It’s a weird set of tags up there, the builder tag refers more to the kind of base building you can do in Fallout 4. Maybe a management sim tag might be better for it.

https://opencritic.com/game/11731/chernobylite/charts

EG Recommended it, as do GameRanx, who I have a lot of time for. They’ve just released an enhanced edition with lovely ray tracing etc for modern hardware, and it’s also got the Steam Deck green tick. Plus it’s on sale, so I caved this afternoon. Nice to be able to support another Ukrainian dev in a small way, and they’ve got a DLC devoted to supporting Ukraine’s aid efforts too.

Much to my surprise, as Valve haven’t technically enabled the ray tracing chip on Deck OS yet, I was able to enable it in game, and with a few tweaks I could get it running at a steady 30. I don’t think it’s ready for prime time yet, but it does look nice.

Anyway, the game has come as a pleasant surprise. It’s way more than I was expecting. Everything revolves around the hub and buidling facilities to keep your recruits happy. You can send them off to run a mission each every day, and also do a mission yourself from a list of options. Keep building to add new capabilities, and attract new recruits that do the same.

Missions are first person shooter affairs, set in the Chernobyl area itself and look really good. Lots of stealth involved, some good shooting, a fair amount of crafting and survival. And there’s an interesting story that you need to progress too. At some point you’ll become powerful enough to pull off a heist in the power station itself which is the entire point of the loop I’ve just described.

This is a much deeper game than I anticipated, and my understanding is that they’ve really fleshed things out from launch too. Most of the criticisms in less favourable reviews have been dealt with. My only issue is the Englsh voice acting. Specifically the main character. It’s a very hammy radio 4 play effort and really sticks out amongst much more natural performances from most other characters.

Anyway. I think this might be worth a look. Plays nicely on Deck. Going to try it on the maiin PC to get the juicy visuals, but even on Deck it’s a decent looker on that small screen.