S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 Officially Revealed
A Troubled History
S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 has been officially revealed and it is still been developed by GSC Game World. These are the same folks that brought us the original STALKER: Shadow Of Chernobyl back in 2007. They are also responsible for STALKER’s prequel, Clear Sky which was released in 2008 and a direct sequel named Call of Pripyat which came out in 2010. GSC are also the developers behind the RTS classic Cossacks.
STALKER 2 first began development back in 2009. Unfortunately during that period GSC hit hard times. The company, which once upon a time was one of the biggest developers in Eastern Europe with over 200 staff, was reduced to just 50 employees. In December 2011 GSC was dissolved with STALKER 2 been formally cancelled in April 2012.
New Beginnings
Thankfully GSC reopened their doors in December 2014 and announced that they would be working on a remake of Cossacks. This was later released in 2016 as Cossacks 3. In May 2018 GSC revealed that they were once again working on STALKER 2. The game would be built using the Unreal Engine 4 and would be released sometime in 2021.
Apart from a brief announcement back in January that the game would run using Unreal Engine 4, nothing had been heard regarding STALKER 2’s development. With most of the planet now on lockdown to combat Covid-19. The official STALKER Twitter account shared a single picture of STALKER 2 in an effort to try and cheer gamers up. They also posted a message saying that STALKER 2 would be their most ambitious project yet and promised fans more info would be coming throughout 2020.
Will It Come To Consoles
This is great news if you are a fan of the original, it was a classic but it was also a PC only title. As you can see from the Tweet above, no information has been given on what platforms S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 will come to. With the release of next gen consoles just around the corner. I really hope it sees the light of day on both the Xbox Series X and the Playstation 5.
As I said earlier, the game will be built using Unreal Engine 4. This engine is used in most of todays biggest titles on both PC and consoles. Also, consoles are closer to PC’s today more than any other time in the past. Everything uses x86 architecture these days so porting it to the XSX or PS5 should be a pretty easy task. I have my fingers crossed for this one. Hopefully GSC can see the potential in bringing STALKER 2 to a new audience on console in 2021.
Let me know what you think though. Have you played the original on PC? If not, and your a console only gamer, would you like to see this on next gen hardware in 2021? Sound off in the comments below.
Image stalker2.com