The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series enjoyed its fair share of critical and commercial success back in the day, about a decade and a half ago (or thereabouts), but it’s fair to say that many who’ll be playing the upcoming S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl aren’t going to go in with too much familiarity with its predecessors, if only thanks to how long it has been since the series’ last instalment. There’s a good chance, then, that many are going to be surprised by what kind of experience it’s going to be.
Because as those who’ve played past games – or those who’ve been paying attention to what developer GSC Game World has shown of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 prior to launch – will tell you, the upcoming shooter isn’t going to be your typical open world experience. From the way it is designed to the core philosophies that the entire gameplay is built around, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is likely going to be a rather unique kind of experience that doesn’t much care about streamlining or simplifying itself to appeal to as large of an audience as possible.
For many long time S.T.A.L.K.E.R. fans, the idea of the series’ long-awaited revival choosing to sand away the original trilogy’s rough edges was a concerning one. A more polished game with higher production values and way less jank is, of course, ideal in every way possible, but often in their quest to sand out rough edges, games end up losing the complexities and idiosyncrasies that were actually pivotal parts of their identity- and something like that would be an absolute death knell for a series like S.T.A.L.K.E.R., which has always prided itself on marching to the beat of its own drum.
Thankfully, the more that GSC Game World has shown of and said about its upcoming megaton shooter, the clearer it has become that though S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl will be a decided less janky and more polished game than past entries in the series, it is by no means going to dumb down the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. formula. If anything, it’s looking like it’s going to be the most expansive, thorough, and uncompromising take of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. formula yet- and though that’s undoubtedly going to cause a fair amount of friction for a sizeable portion of the playerbase – those heading in with expectations of a very different kind of game – it’s exactly that about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 that excites us above all else.
Of course, creating friction is exactly what S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 wants to do- that’s baked into the game’s design. Evidently, it will heavily emphasize its survival mechanics and its horror aesthetic, which means that every moment you spend in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone is feel fraught with tension, with the world itself feeling openly hostile in every way possible- if the game lives up to the promises it’s making, at least As has been made abundantly clear in pre-launch gameplay footage and hands-on previews and impressions in recent weeks and months, danger will be right around the corner at all times.
Even the simplest of firefights will seemingly demand precision and careful attention, which means running and gunning isn’t going to be a viable strategy, while a variety of different enemies will each come with unique strengths and attributes, necessitating different strategies. Outside of combat, the world itself will have plenty of dangerous tricks up its sleeve, from anomalies to weather events, which is something else that will keep players on their toes.
And of course, there will be a bevy of survival mechanics to contend with, including maintaining your inventory, conserving your ammunition, keeping an eye on things such as not only your health, but also radiation levels, whether or not you’re bleeding, and your hunger and fatigue levels. All of this, combined with the strong emphasis on horror and atmosphere building that we’ve seen plenty of in all of the pre-launch footage is likely going to deliver a world where you may never feel truly safe. A complete refusal to hold players’ hands has long been in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series’ DNA, and clearly, that’s going to be the case here as well.
Clearly, then, difficulty is going to be a big part of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2. Players will die, and die a lot, with even the regular, normal difficulty being billed as a legitimately challenging experience by GSC Game World itself. But though that will obviously be an important part of the game’s identity, what we’ve seen of it so far also suggests that it won’t be the only component. Just as important is going to be the game’s apparent focus on delivering a diegetic experience that grounds players in the world. Abstractions and gamifications are not only staples, but even necessities in pretty much all games, but especially the particularly complex ones- like open world titles. But games that can find a way that works to get rid of those abstractions and instead rely on diegetic in-game elements can elevate the player’s experience in spectacular ways, and it looks like S.T.A.L.KE.R. 2 is promising a similar kind of experience.
That, meanwhile, is going to go hand in hand with a focus on emergent, systems-driven gameplay. From complex AI schedules and behaviours and dynamic weather to realistic bullet simulations, a multitude of factions, and more, GSC Game World has seemingly stuffed S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2’s world with a web of interacting systems and mechanics that will be interacting with each other even independent of the player, and if that works the way it should, it could create a spectacular open world that is a thrill to simply exist in. That is what the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games did so well, so expectations from the upcoming game will be high in this department.
Obviously, open world shooters are not a rarity, neither are survival games, nor horror games- but S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 isn’t any one of those things. If what GSC Game World has promised is the game that we end up getting, it is going to lend all of those elements together, sprinkle in a smattering of immersive sim elements, add in an extreme emphasis on player choice and agency, and package it all together in a game with a singular vision and an uncompromising drive to bring that vision to life with no caveats.
Earlier this year, Dragon’s Dogma 2 ended up turning a fair number of players off because of how almost openly hostile it seemed to players- but it was exactly because of its eccentricities and its refusal to adhere to general open world norms that it also endeared itself to so many people so strongly (yours truly included). S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 may end up doing something similar. Of course, this is a survival horror shooter, not a fantasy action RPG, which means the moment-to-moment gameplay and larger gameplay systems are going to be very different, but much like Dragon’s Dogma 2 did earlier this year, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is looking like it’s going to be a dense, daunting, emergent, open world game, and it’s going to be that whether or not you want it to be.
If the game ends up doing everything that GSC Game World has said it will, it may very well end up being one of the most different and memorable open world experiences in recent memory. The hope now is that it does live up to expectations.
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