This article is about Radar—a canyon-style level built around a repurposed over-the-horizon radar with adjacent forest and highway checkpoints that block access to the center of the Zone in SoC. For the actual red-leafed forest region, see Red Forest.

	For the location in Heart of Chornobyl, see Malachite.

A dreadful place. Easy to vanish without a trace there, no matter how lucky you have been in life so far. Whoever gets close to the Brain Scorcher immediately goes insane, turns into a zombie and starts stalking the Zone restlessly. A human shell is all that's left. No-one has ever returned with a sound mind.

Encyclopedia

Radar^[1], also known as Red Forest^[2] and Scorcher^[3][4], is a location in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl that blocks the way to the center of the Zone. It's a canyon-like area built around a repurposed over-the-horizon radar with a small adjacent forest^[5] and a highway.

Scorcher can be seen in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl as part of the western region Malachite.

Overview

Some time after 2006, Radar became inaccessible due to the Brain Scorcher. The surrounding area became a fortified Monolith outpost, which the fanatics use to launch regular raids on the Barrier.

Appearances

Shadow of Chernobyl

Radar^[1], also known as Red Forest^[2] and Scorcher^[3][4], can be accessed the player from the Barrier, but the deadly levels of psi emissions makes exploration impossible without acquiring the Psi-helmet from Sakharov. The main objective there is to disable the Brain Scorcher in the Lab X-10 in order to gain access to Pripyat.

Radar is dominated by the Monolith faction, which has set up outposts on most of the road to the Brain Scorcher. The forest^[5] is occupied by snorks, pseudodogs, a psy dog (the only one in the game), zombified stalkers, and bloodsuckers (after turning off the Brain Scorcher, there's also a controller and blind dogs).

This is a dangerous area: not only most of the map is full of hostiles, whether they're mutants or Monolith fighters, but most of the available cover is heavily irradiated, making Anti-rads and anti-radiation artifacts a must-have. As well, the player will be confronted by snipers and heavily-armed fighters. Therefore, a sniper rifle and an assault rifle with sufficient ammunition and medical equipment is advised.

There are two ways the player can go towards the Brain Scorcher: either they can follow the road or cross through the forest^[5]. The road is the fastest way but has most of the resistance here, i.e., all the Monolith fighters. The forest way is longer but has less resistance (only the aforementioned mutants), at the cost of being the most irradiated part of the map, as well as being filled with anomalies of various kinds. The forest way leads towards a grate that gives the player direct access to the main road.

The Brain Scorcher itself is an over-the-horizon radar (OTH) system protected by no fewer than 20–30 Monolith fighters, including snipers. Moreover, in the vicinity of the antennas, the player will see apparitions caused by the intense psi-emissions. The radar complex has a technical tunnel with the secret passage leading towards Lab X-10.

After the Marked One deactivates the Brain Scorcher, the area is populated by Loners, who usually set their camps on the roads to the antennas. Also, as the player comes out of Lab X-10, the area is raided by squads of military just by the trains near the emitters, leading to a large cross-fire between Monolith fighters and the soldiers. As the player approaches the road to Pripyat, the player can witness a three-way firefight between Monolith fighters, as well as teams of Duty and Freedom experts — whoever wins will guard the entrance to Pripyat. If the player decides to go back to the Army Warehouses, they will have to encounter a contingent of soldiers guarding the entrance checkpoint.

Notable Locations

• Brain Scorcher
• Scorcher technical tunnel
• Bus stop
• Pripyat checkpoint
• Scorcher checkpoint / Southern checkpoint
• Black Forest^[5]
• Northeast base

Development

In early Shadow of Chernobyl builds, Radar featured five peculiar line-shaped garbage piles, symbolizing the buried real-life Red Forest. As development progressed, GSC replaced the garbage piles with a forest^[5] (by Build 2205) and then decorated it with mutilated trees (by Build 2571). And the team also renamed the map to "Radar" in the original Russian version. However, most non-Russian localizations (except for the later Ukrainian one) retained the old name "Red Forest", creating a legacy error that was never corrected.

In Clear Sky, the developers returned to the idea of implementing the Red Forest in their game, but this time they presented their fantasy of what the Red Forest might have been if it hadn't been bulldozed and buried in trenches, with the trenches then covered with sand.

It should also be noted that in Build 1935, the current entrance to Pripyat used to be a direct road to the CNPP.

Trivia

• Opposite the three-way crossroads—where one branch of the highway goes to the antenna complex and the other (only in SoC) to Pripyat—there is a passage to the Scorcher technical tunnel that goes inside the hill. By going through the hole in the metal fence and climbing the ladder to the metal platform, one can see a locked door. The passcode is 1287975.
  • In S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl — Enhanced Edition, unlocking this door grants the "The Door Vinci Code" achievement. Oddly, the game never provides the code in-game—you must either dig through the game's data files or consult an external guide. Instead of fixing the flaw, the developers highlighted it.
  • The bodies of three research assistants lie near the hole in the fence on the forest side. The player was supposed to get a code when looting one of them, but this was not included in the release version of the game.
  • In S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl the location returned, and the code from the door this time was put in white paint on the posts of the fence that encloses the tunnel from the side of the highway.

Gallery

Shadow of Chernobyl

Scorcher in Shadow of Chernobyl

The Monolith outpost in Shadow of Chernobyl

The tunnel at the Monolith outpost leads to a dead end

The location of the secret door on the PDA

References

See Also

• SoC Walkthrough