Dead City

"It is just an illusion, manufactured in a lab next to the sarcophagus..." The subject matter of this article was cut from the final version of a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game and should not be considered canon.

Dead City
Games	S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl
Factions	Bandits Mercenaries
Notable characters	Doctor Vasily Pietrovich

The city is split into two sections. We're on the Merc side. To the South beyond the square is where the bandits are. They're holed up in the school building Southwest of the city. In between the bases, there is a run down five-floor building and a few relatively intact ones. If the shit hits the fan, you can sit it out there. There are also some garages and a couple of small houses around that area. There are a couple of five-floor buildings and a dozen garages on the bandits' side too. The former city council building is on the other side of the square.
― Doc about the Dead City

Dead City is a location that was cut from S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl.

Overview

The Dead City is a Soviet-era town located between Yantar and Limansk that was abandoned by its inhabitants in the wake of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Over the years it fell prey to scavengers and elements, slowly falling apart.

The city's central feature is the town square, with a statue of Lenin in the middle. This square also houses the city's culture/sports centre and party headquarters. A short distance to the south-east lies the school, complete with a basketball court. The rest of the city is occupied by block housing, dilapidated single homes and garages.

Over the years, the city was stripped of most of its valuables and by 2012, it was practically an empty shell of its former self.

Population

The city is occupied by bandits and mercenaries, who have converted it into a secret base of sorts. Two major leaders of the factions reside within the city limits – Dushman and Borzij.

As such, the area is crawling with both bandits and mercs. While the former are your typical run-of-the-mill Zone marauders, the mercs are a force to be reckoned with, as they include, alongside regular mercs, exoskeleton operators and techs with SEVA suits. Their armament is also of high quality – mercs use TRs 301 and SGI-5k rifles alongside their armour.

Notable characters

• Borzij
• Dushman
• Doctor
• Vasily Pietrovich

Appearances

Dead City can be located in earlier builds of Shadow of Chernobyl, most notably Build 1935 where it has a fair amount of detail and is explorable.

Build 1935

In Build 1935, the Dead City is a very active area, containing many zombies, as well as Bloodsuckers, Boars, Flesh, Blind Dogs, Pseudodogs and a fair amount of stalkers. Obviously this was not how Dead City was going to appear in the final game – Dead City was supposed to be shared between mercenaries and bandits.

Dead City has a road to Yantar, a road to the Army Warehouses and a road to the Swamps.

Shadow of Chernobyl

The map behind Lukash with a mentioning of the Dead City.

Dead City was going to play a major role in Shadow of Chernobyl. Doctor was being held captive here, and Strelok was captured and brought to Dead City. A dialog compilation exists for the level which can be located in the game's files, alongside various textures and a character configuration file. Also, at the Army Warehouses, behind Lukash, one can see a map of the Dead City. If the player looks to the left top corner, they can see an arrow that points to the left of the map and a writing "Мертвый Город" (Dead City). This points to a conclusion that Dead City was intended to be put in the game, but it never made it into to the final product.

According to leftover dialog, the Dead City was supposed to be the part of the storyline where the Marked One would learn from Doc his true identity (as Strelok), and Doc would give Strelok the key to the Pripyat safehouse. In the final game, the Marked One is given both his true identity and the key to the Pripyat hotel by Doc in the Agroprom Underground, after recovering the documents from Lab X-16 and speaking to Guide.

Gallery

A map of Dead City

Looking at the statue of Lenin, located in the center of Dead City

Village in Dead City

Center of Dead City, from another angle

Underground tunnels

Dead City on the map of Clear Sky

Other

An image of Poliske

Trivia

• Limansk was believed to be a resurrection of Dead City, however it has been confirmed that they are separate locations. The in-game maps prove this – once again Dead City is visible in the PDA in both Shadow of Chernobyl and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky.
• The Dead City appears to draw inspiration from the city of Poliske, a settlement that was abandoned following the Chernobyl disaster. Unlike the in-game Dead City, Poliske is still inhabited by a few senior citizens, despite the city being in the Exclusion Zone.