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

[thesecret1]

Map could be good despite its massive size if they utilize factions right. I mean CoP was pretty fun even outside of the "points of interests" because you could always run into some wild mutants, or meet a bandit squad while travelling around, and if they combined it with a more intelligent faction AI that actually tries to fight skirmishes against its enemies and take over locations, you could always find yourself in interesting situations. The only problem I see is whether they'll be able to fill the map enough with interesting stuff – not necessarily anything quest or anomaly related, just a random old house there, a burned out car there, so that it doesn't end up being "Hey, we have a 64km² map, 50km² of that is a procedurally generated forest"

 

[Onionguy]

Map could be good despite its massive size if they utilize factions right. I mean CoP was pretty fun even outside of the "points of interests" because you could always run into some wild mutants, or meet a bandit squad while travelling around, and if they combined it with a more intelligent faction AI that actually tries to fight skirmishes against its enemies and take over locations, you could always find yourself in interesting situations. The only problem I see is whether they'll be able to fill the map enough with interesting stuff – not necessarily anything quest or anomaly related, just a random old house there, a burned out car there, so that it doesn't end up being "Hey, we have a 64km² map, 50km² of that is a procedurally generated forest"

Stalker is probably the only series in existence, where i don't really mind traversing wider stretches of empty wilderness. It just feels so good to immerse yourself in those eastern environments, with nothing but their ambience and some occasional ruins here and there. On the other hand, 64km² sounds like a total overkill even with that idea in mind. That's where A-life 2 should really come into play and shine, by making everything far less predictable. It's not only about factions, but also about randomizing anomalies and artifact placement, making more frequent mutants migrations and population growths, and just tuning every encounter with strangers to feel tense as hell. Well adjusted A-life should force us into some sort of guessing game- does this gopnik, making his way down there in the scrapyard, really belongs to freedom or maybe he's some hostile loner/ bandit. should I approach him right away and ask to drink Cossacs with me or shoot him from afar/ leave him be, waiting patiently till he steps on that anomaly. Without this kind of events/choices, it's gonna be just another typical open world shooter.

 

[thesecret1]

Stalker is probably the only series in existence, where i don't really mind traversing wider stretches of empty wilderness. It just feels so good to immerse yourself in those eastern environments, with nothing but their ambience and some occasional ruins here and there. On the other hand, 64km² sounds like a total overkill even with that idea in mind. That's where A-life 2 should really come into play and shine, by making everything far less predictable. It's not only about factions, but also about randomizing anomalies and artifact placement, making more frequent mutants migrations and population growths, and just tuning every encounter with strangers to feel tense as hell. Well adjusted A-life should force us into some sort of guessing game- does this gopnik, making his way down there in the scrapyard, really belongs to freedom or maybe he's some hostile loner/ bandit. should I approach him right away and ask to drink Cossacs with me or shoot him from afar/ leave him be, waiting patiently till he steps on that anomaly. Without this kind of events/choices, it's gonna be just another typical open world shooter.

Yeah, that's what I meant – with that sort of thing, it doesn't matter if the map is a bit empty (though the occassional ruin or point of interest are still very much needed) since the AI should create conflicts and stories and what not naturally. Especially if we end up having some good mods again. The map so big though that I fear they may not be able to really fill it enough despite all this. 64 is really an overkill, they should go for half that, and even then it'd be a tall order.

 

[Immortal]

Please be good... Please, Jesus, make it good... I will be a good boy.

Bro..

Considering that their trailer was basically a pre-rendered demo.. and they are attempting to make a world this big with this much creep scope.. that they've been developing forrr.. what.. 4 years?
A small russian team known for Euro-Jank.. is going to now make a deep Metro style story on a shoe string budget rivalling the size and scope of many AAA games (combined) with integrated online, deep story, fully animated characters and for sure won't cut any corners on a map that large..

AKA:

64-km²? That's three times Vvardenfell, so expect empty/proc-gen space aplenty.
30+ firearms? I wonder if that's counting unique variants. Just under 40 different guns were usable in the first three games combined.

Lol

If anyone pre-orders this you deserve what you get - don't forget those multiplayer skins and those extra guitar songs..
Only if you pre-order the CYKA-BLYAT 129.99 edition though ; ))) Open your wallets comrades.

 

[Siel]

it will be shit

 

[d1r]

Holy shit! I knew those creatures reminded me of something...

 

[Drakortha]

You won't see a disfigured man like that in STALKER 2. Not in current year. It would offend someone.

 

[Ialda]

Looks Metro-ified : more NPCs, more narration, less unforgivable military sim. No blowouts. The atmosphere seems a bit off.

