- Joined
- Mar 9, 2019
- Messages
- 3,928
only amk or only zrp
-
Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.
"This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl - coming September 5th
Silva
Arcane
Too many cutscenes... I got a bad feeling about this.
Manjuice Nutella
Arcane
That's just promo material that's supposed to be eye-catching, showing mainly equivalents of Strelok losing consciousness, Agroprom raid, and other scripted cutscenes from SoC. From what I've seen playing the dev build and leaks the game works more like Skyrim, i.e:
https://vk.com/video/@vestnik_tss?z=video-165011456_456239916/club165011456/pl_-165011456_-2
Cutscenes have to be just a fraction of a game by necessity of it being a 100h long open world game.
Besides, I never trust the promo material at face value, not after this:
Manjuice Nutella
Arcane
Yeah, I played the leaked dev version and translated/pieced together some of their design docs.
If you're interested in those spoilers, first I'll mention 1) some things that happened in the original trilogy if you don't remember it, and 2) those spoilers
SOC: The Zone appears in 2006 because a group of post-Soviet scientists tried to bring Communism to the entire world and failed miserably. Ukr military tries to cover it up with raids and whatnot. IRL it's 2007's zeitgeist so they are incompetent, corrupt so you shoot droves of them for fun.
In game the year is 2012 and the Zone is still a local phenomenon. Freedom NPCs mention a "legendary leader of Freedom", named Mikluha, who made his way past the Brain Scorcher to Pripyat, who's presumably killed. You can find his Stash in Pripyat.
Clear Sky: You play as Scar, following in the footsteps of Strelok to bring him down, because, well, Clear Sky plot of dubious logic. Little of consequence happens until Red Forest, with the main hub centered around "Forester", and the location itself leads to town of Limansk-13. Limansk itself is kinda lost in space and time inside the Zone, like a Black Lodge from Twin Peaks.
The ending shows Strelok and others, implied to be Clear Sky indoctrinated by C-Consciousness, viewed from Scar's perspective. His fate remains unknown.
Call of Pripyat: You play as Major Degtaryev, sent undercover into Zaton->Jupiter->Pripyat.
Strelok reappers as an NPC, it turns out killing C-Consciousness only made the Zone worse and more unstable.
During sidequests, you help various dudes in distress, like ex-Monolith Strider and his crew find their place on Earth, or help Loners helping Ecologists to form "Iskra" team of assistants.
Ending cutscenes show Strelok hired as a consultant for a newly formed SIRCAA - institute founded to study the Zone and help humanity blablabla.
In game the year is 2012 and the Zone is still a local phenomenon. Freedom NPCs mention a "legendary leader of Freedom", named Mikluha, who made his way past the Brain Scorcher to Pripyat, who's presumably killed. You can find his Stash in Pripyat.
Clear Sky: You play as Scar, following in the footsteps of Strelok to bring him down, because, well, Clear Sky plot of dubious logic. Little of consequence happens until Red Forest, with the main hub centered around "Forester", and the location itself leads to town of Limansk-13. Limansk itself is kinda lost in space and time inside the Zone, like a Black Lodge from Twin Peaks.
The ending shows Strelok and others, implied to be Clear Sky indoctrinated by C-Consciousness, viewed from Scar's perspective. His fate remains unknown.
Call of Pripyat: You play as Major Degtaryev, sent undercover into Zaton->Jupiter->Pripyat.
Strelok reappers as an NPC, it turns out killing C-Consciousness only made the Zone worse and more unstable.
During sidequests, you help various dudes in distress, like ex-Monolith Strider and his crew find their place on Earth, or help Loners helping Ecologists to form "Iskra" team of assistants.
Ending cutscenes show Strelok hired as a consultant for a newly formed SIRCAA - institute founded to study the Zone and help humanity blablabla.
The year is 2023. Since the world is a global village, the entire world knows about the Zone and SIRCAA, where they give interviews to the mass media etc. Their research concentrates among other things, on Project X and "anomalous energy". It turns out while the illegal artifact trade/smuggling was profitable, when outside the Zone for too long, they gradually lose their properties, shrivel etc. SIRCAA is working on restoring them, and while their rhetoric is noble, they seem about as trustworthy as your average mainstream politician/corporate CEO.
