It feels almost surreal that this game is closer than ever to releasing for real. STALKER 2 is one of those games that's been surrounded by rumors, has died, got revived, and its development has been through hell and back (including a literal WAR)
Agreed, i’m glad to see this is an actual game that will be released sometime soon… not to mention it actually looks pretty good! Glad STALKER is still gonna be around for a while! 🔥
The same thing happen with Shadow of Chernobyl. I remember seeing screenshots of it and reading articles in gaming magazines hyping it up and it sounded great, but then it basically got scrapped and I didn't hear anything about it for years. Then suddenly it was out.
And don't forget that one of the devs got killed on the front And i think their Building also got bombed but luckily it didn't really affect the game development much Tis but a scratch!
that sounds good and bad, on one hand im a fan of hardcore stalker like ai but on the other hand not to the point of shooting through bushes or killing me in 2 seconds. But we'll haft to wait and see how it works out.
I'll wait and see -- UE games have notoriously unimpressive AI due to plugin bloat. The original Stalker games had some amazing AI, and really made the play experience completley unique.
I cannot wait for this game, can’t believe they’ve had to make it during an actual war in their country. Massive support for the stalker team and Ukraine🔥
Yah now imagine playing there with modern graphics at night time while it's raining, i can imagine how creepy it will be especially that now we have proper reflections, lighting going to reflect all surfaces very well 😂
id be willing to bet that the player was using game journalist mode that likely increases meds and ammo drops. i recall early on, the devs were looking to the community for how they should implement progression, and the community almost resoundingly said to make it similar to anomaly and other mods that make the game more tune-able or difficult
There's far too many people who have played Anomaly/Gamma but haven't played the actual Stalker games, and these people fail to realize that the massive overhaul mods they love so much aren't representative of the original Stalker experience and in some cases these overhauls are barely comparable to Stalker at all outside the virtue of taking place in the same world and location (looking at you, Gamma). I feel like these people are setting themselves up for disappointment when Stalker 2 inevitably releases and is nothing like the mental image they've built up of "The Stalker Experience™" from these mods that are so wildly different from the original games.
The only difference between the originals and modded that really matters to most players is gunplay, if the game's fun and guns work players will like it. It already looks like the aesthetic is locked down and that's always been a constant.
@@nymez6968 The source is you can play the old STALKER games and see for yourself. Hes completely right Stalker is way more narrative driven then people might think then the Anomaly/Gamma sandbox experience... It is possible that STALKER 2 might be able to captivate both the original STALKER franchise and the sandbox experience you obtain from Anomaly or Gamma. That would be the best case scenario...
@@ratedxvn I played every Stalker game the day it launched. I was talking about the statement claiming a lot of fans never did and only played mods. I dont‘t buy that.
I hope there is difficulty! Like easy/normal/hard//survival or something. Ive loved gamma. The difficulty in gamma was just made for me. Not looting full weapons, grinding just to have a working weapon, starting with a mosin Nagant that Jamms every bullet to the first working and fixed ak or m4 was a tresure to experience. I whould love Modders to bring gamma to stalker 2. But obviously stalker 2 has adopted many Mods like food and drinking animations, leaning left and right, all that. Im really hyped for stalker 2. Ive played every mainline stalker game and played lots and lots of hours in anomaly and gamma. Gamma as specially! 🍃🦋
You won't get anything like the Gamma progression, crafting and difficulty curves here and we can't expect it. Stalker 2 is a primarily console targeted, narrative shooter with rudimentary survival and crafting mechanics. As a Gamma vet that's all i want tbh, the Metro experience bringing the narrative shooter gameplay to the Stalker sandbox. You can bet your house the huge modding community will be all over it to forge Stalker 2 into the survival shooter format that, let's be honest, kept this franchise alive.
The sound design seems promising too. In the original footage, the way the bullpup rifle's gunshots reverb back at you in realisticlly delayed intervals is going to potentially make distant gunfights between NPCs sound even more immersive.
I recently played the MW remastered , and "All Ghillied Up" mission came up , and me ...Damn I Wanna play STALKER 2 SO BAD.i play all the games so much vanilla and modded to hell and back , and this vid . damn i am so hyped, it looks so new and glorius + respecting the past.
Stalker was never 'extremely difficult'. Yes, it could be difficult on hight levels of difficulty, but most of 'extremely' was added by mods. Do not expect from story driven game to be hardcore. It shold be accessible to most of players. I like that they added survial elements which were added by mods for original trilogy. As for difficulty in shown gameplay I think that they toned down AI and difficulty, because such showcase is made to show how player plays, not how he constantly dies. But I also hope that game will have a good difficulty and hud customization.
