S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl

[Ol' Willy]

I think i posted before that its one of the more dumber acts of self-immolation I've seen a gaming company commit to, the CIS region accounted for over 60% of SOC sales iirc.

Ukraine has opened a criminal case against Sergei Grigorovich, the founder of the GSC Game World studio, known for developing the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series. Reason: doing business with Russia and illegally crossing the border.

The point is that the game maker was publicly rooting for Ukraine, but in reality everything turned out to be a little different. All this time, Grigorovich continued to sell games in Russia, while hiding his income from the tax authorities - he and his assistants used crypto bridges and Russian payment systems.

According to rough estimates, Grigorovich’s company earned more than $5 million a year from selling games in the Russian Federation. And the most annoying thing is that it seems like he even paid taxes in Russia.

It is also reported that on March 28, 2022, Grigorovich illegally crossed the border of Ukraine using a permit for volunteers. And then he took all his money abroad

 

[Stavrophore]

Ukrainian authorities sabotaging the project, holy based.

 

[Fargus]

The biggest enemy of ukrainians are the ukrainians themselves.

 

[Harthwain]

Ukrainian authorities sabotaging the project, holy based.

How so? The game director and CEO of GSC Game World is Evgeniy Grygorovych, not Sergei Grigorovich (assuming the bit about the criminal case is even real to begin with, considering barely anyone is talking about it and this news is supposedly as old as March. Normally media shamelessly copy any juicy news).

 

[Hell Swarm]

So let me get this straight. In 2024 it's considered bad to give you opponent's fighting age men a reason not to fight? Clown world keeps getting dumber. If you cared about your people and had a weapon that made your opponent's soldiers stay at home and stare at a screen for hours on end why would you NOT use it? It's like broadcasting porn but on an even larger level. The more guys playing cheeky breeky games the less of them getting cheeky with your breekies on the front lines.

 

[Zlaja]

I can't tell Metro and CoD apart

While I prefer Stalker over Metro games, this argument is just silly. Metro games occupy a sort of middle ground between Stalker and games like COD.

 

[Hell Swarm]

I can't tell Metro and CoD apart

While I prefer Stalker over Metro games, this argument is just silly. Metro games occupy a sort of middle ground between Stalker and games like COD.

If you made slav CoD you would get Metro. It has nothing in common with stalker outside of the piss poor usage of the slav setting.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

Grigorovich’s company earned more than $5 million a year from selling games in the Russian Federation.

Very cheecky

Spoiler

breeki

 

[soutaiseiriron]

Ukraine has opened a criminal case against Sergei Grigorovich, the founder of the GSC Game World studio, known for developing the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series. Reason: doing business with Russia and illegally crossing the border.

source of this was a random katsap telegram post a month ago btw
not that i expect ziggers to be any better, truly the lowest common denominator

 

[9ted6]

I can't tell Metro and CoD apart

While I prefer Stalker over Metro games, this argument is just silly. Metro games occupy a sort of middle ground between Stalker and games like COD.

The trailer makes this look like Metro, CoD or even a Fallout 4 mod. Outside of it being in Chernobyl it doesn't resemble Stalker at all.

 

[BrainMuncher]

Haven't been following this one very closely, is there any actual gameplay footage? All I can find is a bunch of scripted shaky cam cutscenes, and some really short "gameplay" that's obviously contrived just for the video.

 

[Gerrard]

Haven't been following this one very closely, is there any actual gameplay footage? All I can find is a bunch of scripted shaky cam cutscenes, and some really short "gameplay" that's obviously contrived just for the video.

Unless you count the leak, no.

 

[Ryzer]

I notice that the op is wrong with the title. It's Chornobyyyyyyyyyyl, correct it immediately.

 

[ferratilis]

 

[Gerrard]

Dying from cringe.

 

[Konjad]

still no gameplay. yeah.

 

[ADL]

Enough cinematics. Show the fucking A-Life system. If it exists and would give the game the longevity the originals had, why wouldn't you show it?

 

[ferratilis]

why wouldn't you show it?

Because it doesn't exist. Come on man, put two and two together. They got the money from Microsoft, they'll get money from all the nostalgia driven players of the originals, they'll get the money from people who don't even care about the game but want to support Ukraine. Journalists will also love them because of that. And if anyone dares criticize the game, they will be accused of being a Putinophile and a fascist. It's a win-win situation for them. They can just put together a linear, setpiece driven shooter and call it a day. I don't even think something like A-Life would be possible in UE5, especially not with modern programming in games.

 

[Konjad]

It's just gonna be a Metro: Exodus-like game

 

[Gerrard]

muh A-Life
I'm fairly sure we've already had this discussion.

 

[Konjad]

muh A-Life
I'm fairly sure we've already had this discussion.

Don't worry, most gamers don't know what's a life

 

[Ryzer]

Dying from cringe.

Made in Ukraine, using a Russian book and appropriating Strugatsky's brothers work as well as a Russian movie but shhhhhh

 

[ciox]

Devs... I agree...

We all bleed Ukrainian!

But are you making a good game? Looks more like you are making Shadow of Chornobyl: The Netflix Series.

 

[Iucounu]

why wouldn't you show it?

Because it doesn't exist.

If you want to be optimistic, it could be that AI work does not have much to show before it's almost fully completed (unlike say level design, where you can finish work on just one small area and show). Also I recall the original A-Life inventor joined the Navy, which might delay work even more, even though others might be able to reverse engineer the original ideas. It could also be that even many old Stalker players are clueless about A-Life to this day, so trying to educate them (not to mention newcomers) about it would be a waste of marketing resources.

Come on man, put two and two together. They got the money from Microsoft, they'll get money from all the nostalgia driven players of the originals, they'll get the money from people who don't even care about the game but want to support Ukraine. Journalists will also love them because of that. And if anyone dares criticize the game, they will be accused of being a Putinophile and a fascist. It's a win-win situation for them. They can just put together a linear, setpiece driven shooter and call it a day.

Alas that seems more likely.

I don't even think something like A-Life would be possible in UE5, especially not with modern programming in games.

ARK Survival Evolved (using UE4) has similar AI with roaming creatures. A crucial difference is that ARK creatures go into stasis at a certain distance from the player, preventing true Stalker-like migration. But it seems possible to disable with the -PreventHibernation launch parameter (at least on Steam), so I'm sure there are no UE engine limits except performance. In the X-ray engine I've learned that a simplified "offline" version of the gameworld was used in order to improve performance, so maybe something like that would have to be custom made for Stalker 2. Or maybe today's PCs are powerful enough that such an offline version is no longer needed?

 

[deuxhero]

I'll be surprised if it actually releases, and be even more surprised if it isn't shit.