S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Officially Announced

GSC Game World has a short newsbit at their site officially unveiling S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 for 2012:

GSC Game World announces S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 - the official sequel to best-selling game series - in development now. A completely new multi-platform technology developed by GSC will make the core of the game.
"After the official sales of the series exceeded 4 million copies worldwide, we had no doubts left to start creating a new big game in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. universe. This will be the next chapter of the mega-popular game players expect from us" - said Sergiy Grygorovych, CEO of GSC Game World.
The game is scheduled for release in 2012.

More information.

An odd choice for the title considering it will be the 4th game in the STALKER series. I'm guessing there will be a subtitle added before release.

Originally Posted by JDR13
An odd choice for the title considering it will be the 4th game in the STALKER series.

Not really. They're stand alone expansions for the first game with the same engine etc, and this isnt, therefore they need the "2".

I doubt we'll see such immersive world that we had in STALKER again in the series It'll be something like METRO 2033, a corridor shooter, i'm quite certain of that. It's just so much easier to make it bug free that way, and they've had big problems with that. I mean that's tolerable (kind-of) on PC, but for multiplatform, no way they could get away with it.

call of pripyat was nearly bug free (completely for me) and since it offered the most non-linear gameplay of all 3 games I see no reason for them to go the route of metro 2033 which is immersive itself in its own way dispite its linearity. To me its clear the the folks who left the stalker franchise after the first game to create metro 2033 are much more about the fine detail than creating an rpg like experience with factions and such. The games are both awesome and have their similarites but if anything I think the next games in both franchises will become even further apart.

By the way its interesting to note that many of the main characters from metro 2033 "bourbon", the mother and her boy "sahsa" use the names of and are actually based on real people/survivors from pripyat.

I honestly think about Call of Pripyat and Clear Skies as similar games to New Vegas or GTA: Vice City / San Andreas while S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, Fallout 4 and GTA IV are full-fledged sequels.

I still think they're going for a more linear game with the multi platform format, but i REALLY hope i'm wrong.. STALKER is a much better RPG (the way i define / prefer it) than Mass Effect and most of the RPG's out there today that doesnt offer any kind of exploration…

The term "multi platform" does make me nervous….

S.T.A.L.K.E.R was optimized for up to date hardware, allowing for complex architecture and breathtaking visuals. Multi-platform I guess, means that the game is optimized for 5 year old hardware.

I wonder if it's still supposed to be using CryEngine3, which was reported quite a while back (oct 2009)…

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/new…hp?story=25653

Originally Posted by bemushroomed
I wonder if it's still supposed to be using CryEngine3, which was reported quite a while back (oct 2009)…

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/new…hp?story=25653

Ahahahaha… *tears from laughing*


Anyways, thanks to idTech 5 wiping E3's floor with awards for "best looking game" Crytek/EA delayed their next-gen game by a year to improve the crap they were busy hyping so far (seriously, it was an ugly mess).

Also, STALKER developers already said that they will never switch to CryEngine and those reports were false.

hmm yeah, the new press release even says "A completely new multi-platform technology developed by GSC will make the core of the game. " so it wont be CryEngine3..

I hope GSC has stabilized now. They had a downward trend in the publishers they were able to get, according to market power: THQ, Deep Silver, Kalypso.