Radioactive Ghosts and Psychic Anomalies: Exploring Pripyat’s Supernatural Topography in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Video Game Series
The 1986 Chornobyl nuclear disaster led to the total abandonment of the city of Pripyat, a utopian Soviet atomic city. Pripyat’s abandonment inspired many re-imaginings of the city’s past and future in popular culture. One of the most enduring popular culture narratives of Chornobyl’s supernatural mythos is the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. video game series, which fashions an alternative nuclear future filled with mutant creatures, supernatural forces, and a reactive virtual landscape. The game delivers a highly visual and bodily experience that renders the threat of radiation in a visceral and immediate way. The game opens a potent space in which players can confront nuclear anxieties and fears and cultivate a greater awareness of the costs of nuclear power. The experience of the virtual landscape imparts prosthetic memories of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster to players, who then become virtual tourists of a grim nuclear future.