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Chernobylite – Insane Difficulty Gameplay Tips

Published September 21, 2021

So you’re a Stalker looking for a real gaming challenge. You want a demanding survival RPG experience. You want to test your fighting, planning, and strategy skills. Welcome to Chernobylite on insane difficulty.

Are you ready, Stalker?

Insane difficulty doesn’t need to drive you crazy, so we’ve got some handy tips that will not only help you survive this radioactive hell, but also help you stay in control.

Insane Survival difficulty

Survival difficulty affects the amount of resources you can find on levels. At higher difficulty levels expanding the base and crafting new items will be more difficult.

Insane Combat difficulty

Combat difficulty affects enemy AI, numbers, and resistance. At higher difficulty levels you will encounter more opponents and they will fight more effectively.

Insane Management difficulty

Managing difficulty affects the chances of success for companions’ missions, and how the base affects their morale and health. On higher difficulty levels, keeping your companions alive will be more difficult.

Master your mind

If you want your mission to be successful, you need to keep your wits about you; getting easily provoked means getting easily killed. You need to exercise patience and think hard when planning your next move.

Chernobylite isn’t meant to be played as a typical shooter—especially in insane mode. You always need to keep in mind cost vs reward. There’s a psychological cost to killing since the more you kill, the more your psyche is damaged and becomes a burden. There’s also a physical cost since you use ammo for shooting and resources to craft salts that will calm your mind. Just remember that everything has its price; it might be better to put that itchy trigger finger away and stick to stealth tactics instead.

Most of the decisions you make will have certain consequences and affect who and what you have later in the game and during the final heist so think long and hard about who or what is hot or not.

Plan your next missions wisely

There are various types of missions in the Zone that give you different benefits. You need to make runs for food supplies, ammo drops, medicine, and more. While planning your next move, you need to have in mind the number of resources that you have at your base and how many days are left until the mission disappears from the list.

Tasks have a limited time for completing them. If there’s one that only has one day left, it should become your priority—especially if it’s hunting for resources. Don’t miss any chances to resupply and provide a good foundation for developing your base, you’ll thank yourself for it later.

Tasks and missions will give you XP needed to reach higher levels and take part in new training sessions. If you’re just a few points shy of reaching a certain level, do some simple tasks to gain the XP needed to level up. You might gain some useful abilities that you can later use in harder missions.

Leave no stone unturned

Completing missions is very important because other than just collecting more supplies and clues, it gives you the XP you need to develop your skills. However, your true power is your curiosity while you explore various places in the Zone.

Check every building, tunnel, outpost, and abandoned site in the forest to find extra supplies, crafting components, and more. Search every location like a bloodhound and pick up everything that isn’t nailed down to the floor. Insane difficulty leaves you with few supplies hidden around to begin with so you will need everything you can get your hands on.

But you can’t take your sweet time looking under every rock. Wandering around too long is always risky. Chernobylite storms progress and the longer you take to complete your main objective, the bigger your chance of being surprised by the invasion of the Black Stalker.

Become best friends with the Environmental Analyzer which will help you locate every hidden item in your surroundings as well as alert you to harmful levels of radiation. It can help you save time and your life.

Develop your base

Developing your base is important (and fun), but be careful you don’t make it your sole focus. Building stations takes precious resources so it’s not a good idea to expand your base as much as you can from the beginning—you might end up not having enough resources for other necessary things.

To start off with, you need food and a comfortable living space to keep you and your comrades happy. Food isn’t abundant in the Zone so build a few vegetable gardens and a Stove for cooking and crafting. Build a work table to craft necessary equipment and build beds for comfort and quicker healing. As you progress, build up your storage and think about upgrading your armor. 

Always think about whether a certain build is absolutely necessary before investing your resources in it.

Build storage in your base

You can carry quite a lot in the field but there will come a time when you’ll have too much weight on your shoulders. Dropping equipment in the field is a terrible waste and should be avoided at all costs. Instead, awaken your inner squirrel and hoard, hoard, and then hoard some more.

Build storage at your base from the beginning. Make separate storage for collecting your food, another one for crafting materials, and another one more for weapons. If you can, build a separate storage unit for ammo too.

Organize your items and monitor how much you have of each resource, it will keep things organized and it will pay in the progress throughout the game.

Take care of your comrades

Managing your comrades is another crucial aspect that influences your success in the game. It’s not enough to just give them some food and call it a day.

Your comrades are individuals who give you various benefits. You need them not only as a team for the main quest but also to expand your own abilities through specific training sessions. You also need to keep in mind that they use up different resources so you need to strike a fine balance between the number of resources and comrades you have.

Manage food rations wisely to keep your team in good health and equip them with some good gear to give them a fighting chance. How your base is arranged is also important, so don’t just toss things wherever there is some room. Your comrades will feel much more comfortable and rested in well-organized surroundings. Otherwise, they’ll just dump your sorry Geiger counter and leave you to fend for yourself.

When sending comrades on a mission, always pay attention to the possibility of success which is displayed in the mission selection menu. If the chance of success is low, switch out that comrade for someone with better chances.

Build your stations in the field

Your abandoned warehouse base is your relative safe place where you can craft, heal, and plan your survival. But what if you’re far from your base? What do you do when you run out of ammo, healing items, and other important equipment while on the go?

Firstly, remain calm. You have various options for building simple stations in the field. At the beginning of the game, it’s a good idea to save resources and build single stations just to craft the item you really need like, for example, a Stove, to craft some healing salts quickly or a basic field workshop to craft some additional ammo. Remember, that once you’ve crafted what you need, you can dismantle the station and get back some resources. Later, when you will have more options and resources, it’s good to build some small camps in various corners of the Zone so you’re only a quick dash away from much needed tools or equipment at any given time.

Adjust your quick menu

Panic will kill you, especially if you’re taken by surprise by the enemy. Adjusting your quick menu to have the most important items at hand can sometimes make the difference between a successful mission and a failed one.

A good idea is to assign numbers 1 and 2 on your keyboard to two main weapons; leave numbers 3 and 4 for your healing item and your Environmental Analyzer. This way you’re not wasting valuable time on finding your weapon or trying to restore your health.


Armed with this handy guide, insane difficulty should be a little less of a nightmare. So stock up, gear up, and focus, Stalker, you’re ready for the Zone!