So, I recently finished Into The Radius and I have to say I am quite impressed. If my interpretation of the story is correct I think it is one of the most unique stories in a game to date. The game is obviously inspired by Roadside Picnic, but it doesn't draw from it so much that it feels like a rip-off or an attempt at making a Roadside Picnic game. It's a good balance. Good gunplay, immersive gameplay, runs well (even on the Quest), you get the idea. Now, what actually happened in the game?
What I gathered (and this might be way, way off) is that in the Soviet mining town of Pechorsk in 1987 there was an "event" of sorts where following a series of earthquakes a massive orb similar in appearance to that of a solar eclipse appeared in the sky and the laws of physics (and perhaps time as well, but we'll get into that later) began to break down. Contact with the town was cut off at this point presumably due to the earthquakes. A helicopter was sent in to investigate and stated there was a heavy fog. The helicopter entered the fog and was not heard from again. Shortly after the disappearance of the helicopter the Soviet military was sent in but only a handful of service members returned only to die shortly after. Somewhere around this time an exclusion zone is set up around Pechorsk. NATO states that the town was hit by an object from space, potentially a UFO of sorts, but this is retracted later on. The UN then closes off the exclusion zone set up around Pechorsk. The UNPSC (United Nations Pechorsk Special Committee) was formed as a joint effort between NATO and the Soviet Union to research Pechorsk. It is soon discovered that the survivors of the event can't go more than two kilometers from the zone without suffering organ failure. The survivors are referred to as "The Changed" and Vanno, your hub world and a train station, are built so supplies can be delivered to The Changed.The UNPSC states that they are working on a cure and in return The Changed must work for the UNPSC. They are to bring back any artifacts (strange anomalous objects that defy physics and mainstream science as a whole) and report any changes within the zone. It is discovered that The Changed can't die and simply appear back in the zone or Vanno upon death with some memories wiped, however, the more they die the more memories they lose, leading to total amnesia for some of The Changed. This is the reason for all the notes and tapes in the game. Soon it is discovered by The Changed there is not cure, leading to mass suicides via leaving the two kilometer radius around the zone. Leaving the zone is the only way to die forever.
This is where you, Explorer #61 comes into the story. You awake in a house within the zone with no memories. You exit the house to find yourself in an alien landscape with the voice of a girl calling out to you for help. While looking around for the voice you find what appears to be a white statue of a young girl. Touching the statue causes it to shatter. You then hear her speak once again and she says nobody has ever responded to her and asks for help again. Avoiding several spatial anomalies you touch the statue again and it says you will be connected now. You enter into the fog mentioned in the previous paragraph and appear outside Vanno to be informed you are leading the research in Pechorsk, but due to you being gone for an indeterminate amount of time your security clearance has been reset to zero. You enter your room in Vanno and take a mission to recover another explorer's watch. You find it and a tent and do so, but while leaving the tent you see the statue again. You touch the statue and it reveals to you she's a girl named Katya. She says she's stuck somewhere dark and can't move. You return to Vanno and turn in the watch.
After you complete the mission a note appears in your backpack. It reads: "The light keeps going out all day, there was an outage at the power station. Someone broke inside and destroyed the hardware. They didn't touch the locks though, which is kind of weird. And they stole this... a coil was it? Mum's being grumpy, bc her dept at the factory stalled. OK, need to get a candle now, A Daughter of the Snows is a page-turner!"
Real quick, it's worth mentioning there's several entities within the zone that serve as enemies for you to fight. They're nothing special, besides one known as a "Fragment."This will be important later on with my interpretation of the story. You'll also come across statues of Katya where she tells you about her life in Pechorsk prior to the event, but there's so many of those that I don't want to talk about each one. Just know you hear her talk about it a lot. I'll mention them when I think it's important.
A fragment.
During a training exercise you are informed of "The Tide" a phenomenon that occurs every fiveish (I can't remember how many days it takes for The Tide to happen) which resets everything in the zone. I don't think this has anything to do with the story and is more of a gameplay mechanic than anything, but explorers won't be killed by the tide, rather just teleported to a random location within the zone. You are also granted a higher clearance.
Moving onto the second mission you are instructed to collect a roll of film. While in the building looking for it you see a black statue which you touch and explains how much goes into actually developing film. A note you find states that someone named Katya loves photography and that whoever wrote the note would like help getting her some film. You head back to Vanno and turn in the film.
After you complete the mission a note appears in your backpack. It reads: "Is someone trying to mess things up? Because we can't ALL be losing our mind! Lena's cat's missing, Sveta can't find her glasses, everyone I know lost something today! My precious Kodak roll that uncle Dima got me from Japan is gone, too! Dad put it in his desk at the depot office and never saw it again! All the family photos I took are gone now!"
Moving onto the next mission, you are tasked with recovering some files another explorer was trying to leak. You return the files and are granted a higher clearance.
No note for this one.
