CRPG.RU: About two years ago, Andrey Prokhorov, project lead and lead artist, described the game's genre correlation the following way: 30% RPG, 70% Action. Has the ration changed since then? How profound is the roleplaying aspect and how is it represented exactly? Does our protagonist have any skills, perks, and the like?
Anton Bolshakov: Regrettably, I cannot evaluate the current ratio. What I can say is that the action element still prevails over story and roleplaying ones. Protagonist has neither level progression nor skills or perks. It's a sort of statless roleplaying game. The player improves his own skill. Aside from that, it's pretty much your typical RPG, which, however, is more geared towards actual roleplaying than stat-pumping. You can play it in a multitude of ways and styles: you can slaughter everything in your way, or you can be a benevolent soul helping those in need. Stalkers travel everywhere, collect artifacts, weapons, discover anomaly zones, interact with each other. The player grows economically throughout the game. Just like in Elite, you earn money, purchase new equipment, weapons. In doing so you open up new areas of the Zone.
