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

[Gerrard]

Ocasional black person wouldn't be a surprise: there were plenty of Africans in USSR and there is plenty of them in Eastern Europe and Europian part of Russia. But we all know why this guy is in the trailer and is shown in close-up. We do.

What are you talking about? It is the Western Europe that has the largest concentration of black people outside of the United States, not the Eastern Europe:

Spoiler

Also, keep in mind that in the entire United States of America black people consist of 12-15% of the population, which makes France's 8% a staggering amount by comparison. Some of this may be explained by the fact that citizenship was given to children of parents who were part of the former colonies and overseas territories (and France has most colonies in Africa).

Plenty is probably a wrong word. I've been to Eastern Europe before 2022. There were enough blacks for me to see them almost every day. But keep in mind it was big cities, in smaller ones they are probably non-existent, same as in Russia.
I don't know how many of them were actual citizens though. Some of them were tourists perhaps?

Anyway, I'm not here to advocate for putting blacks in everything where they don't belong. I just think a random African in the Zone is not that far fetched.

P.S.: I've seen people throwing around photos of this guy who has been a Chernobyl disaster liquidator in 80s. People say that this negro dude in the trailer is a reference to him. It would have been a cool reference, because this IRL guy is quite famous here. But I don't think that's the case, he looks nothing like him. So it's most likely a diversity hire.

Oh great, they found another Yasuke.

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

I never dug Stalker because of the russian vibes, I think I'm just too much of an American Patriot to understand this shit.

 

[Iucounu]

P.S.: I've seen people throwing around photos of this guy who has been a Chernobyl disaster liquidator in 80s.

Is it a real person? You never know these days.

People say that this negro dude in the trailer is a reference to him.

If they had done it in SoC 2007 maybe fewer would have cared. But GSC suddenly discovering/remembering this now reveals their true motive: to insert a black person at all cost.

 

[Losus4]

Looks like indie devs trying to do AAA, yet not understanding why people liked the originals in the first place. Unskippable real time cutscenes, animated combat sequences in which the player has no control of, excessive shootouts leaving no room for subtlety or atmosphere, and a token nig.

Anomaly is still the definite STALKER experience.

 

[NecroLord]

Looks like indie devs trying to do AAA, yet not understanding why people liked the originals in the first place. Unskippable real time cutscenes, animated combat sequences in which the player has no control of, excessive shootouts leaving no room for subtlety or atmosphere, and a token nig.

Anomaly is still the definite STALKER experience.

Yeah, that's exactly it.
They went for the AAA approach and design.
Lacking the jank and atmosphere of the original trilogy.

 

[Jacov]

Is it a real person? You never know these days.

Without a doubt. As I've said, he's kind of famous.

If they had done it in SoC 2007 maybe fewer would have cared. But GSC suddenly discovering/remembering this now reveals their true motive: to insert a black person at all cost.

Obviously. And he's also so generic looking. If you are inserting a character, at least give him a scar, a beard, something. Make him look like a stalker and not just boring blank with no background from MetaHuman.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

The coon is a leftover from russias invasion.

 

[Iucounu]

I've seen people throwing around photos of this guy who has been a Chernobyl disaster liquidator in 80s. People say that this negro dude in the trailer is a reference to him. It would have been a cool reference, because this IRL guy is quite famous here. But I don't think that's the case, he looks nothing like him.

Apparently he's a black Russian, and we can't have that! What a disappointment for GSC.

Also his opinions seem to be at odds with current wokeist fashion. From the sub-titles in the video below:

BBC:

"The HBO series ‘Chernobyl’ has come under criticism…​

for not having people of colour in the cast."​

Igor Khiryak:

"That’s nonsense, some dark-skinned person, possibly a foreigner​

appearing at such a site in Soviet times!​

If the filmmakers had included such a character,​

people would have immediately made fun of them."​

If they had done it in SoC 2007 maybe fewer would have cared. But GSC suddenly discovering/remembering this now reveals their true motive: to insert a black person at all cost.

Obviously. And he's also so generic looking. If you are inserting a character, at least give him a scar, a beard, something. Make him look like a stalker and not just boring blank with no background from MetaHuman.

I guess the only thing that matters here is skin color, it's basically a diversity placeholder.

 

[Jacov]

Apparently he's a black Russian, and we can't have that! What a disappointment for GSC.

 

[mondblut]

Plenty is probably a wrong word. I've been to Eastern Europe before 2022. There were enough blacks for me to see them almost every day. But keep in mind it was big cities, in smaller ones they are probably non-existent, same as in Russia.
I don't know how many of them were actual citizens though. Some of them were tourists perhaps?

USSR had its share of half-negroes. It imported thousands of negro students from africa, cuba etc every year, and soviet girls were falling head over heels for them due to lionization of third world by soviet "internationalist" propaganda. The "international festival of youth and students" in 1957 alone has resulted in hundreds of coalburner single moms. In fact, I had one such half-negro (looking like a full blown negro, but with a plain russian name of Alexey K-ov) in my class at school. It was a spanish language school, so they doubled down in importing cuban negroes and idolizing them as late as in 1980s.

