"It’s impossible not to feel pressure with a new entry in a beloved franchise. I guess every team — us included — aims for the higher level with the sequel. That’s the only way to grow."

It’s been a long road for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 from its initial announcement over a decade ago, with delays and even a cancellation. How does it feel to finally be working on the game and being one step closer to getting it done?

Yes, it has been a long run. But, frankly speaking, it’s pretty much about the same thing — making the best possible game with time and resources you have.

Has the vision for the game changed much from how it started out all those years ago? I would assume the better tech available to you as developers would mean that it’s better in a way that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is being made now instead of years ago.

The development restarted from scratch. Current S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 has no relations with the previous cancelled one.

Given the high regard the first S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is held in by so many, do you feel any pressure to follow up on it with a sequel that’s at least on the same level, if not even better?

Yes, it’s impossible not to feel pressure with a new entry in a beloved franchise. I guess every team — us included — aims for the higher level with the sequel. That’s the only way to grow.

With S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, we’re basically doing our best, day by day.

With S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 promising a branching story, how radically can players expect their actions to affect the narrative and how it plays out?

Without saying too much for now, let’s put it this way: it’s impossible to see everything in one run. The player will need several playthroughs to see all the story content.

"Without saying too much for now, let’s put it this way: it’s impossible to see everything in one run. The player will need several playthroughs to see all the story content."

What can you tell us about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2’s immersive sim elements? Will players be presented with a range of options in how to tackle any given situation?

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 (and the series as a whole as well) is about being small and almost helpless in the utterly stressful and dangerous conditions, fighting with death every second, knowing that if you die, the Zone wouldn’t even notice it, and nothing will change.

Immersive sim elements in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 are about making you feel like that person.

Atmosphere and horror are clearly a big emphasis in this game, which is something that series fans will undoubtedly be glad about. Both of those can be very subjective things though, so how do you as developers ensure that you’re hitting the mark in those areas on a consistent level?

With three games in the series, we think we have a strong vision of what players like and expect.

Also, the core team is located in Kyiv, Ukraine, and we visit the Exclusion Zone every couple of months — for the purpose of both work (photogrammetry) and inspiration.

So we can say it’s a mix of existing experience and translating the cultural code. The whole thing is so powerful yet so subtle it’s really hard to describe in words. You can be sure it’s different for pretty much everyone. But probably it is the “atmosphere” people are talking about.

You’re promising a massive open world with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2– just what should players expect in this area where things such as size, design, and variety are concerned? Do you think it becomes harder to maintain a consistent level of horror and atmosphere when a game is set in a large open world environment?

Yes, maintaining the interest of the player is a challenge for every open-world game.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is mostly about the new story, and we can’t tell it without the open world. The player needs to feel the scale and the outcomes of his decisions. It is a long way so it can land an impact. A big journey with its own pace and outcomes.

Also, it’s about seeing the Zone in her renewed beauty. The seamless open world is a thing the series always aimed for. Hopefully, the players will enjoy both the story and the world we’re crafting. They are highly special for us.

Roughly how long will an average playthrough of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 be?

It’s a very long game even if you decide to follow only the main quest. Hundreds of hours can be spent if you want to do more exploration and side quests.

"It’s about seeing the Zone in her renewed beauty. The seamless open world is a thing the series always aimed for. Hopefully, the players will enjoy both the story and the world we’re crafting."

It might be a bit too early to ask about this, but do you have any post-launch plans in place for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 in terms of expansions or DLC?

As a company, we do have plans for the future, but let us ship our baby first. GSC is not just about S.T.A.L.K.E.R., by the way.

Clearly, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is a very ambitious game. Given that, how has the Xbox Series S factored into development? Have the console’s lower specs presented any challenges?

No problems so far with an important clarification that the development and optimization are obviously still undergoing.

We’re seeing a lot of major new releases choosing to launch as cross-gen titles, yet S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is going to be exclusively on PC and the new Xbox consoles. Was that because you didn’t want to be limited by the older consoles’ hardware?

Exactly. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is a next-gen game, and it’s impossible to run it on Xbox One or PS4.

Do you have any plans to eventually bring the game to PS5 as well? Why did you decide to launch as an Xbox console exclusive?

No plans for now. We negotiated the possibilities with Microsoft and saw several good opportunities for the brand — including Game Pass.

That’s said, we’re concentrating on the Xbox Series X/S version.

"S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is a next-gen game, and it’s impossible to run it on Xbox One or PS4."

The Xbox Series S features lesser hardware compared to Xbox Series and Microsoft is pushing it as a 1440p/60fps console. Do you think it will hold up for the graphically intensive next-gen games?