But fuck it, it's STALKER, I will be there day 1.

 

[Silva]

small russian team known for Euro-Jank.. is going to now make a deep Metro style story on a shoe string budget rivalling the size and scope of many AAA games (combined) with integrated online, deep story, fully animated characters and for sure won't cut any corners on a map that large..

And yet this was exactly the case with original Stalker team.

I WANT TO BELIEVE

 

[robinox]

I liked the arm reaching down to pick up items, I missed that little detail since crysis 1 (IIRC warhead already removed it) and I always thought it would have suited perfectly to stalker. I also liked the zone landscape from that rooftop scene.
The rest of the trailer not so much, especially the muted colors and the hot shots tier staged shootout.

 

[Immortal]

small russian team known for Euro-Jank.. is going to now make a deep Metro style story on a shoe string budget rivalling the size and scope of many AAA games (combined) with integrated online, deep story, fully animated characters and for sure won't cut any corners on a map that large..

And yet this was exactly the case with original Stalker team.

I WANT TO BELIEVE

The problem though is that I can look at the old Stalker games..
The assets / ai / mechanics and 100% be confident that a rag tag group of Slavs could make that.

The game they are promising now, layered under 12 different DLC packages, is not something a studio of even like 300+ people could do in a few years. Look at the size and scope of what they are producing..

If that trailer wasn't just 100% bullshot.. it's going to either be delayed another 4 years or there's gonna be cut corners somewhere.
You are almost certainly going to get a thin veneer of story and then a wide open world of nothing with small minimap icons dotted about and maybe that's okay.. but don't expect much more than an assassin's creed game (which btw has probably 10x more resources / budget / man hours thrown at it and still barely cobbles out a soulless repetitive experience)

 

[jebsmoker]

it's pretty wild how stalker 2 is gonna be the next doom 3 or crysis in terms of how demanding it'll be. i remember everyone except me shelling out hardcore for new computer parts in 2003-2004 for doom 3

 

[ADL]

It's demanding but those specs aren't unreasonable for a next gen-only game. The average gaming PC is pretty pathetic compared to the new consoles and a quad core Intel processor from 2014 and a GTX 1060 isn't gonna cut it for much longer. Not to mention most people are still using mechanical drives to play their games while the consoles use ultra high speed NVMes as the default installation.

The GPU shortage might explain such a high usage of the 900/1000 series but everything else? People need to upgrade their shit before they inevitably bitch about new games running like crap on their systems.
https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam

 

[Perkel]

They are not unreasonable for next gen game but cost of minimum spec even is still high as fuck. And that is minimum spec. Thankfully i almost meet recommended.

STALKER 2 will be probably my first FPS since i don't fucking know 10 years ? Loved SoC Pripyad was meh and CS was awful.

To me they need to seriously sit and work on those anomalies and mutants. The reason why i loved SoC was because i played this series for the first time and i constantly didn't know what was there. So every new anomaly or mutant was great. By the time Pripyat came it was meh because there was basically nothing new in it.

I would love to see anomalies that for example transport you somewhere. OR change how you see world, give you mind reading, make you supermagnet and so on. Having few types is absolutely boring.

 

[ferratilis]

Those requirements look weird. 8-core 16-thread CPU recommended?! Unless they're doing some crazy stuff with A-Life, I don't see why it might need such a strong CPU. My Ryzen 5 3600 was constantly hovering around 50% in Cyberpunk, on 1080p, and we all know CPU does more heavy lifting at lower resolutions. And Unreal engine games usually aren't that demanding. It's either that they're doing something wild or are just lazy and posted these requirements just to give themselves some headroom with optimization.

Don't get me wrong, I hope A-Life is highly advanced, but since this is also a console game, it seems unlikely.

 

[Puukko]

What I'd really like to know is what settings these requirements correspond to. 1080p 60 fps low/high? I meet the the rest of the recommended specs, but my 1070 is going to have its work cut out for it. Here's hoping FSR makes its way to the engine.

Edit: ah right, it's on UE4. Should be no problem then.

 

[Tacgnol]

Those CPU requirements do really make it sound like the game is doing something unusual by UE4 standards. Most UE4 games are heavily GPU bound rather than CPU bound.

Who knows though, could be a calculated marketing ploy.

 

[Steezus]

Those CPU requirements do really make it sound like the game is doing something unusual by UE4 standards. Most UE4 games are heavily GPU bound rather than CPU bound.

Who knows though, could be a calculated marketing ploy.

That's supreme tinfoil territory. Who you gonna make buy the game by citing high CPU requirements? The 7 nerds on codex?

