The five-part HBO series dramatises the story of the 1986 nuclear accident, one of the worst man-made catastrophes in history, and of the brave men and women who made incredible sacrifices to save not just the Soviet Union, but the whole of Europe, from unimaginable disaster.

Directed by Johan Renck (Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead), Chernobyl stars Emmy nominee Jared Harris (The Crown, Mad Men) as nuclear physicist Valery Legasov; People’s Choice nominee Stellan Skarsgård (Mamma Mia, Good Will Hunting) as deputy prime minister Boris Shcherbina; Oscar nominee Emily Watson (Hilary and Jackie, Breaking the Waves) as nuclear physicist Ulana Khomyuk, and 2019 British Actress of the Year Jessie Buckley (Taboo, The Last Post) as Lyudmilla Ignatenko, the wife of one of the first firefighters to respond.  

Rotten Tomatoes recently hailed Chernobyl as “TV’s most scary offering in years… where history and reality are more terrifying than zombies.”

The Chernobyl explosion was the result of a routine safety test gone wrong, but the series makes it clear the catastrophe was caused less by individual human error and more by the broader culture of fear within the Soviet Union at the time, where a culture of denialism and blame-shifting had become entrenched, and where, as executive producer Jane Featherstone (Broadchurch) puts it, “Everyone was afraid of the system.” 

“When you start to look at all the different causes of this accident to happen, it’s an accumulation of that kind of a mentality, which is that it’s more convenient to believe comfortable truths and comfortable facts, than it is to face difficult choices and difficult realities,” says Jared Harris. 

Or as his character Valery Legasov says in a key scene, “That is how a RBMK reactor core explodes – lies.”

But while South Africans may find some chilling parallels watching Chernobyl, they’ll also be inspired by the story of its heroic clean-up. 

“The Soviets and particularly the people of Ukraine and Russia and Belarus threw themselves at this task in a way that is shocking and beautiful and terrifying and heart-breaking,” says writer and executive producer Craig Mazin, Chernobyl’s writer/executive producer. “We’re talking about 700 000 people sent to clean up this impossibly contaminated area.”

Many of these heroes did not receive a hero’s welcome. “These were scientists trying to solve a mystery within a system that did not want them to solve the mystery,” says Mazin of his lead characters. “They were put on trial. Scientists involved in this were threatened. Their families were threatened. But yet they did it anyway, because they understood as scientists that the truth was something that could no longer be hidden away.”

As he says about some of the other heroes at Chernobyl, “There was no expectation that they would survive. But they did it nonetheless.” 

The show is now available to stream on Showmax.

French independent developer Tactical Adventures has announced that its new project, Solasta: Crown of the Magister, is coming to Steam. The game embraces the ruleset of Dungeons and Dragons, the world’s greatest role-playing game, where a player’s choice dynamically changes the adventure. The journey begins with creating a team of four explorers, selecting their race, class, background story, rolling for abilities, and personal stats. Players journey through the mystical realms of Solasta, unravelling a story that spans multiple worlds.

The dynamic and mysterious world of Solasta features new elements of verticality, allowing players to use their surroundings as an element of strategy. Players can position ranged characters on high vantage points or send their thieves down into shafts and caverns to scope out what’s ahead. Utilise light as a tool to explore the depths and hollows of dungeons or use it as a weapon against the creatures of the dark. Solasta is a team-based adventure where each character plays a critical role in the campaign and can be a hero. Players must take advantage of each character’s strengths and weaknesses if they are to succeed.

Players will have the opportunity to get in on the adventure before it even starts when Tactical Adventures launches its Kickstarter campaign at the end of summer. Players will be able to back Solasta: Crown of the Magister on Kickstarter and link arms with the developers, joining the Solasta community and being rewarded for doing so!

“Tactical Adventures is a small team comprised of Tabletop gamers, many of whom have been playing pen and paper games as well as D&D videogames for over 30 years,” says Mathieu Girard, founder of Tactical Adventures and Creative Director of the game. “We have always dreamed of creating our own game, so we set out to create Solasta, taking the best elements of our favourite games and enhancing and building upon them. Additionally, we have added new features such as light, verticality, team-based adventure, dice rolls, etc. We are using the actual rulesets from Tabletop games to finally bridge the gap between Pen and Paper and videogames.”

Tactical Adventures provided the following information on features:

• Verticality: Solasta is a three-dimensional world rather than a series of flat maps. Locations can be explored by climbing walls, flying, teleporting, crawling through tunnels, finding secret passages, or falling through the unstable ground, and allow the player to use the environment to take on encounters in multiple different ways.
• Team-Based Adventure: Players will have many options to choose races, classes, backgrounds, and can even roll for stats as they create their party. All members are essential – together players will adventure through Solasta as a group, where they must work together in pursuit of the quest.
• Tactical CRPG: Each encounter can be handled in multiple ways. Will you use the high ground to strike your enemies from above as a Darkweaver Rogue, or shove your enemies into deep chasms as a Mountaineer Fighter? Players choices determine the destiny of your party.
• Created by Tabletop Players: Tactical Adventures is a team of highly experienced Tabletop players and veteran game developers who are passionate about the genre, striving to create the best Tactical RPG videogame
• Kickstarter: Tactical Adventures is giving players the opportunity to be heard by joining the community and backing Solasta on Kickstarter.  The campaign will feature a tiered reward system and the team is already working on a demo of the game.