Since killing ukrainian soldiers is rather passe, the "Military" is now an international force guarding the perimeter/Wall, looking more like Trump's wet dream than Cordon's post-Soviet checkpoint. SIRCAA itself builds an HQ with an aesthetic of Arasaka tower from Cyberpunk.
You play as Skif (reference to Scythians), who is a martially skilled mercenary or something, but it's his first time to the Zone. He arrives with Professor Hermann from CoP there, because 1) his home was destroyed by anomaly way outside of the Zone's borders (similar to a so-called Second Carribean Accident, where an outburst from Noosphere also appeared there) and 2) he's in possession of a MacGuffin in form of such shriveled artifact, now a dull grey rock. When at first he tries to restore it, he gets jumped and robbed by unknown assailants. After that you wake up, blind dog chews your leg etc. and meet Richter, who is a mentor to Skif about the Zone's peculiarities and your bro throughout the game.
The plot proper centers around Skif's allegiance to one of 2 factions.
The first is Varta (Ward), led by that bald General Kornushov. They are the Zone's police and guards to SIRCAA's white collars.
The second is Iskra, led by Scar. They evolved from 4-man group from CoP into Clear Sky v2. and are more like Freedom to Varta's Duty, I guess. They are also employed by SIRCAA, although with mutual mistrust. All of that gives everyone an impression they're up to something misguided or shady.
Anyway, since Varta is the Zone's official police, Duty gets sidetracked into Skyrim Civil War with Freedom all around the Zone. Mikluha returns to Freedom, and (Freedom) takes the Rostok, while Duty goes north-east into Concrete Plant. I've seen Zulu starting some side-quest placeholder there. General Voronin also returns, and this time, nothing will stop Duty on its glorious march towards saving the planet.
The Zone itself includes all of the locations from the trilogy (some rearranged) and a lot of new ones, some of them being previous cut content, like Generators or that geological anomaly from Clear Sky's artwork (named Malachite).
New factions include:
Noon - Strider's own faction of "good" Ex-Monolithians. There are enough of them around the Zone, and not all take it all that well.
Flame - an Antifa offshoot of Freedom. They got pissed Freedom is on NATO's payroll and formed their own anarchist radical faction.
Degtaryev forms Degtaryev Corps in Yanov, Jupiter.
While Scar is back, Limansk will be a DLC
Since killing ukrainian soldiers is rather passe, the "Military" is now an international force guarding the perimeter/Wall, looking more like Trump's wet dream than Cordon's post-Soviet checkpoint. SIRCAA itself builds an HQ with an aesthetic of Arasaka tower from Cyberpunk.
You play as Skif (reference to Scythians), who is a martially skilled mercenary or something, but it's his first time to the Zone. He arrives with Professor Hermann from CoP there, because 1) his home was destroyed by anomaly way outside of the Zone's borders (similar to a so-called Second Carribean Accident, where an outburst from Noosphere also appeared there) and 2) he's in possession of a MacGuffin in form of such shriveled artifact, now a dull grey rock. When at first he tries to restore it, he gets jumped and robbed by unknown assailants. After that you wake up, blind dog chews your leg etc. and meet Richter, who is a mentor to Skif about the Zone's peculiarities and your bro throughout the game.
The plot proper centers around Skif's allegiance to one of 2 factions.
The first is Varta (Ward), led by that bald General Kornushov. They are the Zone's police and guards to SIRCAA's white collars.
The second is Iskra, led by Scar. They evolved from 4-man group from CoP into Clear Sky v2. and are more like Freedom to Varta's Duty, I guess. They are also employed by SIRCAA, although with mutual mistrust. All of that gives everyone an impression they're up to something misguided or shady.
Anyway, since Varta is the Zone's official police, Duty gets sidetracked into Skyrim Civil War with Freedom all around the Zone. Mikluha returns to Freedom, and (Freedom) takes the Rostok, while Duty goes north-east into Concrete Plant. I've seen Zulu starting some side-quest placeholder there. General Voronin also returns, and this time, nothing will stop Duty on its glorious march towards saving the planet.
