The historical past of the Stalker sequence, its developer, the off-shoots it spawned, and the group of gamers who proceed to mod the video games and discover new methods to play them to today, is one thing nicely price speaking about. These are all explanation why the chances towards Stalker 2: Coronary heart of Chornobyl are stacked.
Contemplate this: Coronary heart of Chornobyl was introduced in 2018 with nothing however a emblem, having been initially set for launch someday in 2021. I’ll be trustworthy, GSC Sport World’s fame made it arduous to consider that an actual Stalker 2 was really in improvement. Certainly, the studio itself admitted it introduced the sport that early to discover a writer, so actually, extra of assertion of intent. Nonetheless, I, like many followers, performed alongside.
It will take over two years for the first-ever trailer to emerge, and it was predictably extra of a tone piece than something, after which one other 12 months for gameplay to be proven.
It’s so amusing to return and browse that Stalker 2 was one in every of my 2022’s most anticipated video games, proper alongside Elden Ring. Simply as 2022 started, GSC delayed the sport to December of the identical 12 months. A month later, Russia invaded Ukraine. Being a Ukrainian studio, GSC understandably needed to put improvement on maintain, earlier than the studio managed to relocate to Prague and resume engaged on the sport. A few of its members even joined the Ukrainian armed forces, which little doubt had an irreparable impact on the sport’s improvement.
The impression of battle breaking out within the nation the place you reside and work can by no means be overstated, and I’ve my doubts that the Stalker 2 GSC had envisioned years prior would ever be potential. That already may provide sufficient rationalization as to why the sport, nicely, simply doesn’t appear to be the one we’d seen in 2021.
In August, GSC launched some footage displaying varied bits of gameplay to coincide with a Gamescom demo. Although the trailer was temporary, it showcased sufficient random exploration, fight, some dialogue, coping with anomalies, slight stock administration, and a number of what you can count on.
I’ve not performed that demo, so I can solely go off different individuals’s impressions of it, and the footage itself. The sport appears like a distant cousin to Stalker. It appears to have a much bigger concentrate on motion, with not a lot of the RPG and stock administration parts the classics are recognized for.
Stalker video games are terrifying, and also you’re by no means meant to really feel highly effective inside their worlds. You’re at all times one shot away from dying, one mistaken transfer or poor rationing determination from touchdown your self into an irreversible state of affairs. Stalker is a recreation of juggling stakes. However that’s not the impression I received from the footage.
How shut Stalker 2 borrows from the classics stays to be seen, in fact, and it’s not truthful to learn an excessive amount of into a brief trailer meant to make the sport look thrilling. No trailer will surely be capable to translate how a lot jank a recreation has. Jank has at all times been a part of Stalker’s appeal, not due to its mere existence, however as a result of it hid so much potential beneath; proving there’s a greater recreation there for these prepared to place up with it.
There’s additionally the ingredient of the visible downgrade. However once more, we’re taking a look at an in-development construct of a recreation and a studio that went by means of hell. Positive, it doesn’t look pretty much as good because the preliminary reveal, however visible splendour was by no means Stalker’s strongest go well with – it was at all times how robust its environment was regardless of its outdated visuals.
As I write this in December of 2023, Stalker 2 nonetheless doesn’t have a launch date. For a short interval in the summertime, we thought it is perhaps out in December, however it later received quietly pushed again to Q1 of 2024. Essentially the most vital occasions on this improvement story are but extra tragedies befalling GSC, with the studio struggling a giant hack in March, and its workplaces surviving a significant hearth in the summertime.
We’re nicely previous the purpose of Stalker 2 dwelling as much as that preliminary reveal, I solely hope it lives as much as the Stalker legacy – or, no less than, be a compelling recreation in its personal proper.
