel we want to deliver a more detailed and complete narrative, maintaining the core design philosophy mentioned above, and ironing out the inconsistencies and critical errors of the original.

Before we dive into the topic further, we’d like to quickly address the community discourse and theories in relation to the guns in ITR1. Some of them don’t fit from a historical point of view, existing before they were technically invented. In our defense, after the appearance of the Radius in 1987 the in-game world becomes an alternate history, in which they could’ve been invented sooner, and so the Committee might’ve gotten access to them for testing… Regardless, we hope you had fun with those guns just as much as with the others ;)

So, what can our players expect from a story and narrative standpoint?
The events of ITR1 took place at the turn of the century. The sequel takes place several years after the ending of the previous game, the mid 2000s.

The final events of ITR1 had a significant impact on the Committee. Thanks to the data gathered and prospects unlocked, it acquired greater resources and ambitions. This directly affected the Explorers. In ITR2 they’ll be residing in new bases designed from scratch. In addition to older equipment getting an upgrade, completely new types will be available as well. Changes will affect the majority of equipment designed by the Committee. What remains the same, however, is the Committee’s treatment of the Explorers who remain isolated in their bases, with only the Radius to venture into.

The main character of ITR2 is a new nameless Explorer, who will make his own path into the center of the Radius. In co-op mode the story will revolve around the host of the co-op game, while their friends will act as partners on their journey.

It terms of presenting the plot, even though it’s intended to have a more in-depth narrative and more structured story, we will still avoid the use of traditional cutscenes that remove control from the player, include a lot of dialogue, or other non-interactive techniques. At the core of ITR2’s story lies the gameplay itself and how it affects the player.

With this approach a very significant part of our focus is on visual narrative. A couple of examples without spoilers include changes to the Committee, and how we’re reworking locations of the Pechorsk anomaly.

The new base and its details will more clearly reflect the Committee’s treatment of its “volunteers” as well as its change in this approach compared to ITR1. In the original, the base was improvised, careless and shabby. This expressed the Committee’s disappointment and despair in trying to derive at least some practical benefit from its research of the Radius. The ITR2 base and upgraded equipment are meant to show the new capabilities and “mood” of the Committee.

When working on the locations of the Radius we adhere to the concept of thematic layering. The first layer consists of landscapes and nature, determined by the geographical location of the Pechorsk anomaly - Eastern Europe, the border of one of the Baltic countries. The second layer is the man-made infrastructure corresponding to the city of Pechorsk and its environment at the time of 1987, where and when the Pechorsk anomaly appeared. The third is the “Radius layer”, which reflects the gloomy, surreal and deadly essence of the Pechorsk anomaly. And the final layer adds traces of the Committee and its Explorers, which directly depend on how “inhabited” a particular location is by them, and how close it is to the edge or center of the Radius. All of these layers revolve around what kind of gameplay is planned for each location, and create an appropriate narrative context for it based on the lore and story.

In Early Access our main objective is to ensure that the general gameplay cycle of ITR2 functions as intended. This means the first iterations of Early Access won’t include fully fledged story elements. But you’ll already be able to experience the general visual narrative of the Explorer base and first locations of the Radius. Everything else will come with future updates to the game.

Thanks for reading, see you in the next one!