The Zone itself includes all of the locations from the trilogy (some rearranged) and a lot of new ones, some of them being previous cut content, like Generators or that geological anomaly from Clear Sky's artwork (named Malachite).
New factions include:
Noon - Strider's own faction of "good" Ex-Monolithians. There are enough of them around the Zone, and not all take it all that well.
Flame - an Antifa offshoot of Freedom. They got pissed Freedom is on NATO's payroll and formed their own anarchist radical faction.
Degtaryev forms Degtaryev Corps in Yanov, Jupiter.
While Scar is back, Limansk will be a DLC
Heart of Chernobyl, what else?
the titular Heart of Chernobyl refers to both 1) the real Center of the Zone - not the CNPP, but Generators, and 2) it's that artifact Strelok brings to the Doctor in SoC cutscene flashbacks.
the grey rock Skif brought to the Zone turns out to be a shard of the Monolith, which obviously gets reactivated or something
american spy succesfuly infiltratedIs this due to radiation?
cope
this is the future ukrainians are fighting for.
Jacov
Educated
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2023
- Messages
- 160
Interesting! Thank you for sharing.
Yeah, I played the leaked dev version and translated/pieced together some of their design docs.
If you're interested in those spoilers, first I'll mention 1) some things that happened in the original trilogy if you don't remember it, and 2) those spoilers
SOC: The Zone appears in 2006 because a group of post-Soviet scientists tried to bring Communism to the entire world and failed miserably. Ukr military tries to cover it up with raids and whatnot. IRL it's 2007's zeitgeist so they are incompetent, corrupt so you shoot droves of them for fun.
In game the year is 2012 and the Zone is still a local phenomenon. Freedom NPCs mention a "legendary leader of Freedom", named Mikluha, who made his way past the Brain Scorcher to Pripyat, who's presumably killed. You can find his Stash in Pripyat.
Clear Sky: You play as Scar, following in the footsteps of Strelok to bring him down, because, well, Clear Sky plot of dubious logic. Little of consequence happens until Red Forest, with the main hub centered around "Forester", and the location itself leads to town of Limansk-13. Limansk itself is kinda lost in space and time inside the Zone, like a Black Lodge from Twin Peaks.
The ending shows Strelok and others, implied to be Clear Sky indoctrinated by C-Consciousness, viewed from Scar's perspective. His fate remains unknown.
Call of Pripyat: You play as Major Degtaryev, sent undercover into Zaton->Jupiter->Pripyat.
Strelok reappers as an NPC, it turns out killing C-Consciousness only made the Zone worse and more unstable.
During sidequests, you help various dudes in distress, like ex-Monolith Strider and his crew find their place on Earth, or help Loners helping Ecologists to form "Iskra" team of assistants.
Ending cutscenes show Strelok hired as a consultant for a newly formed SIRCAA - institute founded to study the Zone and help humanity blablabla.
The year is 2023. Since the world is a global village, the entire world knows about the Zone and SIRCAA, where they give interviews to the mass media etc. Their research concentrates among other things, on Project X and "anomalous energy". It turns out while the illegal artifact trade/smuggling was profitable, when outside the Zone for too long, they gradually lose their properties, shrivel etc. SIRCAA is working on restoring them, and while their rhetoric is noble, they seem about as trustworthy as your average mainstream politician/corporate CEO.
Since killing ukrainian soldiers is rather passe, the "Military" is now an international force guarding the perimeter/Wall, looking more like Trump's wet dream than Cordon's post-Soviet checkpoint. SIRCAA itself builds an HQ with an aesthetic of Arasaka tower from Cyberpunk.
You play as Skif (reference to Scythians), who is a martially skilled mercenary or something, but it's his first time to the Zone. He arrives with Professor Hermann from CoP there, because 1) his home was destroyed by anomaly way outside of the Zone's borders (similar to a so-called Second Carribean Accident, where an outburst from Noosphere also appeared there) and 2) he's in possession of a MacGuffin in form of such shriveled artifact, now a dull grey rock. When at first he tries to restore it, he gets jumped and robbed by unknown assailants. After that you wake up, blind dog chews your leg etc. and meet Richter, who is a mentor to Skif about the Zone's peculiarities and your bro throughout the game.