The future will tell. Also, it really depends on the project. We can only talk about ourselves. The hardware is capable of next-gen games, that’s for sure.

What resolution and frame rate is the game targeting on Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S? Furthermore, will the game have multiple graphical modes?

It’s 4K for Xbox Series X and HDR for both Series X and Series S with further updates down the road.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 is looking like an ambitious game in more ways than one, and one of those that stands out is, of course, the game’s open word. According to its developers, the first person horror shooter is going to have hundreds of hours of content, which should give you an idea of how large the world is going to be, while GSC Game World have also said that the world itself is going to be completely seamless, which is more than a little interesting as well.

According to the developers, however, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2’s open world is a crucial part of the experience, from telling its story to establishing a sense of scale to even showcasing the “renewed beauty” of the Exclusion Zone. GSC Game World PR manager Zakhar Bocharov said while speaking with us in a recent interview: “S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is mostly about the new story, and we can’t tell it without the open world. The player needs to feel the scale and the outcomes of his decisions. It is a long way so it can land an impact. A big journey with its own pace and outcomes.

“Also, it’s about seeing the Zone in her renewed beauty. The seamless open world is a thing the series always aimed for. Hopefully, the players will enjoy both the story and the world we’re crafting. They are highly special for us.”

In the same interview, Bacharov also told us that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 will have multiple branching paths and endings, to the extent that players will need to do “several” playthrough of the game in order to see everything its story has to offer. Our full interview with Bacharov is also going live soon, so stay tuned for that.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is in development for Xbox Series X/S and PC. GSC Game World currently has no plans for a PS5 launch, but recent developments have suggested that the game’s Xbox console exclusivity will last three months, so it might come to Sony’s new console- but it definitely won’t launch for PS4 or Xbox One, it seems.

GSC Game World’s upcoming open world horror shooter S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is shaping up to be a meaty game, and on top of entailing “hundreds of hours” of content, in the developer’s words, that’ll also mean multiple narrative choices for players to make. The developers have said that the game’s going to have a large number of branching paths and endings, and in a recent interview, GSC Game World’s PR manager Zakhar Bocharov elaborated on that a little bit more.

According to Bocharov, it’s going to be “impossible” for players to see everything the game has to offer in a single playthrough. “Without saying too much for now, let’s put it this way: it’s impossible to see everything in one run,” he said. “The player will need several playthroughs to see all the story content.”

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is currently in development for PC and Xbox Series X/S, but it doesn’t yet have a firm release date. In the same interview, Bocharov also said that the game would be “impossible to run” on the older hardware of PS4 and Xbox One, and that there are currently no plans for a PS5 launch. That said, a recently leaked document suggests that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2’s Xbox Series X/S console exclusivity is only going to last three months.

Our full interview with Bocharov will go live soon, so stay tuned for that.

With S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 promising a massive and seamless open world and plenty of player choice in terms of both narrative and its immersive sim-inspired gameplay mechanics, it looks set to deliver a pretty meaty adventure- but exactly how long can we expect it to be? Well, apparently it’s going to keep you busy for quite a while.

In a recent interview with GSC Game World PR manager Zakhar Bocharov, we posed that very question, and though Bacharov didn’t give us an exact number for the game’s runtime, he did give us an idea of what to expect. Even if you’re just sticking to the critical path, it’s going to be a long game, but as Bacharov puts it, if you engage in exploration and all the optional side content the game has to offer, you can spend “hundreds of hours” playing it.

“It’s a very long game even if you decide to follow only the main quest,” Bacharov said. “Hundreds of hours can be spent if you want to do more exploration and side quests.”

In the same interview, Bacharov also told us that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is a next-gen exclusive because the game would have been “impossible to run” on last-gen hardware. Our full interview will be going live soon, so stay tuned for that.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is in development for Xbox Series X/S and PC, and currently, GSC Game World have no plans to bring the game over to the PS5. Recently leaked documents, however, suggest that the shooter’s timed consoles exclusivity is going to last three months.

Third party console exclusives have been in the industry for a long time, but even though they’ve become relatively less frequent now, there’s still plenty of them to go around. GSC Game World’s upcoming open world survival horror shooter S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is one of them, currently confirmed only for Xbox Series X/S and PC. According to the developers, there are no current plans to bring the game to PS5 (and no plans whatsoever to bring it to last-gen consoles), but where the game’s Xbox console exclusivity is concerned, that might be quite temporary.

A leaked document that Wccftech managed to get their hands on suggests that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is going to be an Xbox Series X/S exclusive for a short period of three months. Meanwhile, the document also states that Tetris Effect: Connected, which was an Xbox Series X/S launch title, also has a six month exclusivity period- which would mean that period will be over imminently. Finally, it seems Image and Form Games’ upcoming The Gunk is going to be a permanent Xbox exclusive, with the document stating it’s going to be an Xbox exclusive “in perpetuity.”