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Дети_фестиваля

 

[Twiglard]

Voice acting is one of the defining features of SoC (and sequels), it is simply gold. English voiceover is nowhere near that good

Any idea on how to play SoC with the Russian voiceover?

 

[Ol' Willy]

Voice acting is one of the defining features of SoC (and sequels), it is simply gold. English voiceover is nowhere near that good

Any idea on how to play SoC with the Russian voiceover?

Rutracker has vanilla version in RU

 

[Twiglard]

Voice acting is one of the defining features of SoC (and sequels), it is simply gold. English voiceover is nowhere near that good

Any idea on how to play SoC with the Russian voiceover?

Rutracker has vanilla version in RU

Need to use the English text for the UI and dialogs though.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Voice acting is one of the defining features of SoC (and sequels), it is simply gold. English voiceover is nowhere near that good

Any idea on how to play SoC with the Russian voiceover?

Rutracker has vanilla version in RU

Need to use the English text for the UI and dialogs though.

Then find EN version and put RU audio in

Something like this

https://www.moddb.com/games/stalker/addons/russian-audio

 

[Twiglard]

By the way, many of those african students are somehow LESS retarded and violent than the US niggers.

That's because they're the children of African elites.

There's a dynamic where third-worlders close to your border have their lumpenproles come. But if a continent is far away, the immigrants are the people who can actually afford to get there.

Not saying that it's good it's happening, but these students have IQ in the normal range, and breaking Slavic country law is very much against their own self-interest.

 

[Twiglard]

Then find EN version and put RU audio in

Something like this

https://www.moddb.com/games/stalker/addons/russian-audio

I haven't added mods to Stalker, ever besides Complete and Anomaly. Is it correct to add ZRP+AMK 1.4 (ENG) in that order and call it a day? Or should only AMK 1.4 be installed?

 

[Ol' Willy]

Then find EN version and put RU audio in

Something like this

https://www.moddb.com/games/stalker/addons/russian-audio

I haven't added mods to Stalker, ever besides Complete and Anomaly. Is it correct to add ZRP+AMK 1.4 (ENG) in that order and call it a day? Or should only AMK 1.4 be installed?

Can't tell, for SoC I usually play pure vanilla... Better ask in the proper thread though

 

[Silva]

Too many cutscenes... I got a bad feeling about this.

 

[Manjuice Nutella]

Too many cutscenes... I got a bad feeling about this.

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]

Just curious about a thing. Does anyone know any story beats from the sequel? It's a sequel, right?

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

some premises

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.

story beats

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

What could it be about, considering the wish granter was defeated?

Heart of Chernobyl, what else?

Spoiler

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.

As for the Wish Granter,

Spoiler

the grey rock Skif brought to the Zone turns out to be a shard of the Monolith, which obviously gets reactivated or something

 

[Jenkem]

Is this due to radiation?

american spy succesfuly infiltrated

cope

this is the future ukrainians are fighting for.

 

[Jacov]

Just curious about a thing. Does anyone know any story beats from the sequel? It's a sequel, right?

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

some premises

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.

story beats

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

What could it be about, considering the wish granter was defeated?

Heart of Chernobyl, what else?

Spoiler

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.

As for the Wish Granter,

Spoiler

the grey rock Skif brought to the Zone turns out to be a shard of the Monolith, which obviously gets reactivated or something

Interesting! Thank you for sharing.

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]

Too many cutscenes... I got a bad feeling about this.

That's just promo material that's supposed to be eye-catching, showing mainly equivalents of Strelok losing consciousness,

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.

Agroprom raid, and other scripted cutscenes from SoC.

That (and the one in Wild Territory) were not very good even in SoC.

 

[NecroLord]

Just curious about a thing. Does anyone know any story beats from the sequel? It's a sequel, right?

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

some premises

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.

story beats

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

What could it be about, considering the wish granter was defeated?

Heart of Chernobyl, what else?

Spoiler

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.

As for the Wish Granter,

Spoiler

the grey rock Skif brought to the Zone turns out to be a shard of the Monolith, which obviously gets reactivated or something

Interesting! Thank you for sharing.

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.

Yanov Station was a neutral ground established by both Freedom and Duty when they were forced to shelter there during a particularly violent Emission.
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]

Just curious about a thing. Does anyone know any story beats from the sequel? It's a sequel, right?

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

some premises

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.

story beats

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

What could it be about, considering the wish granter was defeated?

Heart of Chernobyl, what else?

Spoiler

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.

As for the Wish Granter,

Spoiler

the grey rock Skif brought to the Zone turns out to be a shard of the Monolith, which obviously gets reactivated or something

Interesting! Thank you for sharing.

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:

Spoiler

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.