As a result, groups of these stalkers bunch together in whatever safe areas they can find, such as in rusted husks of beached ships, abandoned train stations, and the crumbling remains of Pripyat. Despite the fact that this land sounds entirely inhospitable, it draws fortune seekers in search of curios called artifacts that tend to spawn right in the middle of the anomalous traps. Frightening and powerful creatures dwell in isolated underground testing labs and caverns, the landscape is full of dangerous traps that spout fire from the ground and trigger damaging windstorms, and every once in a while an emission blasts across the land wiping out anything silly enough to neglect shelter. The game is set in the Zone, a tract of land surrounding the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in which all life has been corrupted and twisted into hideous and deadly forms.

To get the timeline all straightened out, Call of Pripyat is the second title to follow Shadow of Chernobyl and takes place after the events of the first.

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