![stalker noises of the zone stalker noises of the zone](https://media.moddb.com/cache/images/mods/1/42/41087/crop_160x120/inventory-volume.mp4.jpg)
(Which, if anything, makes it even more likely that 'Zone' would have been on Swedish sci-fi fans' brains as 1984 approached). The question thus still hangs: was 1984 Mutant's 'zone' inspired by Roadside Picnic? It's perhaps unlikely that apparent sci-fi literature fans Petersen and Gunilla would have been unaware of the novel, which saw an award-winning Swedish translation in 1979 - the same year as the Tarkovsky film, however that was not released in Sweden until 1981. There's also the first Mad Max film in 1979, and more notably its hugely trope-setting sequel in 1981 - in other words, there was a dense knot of post-apocalyptic concepts inspiring and/or feeding off each other around the time of Mutant. As an aside, Fallout precursor Wasteland was released in 1988, but began development in 1983. Meanwhile, Gamma World first showed up in 1978, while the comic Kamandi began publication in 1972 neither of these used the specific term 'zone', though the essential concept of post-disaster survival and mutation abides. It was Tarkovsky's very loose (and entirely remarkable) 1979 film adaptation Stalker that really cemented capital-t, capital-z The Zone as a singular place of post-disaster weirdness and lethality. That talked of 'zones' rather than 'The Zone'.
![stalker noises of the zone stalker noises of the zone](https://compote.slate.com/images/fdaf2494-d718-47c5-9564-d0da89a30e5a.jpg)
It should be pointed out here that STALKER's use of the term 'zone' originated in the 1971 novel Roadside Picnic, by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, which obviously pre-dates Mutant by over a decade. The two main sources of inspiration were the RPG ' Gamma World' by TSR and the comic ' Kamandi' by DC." "The original authors, Michael Petersen and Gunilla Jonsson, were, and are, quite familiar with sci-fi literature of the time. places where radiation or disease is still active, has been in Mutant since its introduction in 1984," explains writer and Bearded Ladies' resident Mutant expert Jimmy Wilhelmsson.
![stalker noises of the zone stalker noises of the zone](https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1012790/ss_f1082221bb142feaebc842ba90289f9f3e17ed5d.1920x1080.jpg)
"The term 'zone' as in 'forbidden zones', i.e. 'Mutant' was an 80s RPG, made and most popular in Sweden, and reborn a few years back as 'Mutant Year Zero.' It's the latter which most informs this month's videogame, but one of the contentious terms dates back to the former. "We have seen a few people accuse us of just being a copy of Stalker," game director Lee Varley tells me, "but the original Pen and Paper was written back in 1984 where this type of post apocalyptic fiction was very popular."
Stalker noises of the zone series#
In terms of its theme (mutants battling through a post-disaster world) developers The Bearded Ladies shrug off the legendary noughties survival-shooter series as an overt influence. (And then I spent far too long researching the Swedish release dates of cult 1970s sci-fi). How what why? I asked Mutant Year Zero's developers to explain this anomaly. games/seen Tarkovsky's Stalker/read Roadside Picnic. Used repeatedly throughout the game are two beyond-familiar terms: 'zone' and 'Stalker.' Names scorched into the very soul of anyone who's played the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I had a fine time with Mutant Year Zero: Road To Eden's post-apocalyptic, ducking good blend of real-time stealth and turn-based combat, but one concern dogged me throughout.