From the comfort of their homes, players will travel to photorealistic recreations of numerous areas in Chernobyl and Pripyat, where they’ll explore the Restricted Zone, seek clues about past events and help an old survivor find his family memoires.

The Farm 51’s Chernobyl VR Project will offer players unprecedented access to the site of the catastrophe and the nearby city of Pripyat. In addition to the game the team is developing, an educational component is in the works. Since more than 350,000 inhabitants were evacuated in the aftermath of the disaster, access to the area has been highly restricted and closely monitored.

The team at The Farm 51 was granted special scientific access to areas unavailable to tourists, spending dozens of hours in the area and using its Reality 51 technology to scan locations in Chernobyl and Pripyat in photo-realistic detail. Minor details, including paint peeling off the walls, scuffs on an abandoned amusement-park ride, and rust on an old cash register are captured with exceptional accuracy utilizing photogrammetry and stereoscopic, 360-degree camera technology. Players and virtual visitors will be free to explore and engage with places that have hitherto been off limits, losing themselves in a one-of-a-kind, interactive documentary.

The Chernobyl VR Project combines video games with educational and movie narrative software. It is the very first virtual tour around the Chernobyl and Pripyat area, compatible with multiple VR headsets, starting with Oculus Rift and followed by PlayStation VR and HTC Vive.

On the 30th anniversary of the nuclear disaster, Polish development studio The Farm 51 today announced that proceeds from each sale of The Chernobyl VR Project will benefit victims of the catastrophe.

The Farm 51 will donate a portion of sales to charities supporting victims of the disaster - 20% of purchases at $19.99, 30% of purchases of $29.99, and 60% of purchases of $49.99. The company is teaming up with a variety of organizations and prominent individuals in Ukraine to help distribute donations and ensure that funds are delivered where they are most needed. These organizations include Global Ukraine; The Human Rights Information Center; Ukraine Image Agency; Kiev City Council (represented by Director of Social Policy Department, Yuriy Krykunov); the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine; and Dimytro Skrylnikov, European Comission Expert.

“The enthusiastic response we saw to our announcement of the Chernobyl VR Project made us realize how important the topic was,” said Wojciech Pazdur, CEO at The Farm 51. “So, we decided that this should not be a simply commercial project. We aimed to reach the people, for whom the disaster had an intimate, private, and sometimes family aspect to it. We’ve secured interest from prominent individuals willing to support our project, including Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich (author of Chernobyl Prayer) and legendary boxer Vitali Klitschko, now Mayor of Kiev. However, the most important decision is the declaration that we will donate part of the proceeds from sales of the Chernobyl VR Project to foundations helping the victims of the disaster. In association with the Polish-Ukrainian Open Dialog Foundation and other organizations and individuals, we will select groups to support (10, 30, or 60 percent of sales profit, depending on the application version). In doing so, we hope that we contribute to helping the victims, and that the initiative will give our project another educational and social dimension.”