Moving onto the next mission you must collect an artifact and return it to Vanno. You travel to the location of the artifact to find a nearly entirely collapsed building largely being held together by gravitational anomalies with colorful swirling and flashing gasses which cause you to be damaged if you breathe them in.
There's another black statue outside the building. You touch it and it talks about a strange flash of light coming from within the building. You find the artifact and return it to Vanno.
Upon completion a note appears in your backpack. It reads: "Things keep getting stranger. A neighbor told me about some toxic fog at the swamp. He noticed a weird glow in the abandoned building and wanted to check it out but ran into an armed man inside. Then everything got covered in thick green smoke, he started choking and fled. He keeps telling this to people over and over, but it sounds too crazy."
In this mission you must recover a voice recorder. You travel to the location of the voice recorder and see another black statue. You touch it and it talks about the recorder being left on a desk. You take the recorder and head back to Vanno.
You know the drill, you get a note in your backpack. It reads: "Mom seems to have had a rough day again - someone stole the tape recorder the staff got for the manager's birthday. The thing was hidden in the factory office, not the safest place if you ask me. And so the staff went on arguing whether to call the cops or chip in for another gift until - ta-daam - the boss found out. Yeah, sounds rough enough."
Interesting. We took a tape recorder.
You take another mission and are tasked with recovering a box with something inside it, however, you will need to find a bomb and blow open the door. You locate the bomb, blow open the door, recover the box, and turn it in when you get back to Vanno.
The note reads: "We heard a loud explosion today. Turned out it was at mom's factory - someone blew up the office door and stole the suitcase with this month's salary! Then some strange people arrived and kept asking questions about the explosion and the theft. People say, they must have been the KGB agents. No work again, I wish life went back to normal soon."
You take another mission and are told a spatio-temporal anomaly has been discovered. You are tasked with recovering an artifact within this anomaly that requires a "ritual" to recover. You arrive at the anomaly and can hear a wedding party. Before you are several statues frozen in the ways people at a party would be. You look around and find out the ritual in this case is to complete some shopping from before the event, but oddly enough the list includes two grenades. You do so and leave the items on the shopping list on a table. Suddenly, there's an explosion and the artifact is sitting on the table you had previously put the shopping on. You take it and turn it in at Vanno.
The note reads: "Sasha and Valya are gone. Killed in the explosion on their wedding day. No one has any idea who would dump a grenade at their place. I still can't collect myself. Damn, I can't imagine how their parents are coping with the grief. Feels as if Pechorsk has become home to some evil power that keeps bringing misery upon us all."
Something is definitely going on with these notes.
Your next mission requires you to recover another artifact. This mission is much like A Farewell Feast and requires a ritual. The ritual in this case is to shine a red and green light on red and green lights respectively on the front of two train engines. You find out you need to this by touching two black statues of children in the train yard where the mission takes place. Doing so will cause a "ghost train" to appear and the artifact will be located on the flatbed. You ride the train out of the area and turn in the artifact.
The note reads: "Another fatality reported - at the train depot. The watchman was ran over by a train. They also caught some kids on the site, deadly frightened. They confessed sneaking into the depot, though I don't think they could get that train moving, could they? The thing was broken, rotting there for like the last 15 years or so. What power could do that?"
It seems like our actions in the present might be affecting events in the past. Very strange.
The last mission appears, but it's not like the rest just telling you to go grab something. The mission description reads as: "#61, the Committee is inspired by your enthusiasm. [CONFIDENTIAL] The Radius has granted access to the Castle in the PSZ center. The phenomenon is [CONFIDENTIAL] and requires further research. Sufficient combat training is required." This isn't like the other ones. You travel to this so-called "castle" which turns out to be a literal castle. You find Katya outside it and touch her. She gives you a history lesson on the castle and how it has a rich history steeped in blood and greed. You cross a bridge into the castle and find a statue of Katya, but it's not the normal white statue, but rather a black one. You touch it and instead of her speaking to you, you hear static while text scrolls where the subtitles would normally be. Now I don't think you're seeing text in the story but rather getting a sort of telepathic link. Anyway, as you progress through the castle working your way to the tallest tower you tough more of these statues and they tell you of Katya following someone up the castle and seeing a bright light. You reach the top of the castle and grab an anomaly called the "grail." Suddenly you are surrounded by several white Katya statues before somehow being teleported to a wooded area where you can't move.