The plot proper centers around Skif's allegiance to one of 2 factions.
The first is Varta (Ward), led by that bald General Kornushov. They are the Zone's police and guards to SIRCAA's white collars.
The second is Iskra, led by Scar. They evolved from 4-man group from CoP into Clear Sky v2. and are more like Freedom to Varta's Duty, I guess. They are also employed by SIRCAA, although with mutual mistrust. All of that gives everyone an impression they're up to something misguided or shady.
Anyway, since Varta is the Zone's official police, Duty gets sidetracked into Skyrim Civil War with Freedom all around the Zone. Mikluha returns to Freedom, and (Freedom) takes the Rostok, while Duty goes north-east into Concrete Plant. I've seen Zulu starting some side-quest placeholder there. General Voronin also returns, and this time, nothing will stop Duty on its glorious march towards saving the planet.
The Zone itself includes all of the locations from the trilogy (some rearranged) and a lot of new ones, some of them being previous cut content, like Generators or that geological anomaly from Clear Sky's artwork (named Malachite).
New factions include:
Noon - Strider's own faction of "good" Ex-Monolithians. There are enough of them around the Zone, and not all take it all that well.
Flame - an Antifa offshoot of Freedom. They got pissed Freedom is on NATO's payroll and formed their own anarchist radical faction.
Degtaryev forms Degtaryev Corps in Yanov, Jupiter.
While Scar is back, Limansk will be a DLC
Heart of Chernobyl, what else?
As for the Wish Granter,the titular Heart of Chernobyl refers to both 1) the real Center of the Zone - not the CNPP, but Generators, and 2) it's that artifact Strelok brings to the Doctor in SoC cutscene flashbacks.
the grey rock Skif brought to the Zone turns out to be a shard of the Monolith, which obviously gets reactivated or something
Do the Duty and Freedom get any actual development aside from «well, they are at war again»? In previous games they kinda just sat around and did nothing to further their goals, only killing each other from time to time. I fear that with the addition of a bunch of new factions they will just be «background» factions, sidetracked as you've said. Which would be a disappointment — I think the ideas of both factions are really interesting on paper and could play nicely into the overarching themes of the Zone, its wonders/horrors and its expansion.
Iucounu
Educated
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2023
- Messages
- 710
I think they are completely different. Strelok's dreams in SoC are subtle, ambiguous and mostly add to the backstory, all of which makes them enjoyable. The Stalker 2 cutscenes are nothing like that; they're only used to further the plot (with mediocre acting) and to show action sequences. None of the Stalker 2 trailers are enjoyable even as promo material.
That (and the one in Wild Territory) were not very good even in SoC.
NecroLord
Dumbfuck!
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2022
- Messages
- 10,899
Yanov Station was a neutral ground established by both Freedom and Duty when they were forced to shelter there during a particularly violent Emission.Interesting! Thank you for sharing.
Yeah, I played the leaked dev version and translated/pieced together some of their design docs.
If you're interested in those spoilers, first I'll mention 1) some things that happened in the original trilogy if you don't remember it, and 2) those spoilers
SOC: The Zone appears in 2006 because a group of post-Soviet scientists tried to bring Communism to the entire world and failed miserably. Ukr military tries to cover it up with raids and whatnot. IRL it's 2007's zeitgeist so they are incompetent, corrupt so you shoot droves of them for fun.
In game the year is 2012 and the Zone is still a local phenomenon. Freedom NPCs mention a "legendary leader of Freedom", named Mikluha, who made his way past the Brain Scorcher to Pripyat, who's presumably killed. You can find his Stash in Pripyat.
Clear Sky: You play as Scar, following in the footsteps of Strelok to bring him down, because, well, Clear Sky plot of dubious logic. Little of consequence happens until Red Forest, with the main hub centered around "Forester", and the location itself leads to town of Limansk-13. Limansk itself is kinda lost in space and time inside the Zone, like a Black Lodge from Twin Peaks.
The ending shows Strelok and others, implied to be Clear Sky indoctrinated by C-Consciousness, viewed from Scar's perspective. His fate remains unknown.
