STALKER 2 developer deep dive suggests this is, indeed, a true STALKER sequel
Though the news that STALKER 2 would be pushed back to late November was quite painful, GSC Game World's attempt to sweeten the deal with a developer deep dive worked. We got a 30-minute gameplay session and now know for sure: this is a STALKER game through and through.
Explaining why this is the case is not easy, however. The last official STALKER game - Call of Pripyat - launched back in 2009/2010, depending on your region, and from that point onwards, mods have been the key thing that kept players coming back for more. Sure, the core gameplay loop was the crux of the STALKER experience, but fans the franchise has accrued since have been playing standalone mods more often than not.
Stuff like GAMMA and Anomaly, for example, are what dominate the STALKER discussion boards, and up until the developer deep dive, there was an argument to be made that this is what GSC Game World would choose to emulate in the end. After all, mods are what the community wants, so why not give that to us? Well, I am thrilled to report that STALKER 2 hasn't been lost to the ultra-gloomy, super-hardcore tactical shooter niche that both GAMMA and Anomaly subscribe to.
STALKER 2 is STALKER, not a glorified mod
I was taken aback by how true-to-form STALKER 2 was in the new footage, honestly. It was such a potently eye-opening sequence, in fact, that it helped me remember just how much mods changed the old STALKER games over the years. It's kind of poetic, really, in that the STALKER experience mutated over time in much the same way The Zone did. Now, however, with STALKER 2, we're absolutely getting an authentic throwback, and one that was seemingly clever enough to know what to toss and what to keep.
I'm not being concrete enough, though, I know, and it's bound to be confusing to those who didn't play old STALKER titles as they came out. It's the opposite of a death by a thousand cuts: we're once again getting a weirdly exotic arsenal of weapons that shies away from genre tropes in lieu of originality. Enemies once again pop up on the mini-map, and the sound and detection meters whir away in the background. Seemingly unbreakable crates and metal cases give way when you hit them with a knife, and the whole game is - most certainly - not just another hardcore tactical shooter in the vein of Escape From Tarkov.
The old STALKER games were exceedingly janky: some of the most prominent examples of the Eurojank niche, in fact. Your binoculars used to highlight every living being in your sights, and healing was quick, easy, and readily accessible. Guns once jammed willy-nilly and broke apart in mere hours, and you genuinely didn't have to lug around 30 different healing items just to stay alive.
Story is a huge consideration
One of the more curious, albeit sensible, changes that standalone mods delivered to STALKER is that they are usually entirely sandbox and free-form, with either an extremely lightweight and unimportant narrative or skippable. This is perfectly valid for a mod: there's usually no budget or need to come up with stories and cutscenes, after all. The thing is, however, that STALKER games always had cutscenes and, in most cases, didn't really allow you to go wherever you wanted whenever you wanted.
The bit that often gets forgotten about both Shadow of Chernobyl and Clear Sky is that their stories were largely linear, and there was no way to continue playing after you were done with them. Call of Pripyat introduced the concept of post-campaign content to the series, giving us the sort of free-form gameplay the series always deserved.
This sets the precedent for STALKER 2 to be way more linear and deliberate as its story goes on, and the fact that there are three hours' worth of cutscenes in the game may suggest as much, too. STALKER has always had a story to tell, and the new title won't shy away from this in favor of sandbox gameplay. We're not getting a Sons of the Forest type of thing, is what I'm getting at. Inevitably, this will disappoint some people, and I suspect it's going to be the fans of GAMMA and Anomaly who might get caught in the crossfire.
Improvements where they make sense, not just for the sake of change
At the same time, of course, STALKER 2 is obviously improving upon its predecessors in some key ways. We can mantle, for one, and there's a fancy animation for eating, healing, and otherwise interacting with our inventories. It's good, it's fun, and it's decidedly less hardcore than a portion of the community might've expected out of the game.
I'll be honest here: I was skeptical about STALKER 2 until this latest devblog. I didn't think GSC Game World had it in them to faithfully recreate the bits that made the old games what they were. After the blog, though, I'm almost positive this will be true to its immense legacy.
The point of this article, though, is that there will be growing pains even if the game executes its vision absolutely perfectly. Since we haven't had an official STALKER game in a decade and a half, the understandable worry was that GSC might've taken too many pages from the hardcore tactical shooter mods released in the interim. One gamer's worry is another gamer's hope, though, and those who expected to get a survivalist bonanza are almost certainly going to be disappointed in what is, compared to stuff like GAMMA, decidedly less punishing.
Don't believe me? Take 30 minutes out of your day and watch the gameplay deep dive. From the delightfully weird franchise-classic mutants to the organic way both exploration and artifact hunting work, it's precisely how I imagined STALKER 2 would look years ago. Who knew it might end up crystallizing in the end!
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