Return of the controversial zone.
Jan Urbanczyk
GSC Game World has had an incredibly difficult year and a half. Despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the near-constant threat to life and worsening working conditions, they have been unable to keep up with development and some employees have even moved to Prague. The long-awaited sequel to Stalker will see the light of day one day, but I’m telling you in advance that you’ll have to wait.
Stalker 2 was on display at the Xbox booth at Gamescom, and along with the Cyberpunk 2077 DLC, it was by far the most popular. I, too, waited in the not-so-small queue. But once I grabbed my keyboard and mouse and started playing, I was in shock.
They took all the pretty trailers. “Stalker 2”, which I played, did not look nearly as good. Low-res textures, worse lighting or weird character models with unfinished facial animation. Compared to previous samples, this was a downgrade in almost every way. But the worst were the various bugs and glitches. As soon as I launched the demo, the screen began to flicker, NPCs would walk into me during a conversation and get stuck on the main character’s model, there was no death animation, so if you died, you just got a screen with a text and you did not understand what happened. Add to this the long loading times and one moment when I even managed to fall under the map. Despite the fact that the demo was short, I encountered a huge number of problems.
But I have to admit, the post-apocalyptic atmosphere was still there. I also found the gunplay to be pretty solid, though the enemy AI is a bit weak and definitely needs some work. In short, the problem is that any positives in the demo were overshadowed by the bugs and shortcomings. Of course, one can hope that this was an older build or that something just went wrong during its creation and the rest of the game is better, but I find that hard to believe. On the contrary, with such an isolated and short demo, one would hope that the developers will pick the best. And if that is the case, then I am very scared of how the rest of the game looks.
In the end, I feel sorry for the developers, who are largely not to blame for the whole situation, because they have incredibly difficult conditions, but also for the players themselves, who stood in hour-long queues for the title to see the product. it simply should not have been presented here. Although the postponement to the first quarter of next year has already been officially announced, I seriously doubt that “Stalker 2” will be released during this period. The developers still have a lot of work to do, and I really hope that they are not in a hurry. If they rush the development and release the game in such a bad state, they will harm not only the players, but especially themselves.
Daniel Jarocki
Microsoft has been very thorough in its preparations for Gamescom this year. The result was a rich gaming showcase where players could see or experience the Phantom Liberty DLC for Cyberpunk 2077, the new Forza Motorsport, and a whole host of mid-range and indie games. Perhaps the biggest surprise was the playable demo of the post-apocalyptic action game STALKER 2: Heart of Chernobyl. Due to its extremely complex development, which was significantly affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where GSC Game World is from, the game has already suffered several delays. Another release date shift was unanimously announced during Gamescom, when STALKER 2 was moved from the end of this year to the first quarter of 2024. However, given the demo shown, I have serious doubts whether the developers will stick to this new date.
Although STALKER 2: Heart of Chernobyl looks absolutely stunning in the official trailers, the actual state of the game at the moment is much worse. From the first minutes of the demo, it was clear that it was definitely not a final quality game, but rather an alpha or, at best, a beta version. I could start with low-resolution textures, stuck characters, unconfigured AI or an unfinished interface. After playing a relatively short segment, I asked myself whether it was a good idea to offer such a raw state of the game for testing to regular players who have to wait in line for hours at the exhibition area.
However, it is possible that after all the difficulties, the developers simply felt the need to prove to players that the new Stalker is not frozen and its development continues. Despite all the technical imperfections, the demo showed a truly gloomy atmosphere that adorned the previous parts. The potential was felt both in terms of control and the feeling of shooting, where the developers clearly emphasize realism. I personally felt this after a short burst from my AK-47, which surprisingly soon began to overheat and misfire.
In my opinion, the final quality of the second “Stalker” will be determined by whether the developers have enough time to refine and optimize it. If not, we may see a significant disappointment early next year. However, if the studio management gets enough time and resources with the help of Microsoft, then we may see an unusual experience that the traditional established “western” series simply cannot offer.
Source :Indian TV
