How S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 moves the series forward – and why it reflects Ukraine’s “rebellious” spiritA play and a chat with GSC Game World
A play and a chat with GSC Game World
Image credit:GSC Game World
Image credit:GSC Game World
Then again, keeping the mystery intact may have been the point all along. “As a game director, I want to hide everything from the player”, GSC’s CEO Ievgen Grygorovych had told me minutes earlier. “I’m fighting with the marketing team because they want to show as much as possible!”
Image credit:GSC Game World
My Stalker moves heavily, but not clumsily. Weapons have a ferocious, meaty kick, but don’t handle awkwardly in the slightest. Even inventory management, which maintains a version of the series’ grid-based system, is snappy and intuitive.
That’s not to say that this is S.T.A.L.K.E.R. with the edges sanded off. There’s little of the narrative or UI handholding that modern shooters are so fond of, and my encounter with the bandits shows how quickly this place will kill the rushing or inattentive. But it’s polished, for sure, and generally does feel like a modern FPS. Fifteen years since the original trilogy concluded, is that a natural product of its environment, or more specifically an olive branch to the series newcomers that will have taken up games in the interim?
“Our first goal”, says Grygorovych, “was to make the game for players that don’t know anything about the first games. We understood that we will have a huge part of new players, and we want to make the game good for them.
“Also, we are reaching for the console audience and theGame Passaudience, which will be huge. We are totally aiming for the new players. And we knew from the start that this was our goal.”
Image credit:GSC Game World
“So the game, for me, is unique, and maybe some players wouldn’t laugh because it’s different from what they play each day! But I guess it’s good to have more unique games that are different from others.”
Image credit:GSC Game World
Among GSC’s responses was the decision to effectively remove the Russian language from the game; everything from dialogue to road signs would, unlike in the original trilogy, use Ukrainian. (My demo began with the option to play either with English subtitles, or a fully English replacement voiceover; I chose the former and, having heard the latter in subsequent B-roll, would recommend the same.) Still, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is not an anti-war game – Grygorovych and the rest of GSC simply wanted rid.
“There was nothing like… we put something in the game because of the war”, he says. “It was more like we didn’t want to have something in the game, and we just put it away. Not injecting something new. But yeah, we removed the Russian, we didn’t want to see it in the game.”
“I guess that’s been going for quite some time already.”
Image credit:GSC Game World
There will, however, be at least some additions that might not have made it in but for the war. Instead of going on the attack, GSC have – within the limits of what makes sense for a grim shooter – looked to celebrate Ukraine in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, such as with mosaics highlighting Ukrainian culture. Grygorovych and Bocharov agree this had to be approached “naturally”, though suggest that it’s also natural to have a little national pride.
“First it was against the Polish Commonwealth with Lithuania, and then it was against Russia occupying Ukrainian territories, and even in the modern age it’s continuing. We had two revolutions since the USSR was destroyed. It’s definitely in our code.”
