Another Bethesda S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Rumor

This is not the first time or probably the last time this rumor might pop up again. Take it with a grain of salt. Remember someone said the same thing a few months ago and it was wrong.

The following info is from a reliable source but isn't official, keep that in mind.

Sergey Grigorovich didn't sell the brand name "STALKER".

Bethesda is going to publish a STALKER game and has all the rights to it.

The game is multiplatform(consoles+PC) and is based on Bethesda technology.

It's being made by a studio familiar with that technology(possibly Obisidian or the Fallout 3 team from Bethesda, but no facts as of yet). It is almost 100% guaranteed that it's not a Ukrainian studio.

Bethesda will be able to buy the brand name from Grigorovich later, but for now all the misc. merchandise is his responsibility.

Release date, engine, detailes - TBA.

Click to expand...

Link-http://www.bluesnews.com/s/134136/bethesda-stalker-2-rumor

How would that work? It's the kind of game that directly competes with the Fallout franchise. Seems unlikely.

No thanks... Bethesda needs to stick to RPGs imo.

Thrasher said:

How would that work? It's the kind of game that directly competes the the Fallout franchise. Seems unlikely.

Click to expand...

I've told myself plenty of times about many rumors there is no way that will happen myself. Then surprise they come true. All I can say is time will tell.

As it stands the franchise is dead. The staff have left and formed two other studios. One will make a F2P stalker like game while the other will make a fallout like action shooter ripoff.

Couchpotato said:

As it stands the franchise is dead. The staff have left and formed two other studios. One will make a F2P stalker like game while the other will make a fallout ripoff.

Click to expand...

Really? Have more info on this?

Thrasher said:

Really? Have more info on this?

Click to expand...

The game is called Survarium. It will be F2P game similar to Stalker. The developer is called VostokGames.

Link-http://www.vostokgames.com/en

The other studio is called Union Studio. There webpage is still not up all I know is this.

“developing cross-platform action shooter which will be available for PC, Mac, PlayStation, XBOX.” It also reveals that the CEO is Eugene Kim, one of the Stalker coders, while the design lead is Peter Dushynsky, who apparently worked at Metro devs 4A, as well as taking the lead for “Stalker Online” at GSC.

Click to expand...

Link-http://beefjack.com/news/ex-stalker-devs-form-union-studio-first-game-will-be-a-shooter/

Free2play and it's an MMOFPS ... meh.

Hmm. I'm not following. Where are the Fallout franchise developers in VostokGames?

You must be talking about the STALKER devs.

I didn't think Bethesda is giving up on Fallout v. X, nor would develop a game that directly competes with it.

Thrasher said:

Hmm. I'm not following. Where are the Fallout franchise developers in VostokGames?

You must be talking about the STALKER devs.

I didn't think Bethesda is giving up on Fallout v. X, nor would develop a game that directly competes with it.

Click to expand...

I never said fallout developers are a fallout now did I? I said it was STALKER ex employees making a fallout ripoff. Don't worry if the rumor is true or not. I have no doubt you will still see more fallout games.

Well you weren't clear. Nonetheless, I doubt Bethesda will build anything that competes with Fallout, though.

It could be plausible if such a game were to have a release window long before or after they might anticipate having the next fallout game out. Completely guessing that might be holiday season 2013 to holiday season 2014 then a STALKER game could reasonably be released 4 years from now without competing with their FO properties (including DLC). If they were shooting for publishing a game using their technology then now would be the time that they would need to be securing license agreements with the IP holders and discussing logistics with prospective developers. That would give them enough time to get the legal parts worked out with the rights holders and work out the logistics for Obsidian to start working on this as some of their team's work on Stick of Truth dies down (long before a game ships there stops being much for non-coders and non-QA people to do.)

Its certainly not implausible that they might publish such a game developed by a 3rd party developer. It seems far less likely they would do it themselves though as Fallout 4 would probably be a far safer bet and internal development resources (time and talent) that could be employed in creating a STALKER game would be better used developing FO4 instead. If they could get the release timing right (give or take 6 months) then this could be a reasonable use of Bethesda/Zenimax's cash-on-hand; I imagine they have a decent bit of that resource to spare at the moment.

Doing that with existing technologies has an added benefit if one assumes Fallout 4 comes out in the next 2 to 2.5 years. After securing rights and shopping around for developers, there may be enough time for some of the original team to become available and work on the project. If this is the case then this will be far more like reviving the property than absorbing it into their portfolio.

If this pure speculation pans out (no real evidence right now that it will) and Bethesda/Zenimax find an appropriate and skilled developer for it then I will follow that game with some interest.

I'd be keen as mustard. Some might not think it's ideal but look at it this way... it will actually get made. Like within out lifetimes. God knows how long we'd have to wait otherwise. You want to go through ten years pining for the original Stalker again? No sir.