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

 You never get used to the zone

One of the things I was most happy to note during my time watching the E3 showcase was the absolute influx of Slavic games, or at least games with Slavic voices, across the presentations. I don't know exactly why this is the year that all these Slavic game developers decided to hit the scene, and I'm sort of tickled by the fact that most all of their games were in some way inspired by S.T.A.L.K.E.R, but I'm always a proponent for other cultures throwing their creative weight into the marketplace of ideas and no artistic medium, except for drawn art I suppose, is quite as good at mixing the strengths of various cultural influences as gaming is. Bring all the creativity that's unique to you into the industry and that could inspire people from across the globe to pick up that torch or incorporate parts of it into their own project, all in pursuit of this global oneness that we all aspire to.

I've seen Chernobylite steadily rocking towards the grand wrap up of it's main storyline, Atomic Heart slowly meteoring towards the wide spread attention I've said it was worth for months now and even Metro Exodus popped up in a trailer this E3 for some reason despite being over three years old now. All this shows quite clearly that our Slavic friends have the potential to be power houses in the game development world and we should be excited for their contributions. Chief among which, at least in my eyes, comes from the long waited true sequel to the hardcore shooter grandfather, S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl. A game wherein real time strategy and first person shooter elements were married into a hair-raising bloodpumping dance of death where even the most mundane of encounter could spell death for the unprepared.

What you have to understand about the sort of game that S.T.A.L.K.E.R was, is that it was aimed at shattering the notion of first person games up until that point. Until then those games were all about embodying some demi-god human who had the strength to plow through hoards of demons, or single-man rush entire enemy battalions of Nazis or heal from deadly wounds simply by standing still and catching their breath. They weren't realistic and tried their hardest to feed into the whole 'power trip' notion of the gaming ecosystem. S.T.A.L.K.E.R rejected this premise, because it's team, GSC Game World, understood the elation which came from surmounting the impossible and riding the knife's edge against all but certain death. That same sweat-drenched satisfaction that us Dark Souls fans crave, was present in the world of S.T.A.L.K.E.R and it's part of what makes that game timeless.

Thus now that the Souls franchise is considered gaming royalty, it only feels fair for S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2, now called 'Heart of Chernobyl', to resurface the beloved series for us all once again. A game which has finally landed a shot at the bigtime with Microsoft themselves seeming more than willing to back the thing for exclusivity rights. That's a long way to rise for a series that would have be considered pretty niche ten years back, and all of it is rightly deserved given the level of mirror-sheen quality we're seeing out of this game on a pure graphical level so far. What they've managed to achieve so far looks incredible, and after the most recent trailer which blessed our eyes I simply cannot wait for the full raw gameplay reveal.

Straight away this new trailer actually did show us some real gameplay for us to salivate over, however it was stylised and cut-up chunks when what I really want is a substantial ten minutes or so of uncut gameplay with everything in there so we get an idea of the pacing for a game like this, something that's sure to be important. But even then we still got a pretty good idea of how this game will play at an alpha level at the very least, as between some dialogue there were sections of actual action and even some gunplay. Honestly that was a lot more then I expected from a Microsoft conference, so Kudos to them for actually learning about what the fans want to see from games. (Now if only the rest of E3 could learn the same lesson.)

I do, however, look at the gameplay we saw as pure Alpha footage (but with a nice coat of paint slathered on there) because there was a clear whiff of 'just because it would look cool in a trailer' shown here. Watching the way that attachments for weapons are applied real time (something which Battlefield is also doing), hearing snippets of the genuinely stellar sound design and the gushing about the practically photo-realistic rendering of the building that was being sieged, there's a lot to love here. However we did clearly see several instance wherein there was obviously no enemy AI in the game, which was strange. Seeing the player stand out in the open whilst gormless soldiers stand shooting straight ahead for the mere effect of the trailer is a real big standout in a game series where a single stray bullet can take you out. I understand dressing things up for a trailer, but couldn't the trailer player have just acted as though the enemies had AI? Maybe even taken cover? I just think it's an odd way to highlight the shortcomings of your unfinished project.

We were also lucky enough to see some anomaly gameplay up on the surface of the wasteland, which carried this perfectly captured air of desolation to it that rivals Metro in it's artistry, and Metro's developers are the kings of atmosphere so that's really saying something! There was also a bit of survival horror thrown in there when a huge mind-flayer anomaly was stalking across an underground laboratory and going full slasher-movie on the player. (Something I hope carries over to when the team get around to actually coding enemies, I don't want this to just be a flashy staging for the trailer.) And finally we got one extended shot of an impassioned speech up close, highlighting both the quality of facial animations and the voice acting which, and remember that I don't speak Russian as I say this, seem actually AAA quality.

Looking at S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 compared to the original classics is honestly rather jarring in that a lot of it is almost unrecognisable. Flawless graphics, stunning setpeices, full-body motion tracking animation, it feels like a whole new world that this relatively straightforward franchise has stepped into and I'm ecstatic to see the results. The gaming landscape has gone too long without that tough-as-nails shooter to bring us back down to earth and remind everyone that we're really as the bottom of the foodchain, and I can think of no better deliverers than GSC. It's great to see you back on form, guys.