Call of Pripyat: You play as Major Degtaryev, sent undercover into Zaton->Jupiter->Pripyat.
Strelok reappers as an NPC, it turns out killing C-Consciousness only made the Zone worse and more unstable.
During sidequests, you help various dudes in distress, like ex-Monolith Strider and his crew find their place on Earth, or help Loners helping Ecologists to form "Iskra" team of assistants.
Ending cutscenes show Strelok hired as a consultant for a newly formed SIRCAA - institute founded to study the Zone and help humanity blablabla.
The year is 2023. Since the world is a global village, the entire world knows about the Zone and SIRCAA, where they give interviews to the mass media etc. Their research concentrates among other things, on Project X and "anomalous energy". It turns out while the illegal artifact trade/smuggling was profitable, when outside the Zone for too long, they gradually lose their properties, shrivel etc. SIRCAA is working on restoring them, and while their rhetoric is noble, they seem about as trustworthy as your average mainstream politician/corporate CEO.
Since killing ukrainian soldiers is rather passe, the "Military" is now an international force guarding the perimeter/Wall, looking more like Trump's wet dream than Cordon's post-Soviet checkpoint. SIRCAA itself builds an HQ with an aesthetic of Arasaka tower from Cyberpunk.
You play as Skif (reference to Scythians), who is a martially skilled mercenary or something, but it's his first time to the Zone. He arrives with Professor Hermann from CoP there, because 1) his home was destroyed by anomaly way outside of the Zone's borders (similar to a so-called Second Carribean Accident, where an outburst from Noosphere also appeared there) and 2) he's in possession of a MacGuffin in form of such shriveled artifact, now a dull grey rock. When at first he tries to restore it, he gets jumped and robbed by unknown assailants. After that you wake up, blind dog chews your leg etc. and meet Richter, who is a mentor to Skif about the Zone's peculiarities and your bro throughout the game.
The plot proper centers around Skif's allegiance to one of 2 factions.
The first is Varta (Ward), led by that bald General Kornushov. They are the Zone's police and guards to SIRCAA's white collars.
The second is Iskra, led by Scar. They evolved from 4-man group from CoP into Clear Sky v2. and are more like Freedom to Varta's Duty, I guess. They are also employed by SIRCAA, although with mutual mistrust. All of that gives everyone an impression they're up to something misguided or shady.
Anyway, since Varta is the Zone's official police, Duty gets sidetracked into Skyrim Civil War with Freedom all around the Zone. Mikluha returns to Freedom, and (Freedom) takes the Rostok, while Duty goes north-east into Concrete Plant. I've seen Zulu starting some side-quest placeholder there. General Voronin also returns, and this time, nothing will stop Duty on its glorious march towards saving the planet.
The Zone itself includes all of the locations from the trilogy (some rearranged) and a lot of new ones, some of them being previous cut content, like Generators or that geological anomaly from Clear Sky's artwork (named Malachite).
New factions include:
Noon - Strider's own faction of "good" Ex-Monolithians. There are enough of them around the Zone, and not all take it all that well.
Flame - an Antifa offshoot of Freedom. They got pissed Freedom is on NATO's payroll and formed their own anarchist radical faction.
Degtaryev forms Degtaryev Corps in Yanov, Jupiter.
While Scar is back, Limansk will be a DLC
Heart of Chernobyl, what else?
As for the Wish Granter,the titular Heart of Chernobyl refers to both 1) the real Center of the Zone - not the CNPP, but Generators, and 2) it's that artifact Strelok brings to the Doctor in SoC cutscene flashbacks.
the grey rock Skif brought to the Zone turns out to be a shard of the Monolith, which obviously gets reactivated or something
Do the Duty and Freedom get any actual development aside from «well, they are at war again»? In previous games they kinda just sat around and did nothing to further their goals, only killing each other from time to time. I fear that with the addition of a bunch of new factions they will just be «background» factions, sidetracked as you've said. Which would be a disappointment — I think the ideas of both factions are really interesting on paper and could play nicely into the overarching themes of the Zone, its wonders/horrors and its expansion.
Freedom were free thinkers, anarchists, that sort of thing (makes you wonder if there were many of them with military backgrounds), while Duty were ex police and military types (who might've even had connections with the military and the government).