Neither of those two games have launch date yet, but it’s been confirmed that both will launch on Xbox Game Pass on day one.

As is usually the case during transitions between console generations, most games 2 – big and small – coming out right now are launching as cross-gen releases, and that’s probably going to be the case for the foreseeable future. Of course, that doesn’t mean they all are- there are some notable exceptions here and there, and one of those is GSC Game World’s upcoming shooter S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2.

The open world horror shooter is confirmed to be releasing for PC and Xbox Series X/S, and according to its developers, that was necessary for the game they were making. We recently spoke with GSC Game World’s PR manager Zakhar Bocharov about the shooter, and when asked if S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 isn’t launching on last-gen consoles because the developers didn’t want to be limited by their hardware, he said: “Exactly. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is a next-gen game, and it’s impossible to run it on Xbox One or PS4.”

Meanwhile, Bocharov also re-iterated that the game will run in 4K on Xbox Series X, and will support HDR on both Series X and Series S. It’s been previously also confirmed that it will support ray-tracing and 120 FPS performance on Xbox Series X- though how the game is going to prioritize all of that across multiple visual modes remains to be seen.

In the same interview, Bocharov also told us that GSC Game World currently has no plans to bring S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 to PS5. Read more on that through here.

Our full interview with Bocharov will be live soon, so stay tuned for that.

The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series has a pretty dedicated fanbase, and those fans have been looking forward to its next outing for a while now. With the upcoming S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, GSC Game World is making ambitious promises, and based on what we’ve seen and heard of the open world horror shooter so far, there’s certainly reason to be excited for it. If you’re a console player, however, you’re going to need an Xbox Series X/S to play it- but is there a chance that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 eventually releases for PS5 as well?

We posed the question to its developers as GSC Game World in a recent interview, who told us that currently, there are no plans to bring the game to PS5, before adding that Xbox Game Pass (where the game will be releasing at launch), was one of the primary reasons for it launching as an Xbox console exclusive.

“No plans for now,” the developer said. “We negotiated the possibilities with Microsoft and saw several good opportunities for the brand — including Game Pass.”

They added: “We’re concentrating on the Xbox Series X/S version.”

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is currently in development for Xbox Series X/S and PC. Currently, it has no firm release date. On Xbox Series X, the game will support ray-tracing and 120 FPS performance. Our full interview with the developers will be going live soon, so stay tuned for that.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is one that no doubt a lot of people will be looking forward to. A sequel to the legendary survival game of old, it looks to once again capture the feeling of dread and isolation of being in the midst of a scorched landscape. We have no idea when the game will actually come out, only getting a few teasers here and there so far, and today we got a look at the impressive model work in the game. Also teeth.

The game was set to get a video at the Xbox Indie Showcase later today. It seems maybe that has gone up a little early. The video takes a look at the character models as well as some of the weapons you’ll be using. It’s very impressive, though it’s hard to parse how it’ll look in-game, obviously. They also go a lot into some of their custom teeth tech, which is pretty fun, and also manages to give someone a pretty ugly mug.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is set to release at some point for Xbox Series X/S and PC, and has been confirmed to be a day 1 Game Pass title.

Fans have been waiting for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 for a long time now, and anticipation surrounding the game since its reveal last year has been quite high. GSC Game World definitely seem to be saying all the right things so far, and from its focus on atmosphere, its blend of shooting, horror, and immersive sim mechanics, and its large open world setting all seem to be hinting at a game that might just live up to expectations.

Something else that the developer is promising is a story that will react to the player’s choices, which, of course, will lead to different endings. But exactly how divergent are these choices and consequences going to be? Quite so, it seems. Speaking recently on the Russian podcast Not Brought In (translated by Gamingsym), GSC Game World’s PR manager Zakhar Bocharov reiterated that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 will have a non-linear story, and that it will have “a huge number of branches and different endings.”

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is currently in development for Xbox Series X/S and PC, and is scheduled for a 2021 launch. A more specific launch date for the game is not yet confirmed. Stay tuned to GamingBolt for more details.

Vampire the Masquerade – Bloodlines 2

Set in the macabre World of Darkness, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 starts after a Mass Embrace aka vampires openly attacking and converting humans in full public view. With the masquerade broken, you play as a new Thinblood vampire who must choose a side. Pick a discipline, whether it’s levitating objects or mist transformation, then ally with a vampire clan for even more perks. From there, you can explore the world and take on side quests while feeding on the populace. Several delays later, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is set to release this year for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5 and PC.