Before you is a figure similar to many Virgin Mary statues with a head similar in appearance to the Radius itself with bright shards of light sticking out of it. Next to this figure is Katya, stuck in the grasp of a massive hand. The figure speaks to you. The figure says that you have impressed "us" and that "all went according to plan." The figure questions if you were the one that caused the event in what I interpret to be a condescending way, but confirms that it couldn't have been us, because there is no us. It explains that neither you nor Katya are real. That you are a "composite" image; an echo of many instances. Katya was "bait" to lead you to wherever you are now. Katya protests that she is real. The figure congratulates you and states "iteration successful" and questions if it should reward you, but decides against it. Rather, it decides to give you a choice. Shoot it and Katya will become a real person. Everything she thinks happened will have happened. Shoot Katya and you will become a real person. You'll have a job, a family, a home, a normal life outside the zone. A pistol appears in your hand. You have three choices. The "secret" or joke ending is to just shoot yourself. Nothing really happens with this one, You just appear back at Vanno. The second is to shoot the figure. You fade away and Katya awakens in a field with her sibling. She speaks of your selflessness and how you're a good person. She still feels a connection to something. Something still in her mind. The third option is to shoot Katya. If you shoot Katya she'll thank you for freeing her from her and you'll appear in an apartment. This time Katya's voice says that for 1.5 million years "the consciousness in these words slept beneath the earth. It was waiting for something without knowing it. Sixteen years ago it was awakened. Since then it has been waiting actively." From there the voice explains that you, Explorer #61 were released from the radius one year ago and that you largely have a normal life. You have a woman by your side, but it isn't Katya. You think about Katya and the zone a lot. The voice says "The consciousness present in these words is still waiting." before the game ends.
So that was all pretty strange, right? It's convoluted and doesn't make much sense, but here's what I think.
Going back to 1987 just prior to The Event a man finds a poisonous gas in an abandoned building as seen with the note you receive after completing "Flash In The Dark." It also states the person who found the gas encountered an armed man in the building. There's two ways you can look at this, one being that it was just that. A man. The other way of looking at it is that there was a Mimic in the building, but I don't think that is the case because if it was a Mimic they would have described the strange appearance of the Mimics. What this tells me is that the "armed man" in question was likely a real person, but who? It could either be the Soviet military investigating, or you. "The player? That doesn't make any sense!" you might say, but I'll tell you why it makes sense. Let's look back to the notes we receive after completing some missions. All of them describe the consequences of actions that we carried out, the notes seem to be from the past. In Total Recall we take a roll of film and it goes missing in the past. In "Flash In The Dark" we are an armed man standing amongst poison gas in a crumpled building, although it wouldn't be in such a state in the past. A man saw an armed man in a building full of poison gas in the past. The most damning evidence of us interacting with the past comes from the mission "The Intrusion" in which we blow a door open to recover a box. The note we receive says that someone blew open the door and stole a month's pay. The most interesting part says that some men believed to be KGB came to investigate. This is interesting because in the ending where you shoot Katya it is stated that "the consciousness in these words slept beneath the earth. It was waiting for something without knowing it. Sixteen years ago it was awakened. Since then it has been waiting actively." So it's been sixteen years since the event. That places us in 2003. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and the KGB went with it. This is damning evidence showing that we as the player were affecting people at least as far back as 1987; just before The Event. So, we've established that the player can affect the past in some way.
Now, how do I think The Radius came to be? I think it was awakened by the mining operations in Pechorsk. I say that because in the ending where you shoot Katya it's stated that "The consciousness present in these words" slept beneath the earth for 1.5 million years. To me this means that the radius was buried underground for whatever reason. As for why I think it was awoken by the mining, I just think it makes the most sense considering the wording of the ending and the MASSIVE quarry present in the game.
Onto that good-good; The ending. There's a lot going on in it, and it's hard to break it down. Let me just say now that I believe the ending where you shoot Katya and go on to live a normal life is the canon ending. There's a lot more story going on in it, and it sets up a sequel pretty well with the whole "The consciousness present in these words is still waiting."bit. The wording of that ending makes me think that the radius is conscious in some way, shape, or form due to the voice repeating the phrase "The consciousness present in these words" multiple times, and (get ready for this) the radius looks just like the core of the fragments, the fragments being what is believed to be what the former residents of Pechorsk turned into. In other words, real conscious beings have a radius within them. A soul of sorts. So we have a conscious anomalous orb now. Anyway, when you are in the forested area at the end of the game, you are told that you aren't real but a "composite image" of many people. I believe that the player is a guinea pig for the figure with the Radius like head (I think The Radius and the figure are one in the same) created with the consciousnesses of various explorers who's been working for an indeterminate amount of time and has died an unknown number of times. I say the player is a guinea pig because there's a voice that whispers "guinea pig," and the figure states that "all went according to the plan." As for why I think you've died, God knows how many times is due to you having no memories (like The Changed, who have died many times) and the figure telling you that your iteration was successful. Very strange. It makes it seem like you've been here before. Either way, the radius has been using you to collect data for whatever reason and change the past. Perhaps to ensure that it is brought into existence. Maybe through a ritual of sorts similar to how the player needs to do various rituals to recover anomalies.
So, in conclusion, we have a conscious orb (perhaps with a soul) hovering in the sky that was unearthed by a mining operation and is using a consciousness it created with the consciousness of previous explorers to go back in time to make sure the radius comes to be as well as collect data for whatever reason.
Really strange stuff, but a great game nonetheless.