The developers have stated that this was done because brass ejecting across the player's field of view felt more 'dynamic.' Many of the weapons were modeled with considerable detail, often using textures made from photographs of real examples. The game features a semi-realistic ballistic model, incorporating such details as bullet drop and ricochets (though the game rather oddly applies NPC 'to-hit' rules to the player, meaning after scoring a hit there is a randomised chance the shot will miss), but the majority of weapons are modeled with ejection ports, charging handles and other working parts transplanted to the left side of every gun, in the manner of Counter-Strike and Far Cry 2. Developers really traveled to Chernobyl to gain inspiration for the game and get ideas for production design. The game itself was successful on both domestic and international game markets.

It is heavily inspired by the film Stalker directed by Andrei Tarkovsky as well as original novel The Roadside Picnic by Strugatski Brothers on which the film was based. It was first announced by GSC Game World in 2001 and eventually released in 2007. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl is a first-person shooter with heavy role-playing game elements developed by Ukrainian game developer GSC Game World released on the PC.

Stalker call of pripyat sniper rifles