Timber! Stalker 2 is about to fall flat on its face

Online games news Tedious Retro Gamer, 16-06-2021
Online Games Bay

Almost 3 months ago I was worried that Stalker 2 might be a huge disappointment for several reasons. Now, that developers showed us the gameplay trailer, lots and lots of red flags popped up on this project that made me feel smug and important...

During E3 GSC Game World presented a new trailer of upcoming game, this time it was a gameplay trailer, although it really had very little to do with gameplay itself, it was just pre-rendered vision of what the developers hope the final gameplay will look like. So, we know very little about gameplay and so far we have not seen actual gameplay... Taking under consideration that game was suppose to premiere this year it is first red flag - checked!

Oh, and I forgot to mention, at the same time they moved premiere from this year to April 2022. It is not shocking news, just take a look at my article in March, when I was doubting about premiere date - Why Stalker 2 Will Most Likely Fail. Postponing a game is not that a big deal, but it is small red flag. It was impossible to finish game within 1 year, so what was the point of announcing it anyway?

Ah, yes, that was explained in another part of the presentation - we learned about price of the game, the normal version (that will cost about 45 Euro) and the special editions (that will cost 55 Euro and 75 Euro). And why was it mentioned? Of course, praise the Lord, you can pre-order Stalker 2 now! Yes, at least 1 year before premiere and without showing what the gameplay looks like they started to sell the game, so another red flag - checked! And have I mentioned that Stalker 2 will most likely have season pass? No? Well, I have now, so another red flag - checked!

So what have we learned about the game itself? Not much, only that it will be non-linear story, there will be mutants, there will be guns and artifacts. Also, that there will be a 64 square kilometers open world, which sounds pretty big, but if you take under consideration that it could mean 8 by 8 kilometers square area it does not sound that big, especially since most likely it will be 64 square kilometers spread into different parts of the game, not in one huge block. Not to mention that open world could have a lot of actual meanings, so there are voices that quality of the terrain could be not that great or, like in case of Cyberpunk 2077, it will be vast area with nothing interesting to do.

What was the reaction of players? Not great to be honest. Even on Steam discussions a lot of people are just angry with lack of solid informations, the expected monetization scheme, not to mention that they doubt game will have support for modders due to use of particular game engine. Oh, well, who could have foreseen that? Me (Why Stalker 2 Will Most Likely Fail) and many, many players that have seen what Cyberpunk 2077 (and other recent titles) have done to gaming industry. And GSC Game World seems to be doing all the mistakes that sunk recent AAA titles - they promise alot, but nothing specific, they say very little about game content, they do not show actual gameplay, yet they already started pre-ordering.

21-12-2021