Manjuice Nutella
Arcane
Interesting! Thank you for sharing.
Yeah, I played the leaked dev version and translated/pieced together some of their design docs.
If you're interested in those spoilers, first I'll mention 1) some things that happened in the original trilogy if you don't remember it, and 2) those spoilers
SOC: The Zone appears in 2006 because a group of post-Soviet scientists tried to bring Communism to the entire world and failed miserably. Ukr military tries to cover it up with raids and whatnot. IRL it's 2007's zeitgeist so they are incompetent, corrupt so you shoot droves of them for fun.
In game the year is 2012 and the Zone is still a local phenomenon. Freedom NPCs mention a "legendary leader of Freedom", named Mikluha, who made his way past the Brain Scorcher to Pripyat, who's presumably killed. You can find his Stash in Pripyat.
Clear Sky: You play as Scar, following in the footsteps of Strelok to bring him down, because, well, Clear Sky plot of dubious logic. Little of consequence happens until Red Forest, with the main hub centered around "Forester", and the location itself leads to town of Limansk-13. Limansk itself is kinda lost in space and time inside the Zone, like a Black Lodge from Twin Peaks.
The ending shows Strelok and others, implied to be Clear Sky indoctrinated by C-Consciousness, viewed from Scar's perspective. His fate remains unknown.
Call of Pripyat: You play as Major Degtaryev, sent undercover into Zaton->Jupiter->Pripyat.
Strelok reappers as an NPC, it turns out killing C-Consciousness only made the Zone worse and more unstable.
During sidequests, you help various dudes in distress, like ex-Monolith Strider and his crew find their place on Earth, or help Loners helping Ecologists to form "Iskra" team of assistants.
Ending cutscenes show Strelok hired as a consultant for a newly formed SIRCAA - institute founded to study the Zone and help humanity blablabla.
The year is 2023. Since the world is a global village, the entire world knows about the Zone and SIRCAA, where they give interviews to the mass media etc. Their research concentrates among other things, on Project X and "anomalous energy". It turns out while the illegal artifact trade/smuggling was profitable, when outside the Zone for too long, they gradually lose their properties, shrivel etc. SIRCAA is working on restoring them, and while their rhetoric is noble, they seem about as trustworthy as your average mainstream politician/corporate CEO.
Since killing ukrainian soldiers is rather passe, the "Military" is now an international force guarding the perimeter/Wall, looking more like Trump's wet dream than Cordon's post-Soviet checkpoint. SIRCAA itself builds an HQ with an aesthetic of Arasaka tower from Cyberpunk.
You play as Skif (reference to Scythians), who is a martially skilled mercenary or something, but it's his first time to the Zone. He arrives with Professor Hermann from CoP there, because 1) his home was destroyed by anomaly way outside of the Zone's borders (similar to a so-called Second Carribean Accident, where an outburst from Noosphere also appeared there) and 2) he's in possession of a MacGuffin in form of such shriveled artifact, now a dull grey rock. When at first he tries to restore it, he gets jumped and robbed by unknown assailants. After that you wake up, blind dog chews your leg etc. and meet Richter, who is a mentor to Skif about the Zone's peculiarities and your bro throughout the game.
The plot proper centers around Skif's allegiance to one of 2 factions.
The first is Varta (Ward), led by that bald General Kornushov. They are the Zone's police and guards to SIRCAA's white collars.
The second is Iskra, led by Scar. They evolved from 4-man group from CoP into Clear Sky v2. and are more like Freedom to Varta's Duty, I guess. They are also employed by SIRCAA, although with mutual mistrust. All of that gives everyone an impression they're up to something misguided or shady.
Anyway, since Varta is the Zone's official police, Duty gets sidetracked into Skyrim Civil War with Freedom all around the Zone. Mikluha returns to Freedom, and (Freedom) takes the Rostok, while Duty goes north-east into Concrete Plant. I've seen Zulu starting some side-quest placeholder there. General Voronin also returns, and this time, nothing will stop Duty on its glorious march towards saving the planet.
