For fans of horror games, and the survival horror genre in particular, the last few years have been a time of great bounty, thanks to the sheer number of excellent games we’ve been treated to. There’s been a cavalcade of Resident Evil masterpieces, other major heavyweights that have impressed like Dead Space and Silent Hill 2, underrated classics like Amnesia: The Bunker and The Evil Within 2, indie darlings like Tormented Souls and Signalis, and so, so much more. And nearly as gratifying as that impressive list of games has been the assurance that has embedded itself in everyone that there is always going to be another exciting survival horror release around the corner for fans of the genre to look forward to and pin all of their keenest hopes and expectations on.
We just got one such game earlier this year in the form of the aforementioned Silent Hill 2 remake, but before the year is out, we’re going to get another one- because if you’re a fan of the survival horror genre and not paying attention to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, you’re doing yourself a great disservice. Granted, it’s not going to be your typical survival horror game – it’s a massive open world experience, it’s a heavily systems-driven game, and it places a lot of focus on immersive sim elements, all of which are things you don’t usually associate with the survival horror genre – but if everything we’ve seen of it so far is anything to go by, GSC Game World’s upcoming open world shooter is going to be well worth keeping an eye on for those who like to be anywhere between mildly unsettled to deeply terrified when playing games.
Fans of the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. trilogy will of course have a good sense of what they’ll be in for with the series’ long-awaited revival, but for those unfamiliar, there’s a lot that goes into S.T.A.L.K.E.R.’s specific brand of horror. For starters, it absolutely nails the basics. Atmosphere and audio design are paramount in any horror experience, and that’s something that the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games were always at the forefront with for their time. Based on everything that we’ve seen of it so far, it looks like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is making similar promises, with developer GSC Game World promising a technically and visually impressive experience that will bring its otherworldly and horrific setting of the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone to life. If the entirety of the game can maintain the level of quality in this area that all of its officially shown pre-release footage has exhibited, it’s already going to have a major leg up as far as being a horror game goes.
Then you have the actual survival horror mechanics, with everything from ammo conservation to inventory management to resource gathering forming a core part of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series’ gameplay loop, something that, by all accounts, the upcoming Heart of Chornobyl is going to stick with. And of course, like its predecessors, it’s also going to make heavy use of plenty of mechanics that we typically see in survival games. Players will be managing their stamina, their hunger, their injuries, their radiation, and of course, their health, in addition to having to contend with weapon and armour degradation.
With all of that, there’s going to be plenty of pushback from the game, and pushback is exactly what you want from a survival horror game. The genre’s best offerings have always been the ones that build tension and deliberate friction not only through their story and atmosphere, but also with the gameplay and mechanics themselves. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is going to be a game that’s going to challenge players in more than a few ways, something that GSC Game World itself has made a point to stress leading up to its release as well, and the hope, at least, is that it will be able to use all of that to successfully recreate S.T.A.L.K.E.R.’s very potent brand of horror.
All of that is obviously incredibly exciting for anyone with even a passing interest in survival horror games, but as a fan of the genre, what excites me personally about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 in particular is the things that it’s doing that survival horror games ordinarily don’t do. More often than not, this genre loves to deliver tightly crafted, concise, and fairly compact experiences- games that generally fall somewhere between “linear” and “semi-linear”. For S.T.A.L.KE.R. 2 to not only be an open world game, but flat out one of the largest open world games in recent years, is an enticing prospect.
Open world games are a dime a dozen, of course, so no, it’s not the plain and simple open world-ness of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 that grabs attention. It’s the fact that this is being explicitly billed as a very unique sort of open world experience. Emergent, systems-driven sandboxes – a la Breath of the Wild, Red Dead Redemption 2, Metal Gear Solid 5 – and immersive sims that let you skin a cat in different ways – like Prey, Dishonored, and Deus Ex – can be some of the most unforgettable gaming experiences of all time when done correctly (as in the aforementioned examples), and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is promising to combine both of those genres, as its predecessors did, but on an even larger scale this time.
Hypothesizing how the game’s survival horror mechanics, immersive sim systems, and emergent open world exploration could combine, you can’t help but feel more than a little excited about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Past instalments in the series made exploration feel simultaneously like a terrifying risk and an incredibly reward venture, because every step you took in the game’s hostile world felt like it really could be your last. That constant sense of genuine challenge and legitimate fear added significantly to the already excellent atmosphere of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series. Meanwhile, thanks to the emphasis placed on player agency, players usually always had multiple ways to tackle any given obstacle, which meant no challenge ever felt too insurmountable. If S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 can strike that same deft balance, it could end up as one of the most memorable horror experiences of all time.
Yes, that sounds like an incredibly ambitious pitch, especially because GSC Game World is attempting o pull it off at a scale that we have very rarely seen. The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series has been dormant for a decade and a half now, and a big budget AAA game being developed now is a very different ordeal than one developed back then, not only in terms of the time, money, and people required to make one, but also just how complex the process has increasingly grown (and it was always pretty damn complex to begin with). Add to that the deeply unfortunate circumstances and complications that GSC Game World has had to deal with behind-the-scenes during S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2’s development, and the challenges of pulling off its grand vision become even more apparent. But if the game can do what it has set out to do – which, based on all of the pre-launch footage, there’s every reason to be optimistic about – S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 could be another landmark game- in general, yes, but particularly for those who enjoy a good survival horror experience.
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