Though the news thatSTALKER 2would be pushed back to late Novemberwas 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 aSTALKERgame through and through.
Explainingwhythis is the case is not easy, however. The last officialSTALKERgame –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 theSTALKERexperience, but fans the franchise has accrued since have been playing standalone mods more often than not.
STALKER 2 is STALKER, not a glorified mod
I was taken aback by how true-to-formSTALKER 2was in the new footage, honestly. It was such a potently eye-opening sequence, in fact, that it helped me remember just howmuchmods changed the oldSTALKERgames over the years. It’s kind of poetic, really, in that theSTALKERexperience mutated over time in much the same way The Zone did. Now, however, withSTALKER 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 oldSTALKERtitles 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 –notjust another hardcore tactical shooter in the vein ofEscape From Tarkov.
The oldSTALKERgames were exceedingly janky: some of the most prominent examples of the Eurojank niche, in fact. Your binoculars used to highlightevery living beingin 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 toSTALKERis 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, thatSTALKERgames 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 bothShadow of ChernobylandClear Skyis that their stories were largely linear, and there was no way to continue playing after you were done with them.Call of Pripyatintroduced 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 forSTALKER 2to be waymore linear and deliberate as its story goes on, and the fact that there arethree hours’ worth of cutscenesin the game may suggest as much, too.STALKERhas 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 aSons of the Foresttype of thing, is what I’m getting at. Inevitably, this will disappoint some people, and I suspect it’s going to be the fans ofGAMMAandAnomalywho 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 2is 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 aboutSTALKER 2until 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 officialSTALKERgame 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 likeGAMMA, 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 imaginedSTALKER 2would look years ago. Who knew it might end up crystallizing in the end!