The Zone itself includes all of the locations from the trilogy (some rearranged) and a lot of new ones, some of them being previous cut content, like Generators or that geological anomaly from Clear Sky's artwork (named Malachite).
New factions include:
Noon - Strider's own faction of "good" Ex-Monolithians. There are enough of them around the Zone, and not all take it all that well.
Flame - an Antifa offshoot of Freedom. They got pissed Freedom is on NATO's payroll and formed their own anarchist radical faction.
Degtaryev forms Degtaryev Corps in Yanov, Jupiter.
While Scar is back, Limansk will be a DLC
Heart of Chernobyl, what else?
As for the Wish Granter,the titular Heart of Chernobyl refers to both 1) the real Center of the Zone - not the CNPP, but Generators, and 2) it's that artifact Strelok brings to the Doctor in SoC cutscene flashbacks.
the grey rock Skif brought to the Zone turns out to be a shard of the Monolith, which obviously gets reactivated or something
Do the Duty and Freedom get any actual development aside from «well, they are at war again»? In previous games they kinda just sat around and did nothing to further their goals, only killing each other from time to time. I fear that with the addition of a bunch of new factions they will just be «background» factions, sidetracked as you've said. Which would be a disappointment — I think the ideas of both factions are really interesting on paper and could play nicely into the overarching themes of the Zone, its wonders/horrors and its expansion.
Well, here's what I found:
Dolg (Duty)
History:
In previous games in the series, the group is active, so it is necessary to update the old logo
Description:
"Dolg" is a paramilitary group formed by former military personnel. What remained from them were the military regulations, strict breathing system and a clear goal - protecting the world from Zone creations (anomalies, mutants, etc.)
One of the oldest groups in the Zone.
At the beginning of the events of Stalker 2, they are experiencing an identity crisis. They are still well equipped and well organized, but they are no longer the significant force they represented before.
Location: Concrete Plant
New logo: No
"Freedom" is an anarchist group consisting primarily of free-willed stalkers. The group's goal is to preserve the Zone as a free territory and resist the monopoly of the authorities. Representatives of Svoboda believe that the Zone cannot be hidden from the rest of the world.
By the time Stalker 2 began, the group had “fallen into commerce”, and the ideology of the free zone had turned into the “Free Market”.
Location: Rostok Factory
Story: A group of former Monoliths who moved away from psi influence after turning off psi installations in 2012. They declare themselves to be “Zone Sanitators”, carrying out raids to collect chemical and radiation waste throughout the territory.
Location: Wild Island
Police forces. A powerful, modern, well-organized and well-armed group with large resources and funding (private foundations and “interested” organizations). Operates in the ChEZ under a special interaction agreement (D4)
Ensures political order in the Zone and the security of the functioning of the SIRCAA.
History:
In previous games in the series, the group does not exist, but originates from the Scientific Operational Research Group "Iskra" (ZP, vicinity of Jupiter). A new logo is needed.
Description:
Scientific-military group for extreme research of the anomalous Zone (the “correct” Clear Sky). Supporters of non-standard methods, a practical approach, testing the strength of any units.
The group is indirectly subordinate to SIRCAA, but does not enjoy the respect of the latter.
Location: STC Malachite
Story:
Doesn't exist in previous games. A separate sub-faction of scientists, NIICHAZ scientists live and work in the comfort of the Institute.
Description:
NIICHAZ scientists prefer to look at the Zone through the safety of the Emission-absorbing fields and from behind Varta’s backs. These are some of the most talented scientists on the mainland, self-confident, contemptuous of other scientists and stalkers, and ready to make sacrifices in the name of science.
NecroLord
Dumbfuck!
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2022
- Messages
- 10,899
You can sell that PDA to Owl (this won't affect your standing with either Freedom or Duty).
Gerrard
Arcane
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2007
- Messages
- 12,332
You can, but I doubt that's the canon version of events.
lightbane
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2008
- Messages
- 10,332
Hard to believe that you can survive being mind-controlled by Monolith without being rendered a vegetable or heavily traumatized, but instead the survivors formed a faction. Granted, they may still be heavily traumatized and not entirely sane anyway.
deuxhero
Arcane
You meet a group of ex monolith in the third game.
Manjuice Nutella
Arcane
As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.