It's just placeholder/ball park specs and it's gonna change in 2023 when the game releases.

 

[The Anus Of Discontent]

Other than hype and buzzwords there is still basically nothing known about the game. 64km squared map, cool! Does it have vast areas that aren't accessible? Is it like Ubisoft where the entire map is just Points of Interest? "Stalker come climb this high tower to lift the radiation fog from the nearby area and reveal additional places of interest!" The recent trailer just makes it look like another linear Metro game with setpieces.
But there are a handful of things surrounding the game that are known and can be extrapolated upon. It's known that it will also release for the Xbox Series X and S. It's common knowledge that a console release means sacrifices. Washed down textures and downgraded graphics. FPS limits. User interface that is friendly to controllers. Radial menus. A general lack of complexity to anything with everything 'streamlined'.

The original Stalker was lightning in a bottle, underpaid overworked developers in cramped offices where no one besides the CEO even owned a car. Development hell and multiple iterations. All those people responsible for Stalker are gone, either at Vostok, 4A and whereever else. And those were responsible for that god forsaken mess Survarium, and the pretty cool Metro series up until Last Exodus when they got extremely high on their own farts. What has GSC done in all this time since they've re-entered the video game developer game? Cossacks 3, a 3d clone of their ancient RTS Cossacks 1 that was released together WITH THE SAME BUGS AND ISSUES AS COSSACKS 1.

Seeing them sell like four different editions with various physical goods irks me, I see that stalker statue and patches and dog tags and am instantly reminded of all those super special collector editions. Fallout 76, a disastrous game that came with that retarded power armor helmet. Duke Nukem Forever, a disastrous game that game with a bust of the Duke in their 'Balls of Steel' edition. The list goes on. If you haven't done shit, recruited a bunch of newbies, and are tackling something as loved as Stalker.. prove you have something worth playing, maybe show some actual gameplay. Shoving these physical goods in my face just makes me think you're trying to capitalize on the IP (that someone else made a long time ago) because, possibly, your actual game isn't up to par.

I have absolutely zero hope of anything coming out of the studio that could match the original Stalker.. well, maybe Clear Sky. Even Clear Sky showed you can't capture lightning in a bottle twice like that, what chances does Stalker 2 have?
Finally on a personal level, I would rather have zero expectations then be pleasantly surprised if it ends up being mediocre, decent, or even good, than have high expectations and be disappointed when it's mediocre, decent, or merely good.

 

[Tacgnol]

Those CPU requirements do really make it sound like the game is doing something unusual by UE4 standards. Most UE4 games are heavily GPU bound rather than CPU bound.

Who knows though, could be a calculated marketing ploy.

That's supreme tinfoil territory. Who you gonna make buy the game by citing high CPU requirements? The 7 nerds on codex?

It's just placeholder/ball park specs and it's gonna change in 2023 when the game releases.

PCMR idiots on reddit who are always looking for a game to prove how "badass" their PC is.

 

[cvv]

Those CPU requirements do really make it sound like the game is doing something unusual by UE4 standards.

High CPU load is usually associated with AI complexity. For instance Kingdom Come has the highest CPU requirements of any RPG I've ever played because the entire world is constantly simulated in real time. Scripting and physics complexity is also handled by CPU.

So it could be a sign that Stalker 2 is a full-blown open-world RPG, instead of...whatever the first three games were?

 

[Tacgnol]

it's a given it'll suffer from the insistence of being fully voice acted

voice acting is the enemy of video games

Have they actually confirmed that? We've not seen any dialogue scenes other than cutscenes.

This is kind of my point, it's impossible to really say anything about the gameplay mechanics till we've seen screenshots of things like the inventory and dialogue display (if it has either of those).

 

[Cassar]

Those requirements look weird. 8-core 16-thread CPU recommended?! Unless they're doing some crazy stuff with A-Life, I don't see why it might need such a strong CPU. My Ryzen 5 3600 was constantly hovering around 50% in Cyberpunk, on 1080p, and we all know CPU does more heavy lifting at lower resolutions. And Unreal engine games usually aren't that demanding. It's either that they're doing something wild or are just lazy and posted these requirements just to give themselves some headroom with optimization.

Don't get me wrong, I hope A-Life is highly advanced, but since this is also a console game, it seems unlikely.

Those are ps5/series x stats. 8 core ryzen around the 3600 level, 16 gigs of ram and a 2070/5700XT level gpu. Theres no conspirancy here, this is the baseline of the new consoles

 

[Spacer's Nugget]

Their PR spokeperson confirmed on Twitter that the game will feature a dialogue system (like the one in all the past titles, I hope).

 

[ADL]