@Ahmadabdal_ dayz has a stalker mod which I loved! Gun play seems similar from the other stalker I played, plus it's open world, the guns themselves also! I was more getting at the mod more then it being similar though 😅
Massive S.T.A.L.K.E.R. fan. I played SoC all the way back when it released and I also played Clear Sky and CoP when they released (I miss expansions). I have played through SoC probably around 6-7 times and in anticipation of this new one I have replayed through all 3 of the games. They still hold up in so many ways like their world, the AI, the atmosphere, and the feeling of dread. Can't wait to finally play a modern version of the game with the decade plus of game design improvements.
Unless it gets another delay, let's be real, it'll most likely not release this year anymore, if it does Im happy, but if it doesn't I still prefer a fully fletched out product.
Because it’s stalker not only do we have established lore and locations…but do to unreal 5 we have expansive space to explore which was far from my original understanding of what this experience was going to be! I’m very optimistic about this project based on the developers enthusiasm and passion. Also this is my ideal type post apocalyptic experience. It’s giving metal gear solid meets fallout meets escape from tarkov with the open world looting and exploration and pacing. It’s seems like it will have enough weapons for playstyle variety and sniping looks promising seeing as it appears there is realistic hit box’s. The story looked cool from the original trailers and I’m sure there’s plenty of replay value tbh. Where im at in life I need a big solo first person shooter that takes itself seriously vs all the online fps games we have gotten in the last 5 years. This is for me.
i am a Gamma fan boy, i really like the direction that mod pack went. but i dont want stalker 2 to be like that. Stalker 2 should be like the originals, give us some modding tools and we make our own Gamma/misery/Dead air/EFP and so on.
As much of a fan of Stalker I am, I'm still going to wait for reviews on this one. I thought the same thing about Skyrim when it was coming out, so I hope to be pleasantly incorrect on this one as well.
Man, I can’t wait for this game. I’ve been wanting a new STALKER game for years and years. I’ve modded the crap out of the old games just hoping to make it behave, look, and feel like a different modern take on it.
The presentation was likely played on Easy. Most presentations are. The difficulty being too easy an the AI braindead is concerning. The AI has a few months of tweeking ahead, and there likely will be difficulty options. Game looks gorgeous.
Hope there is a way to toggle on/off the waypoints, og stalker trilogy had rough spots on map that you would need to search immediate environment iirc. Glad to hear my clear sky brethren have made a return, but hopefully not to get wiped for a second time. Also those tripwire grenade traps are taken directly from Metro (not complaining).
Its crazy seeing how much inspiration they took from the modding community... From the eating & drinking animations to controllers having a zombie horde, there's a big sense the community inspired the next iteration of the game, and I'm hear for it.
kinda crazy, i think the main competition it has is stalker gamma. I assume they will be nothing alike but still hope modding has a future in stalker 2
I am hopeful that this game will fill the old fantasies of the original games, however I am skeptical - and that's not to discredit the devs. These types of games are notoriously difficult to run in an open-world, so I'm anticipating that this game isn't 100% open as it claims. Likely individual zones separated by loading screens. Kinda sucks, but understandable. I just don't want them making that promise and then players getting disappointed. I'm really hoping they looked to the modding community for feedback based on their previous games, and maybe implemented those systems. What I will say for certain that I'm happy about seeing in this gameplay though - weird as it may be - is the 'shitty' GUI and inventory space. It fits so appropriately to the STALKER universe and the art direction seems so counter to the visual upgrade to them game, but that almost gives it its charm. Love it. Looking forward to playing this despite the above. I know they've been working hard on it and shits been rough. They'll likely be receiving my support regardless of the game's performance because their effort is commendable both during the development pitfalls and the fact that they're trying to bring this game back to the modern tongue at all when everyone thought it was abandoned.
It is an open world, its literally said seamless open world game of 64sq km, unreal engine can run seamless open world without problem look at games like squad, hell let loose with big maps of same size.
@Krahamus 'Seamless' has been a completely ambiguous term over the last decade. Some even called Last Light a seamless open world. It wasnt. It had large areas that took hours to complete, but the game was still segmented into zones based on large story segments. Squad and HLL are awful examples because they're linear games that don't have dynamic events on the map. Players call things in. We're talking about a persistent world here. As I said, even if it weren't seamless, I wouldn't discredit the devs. I'm just saying they need to be careful with that moniker.
For the difficulty subject i'm pretty sure that they play on novice (very easy ) or stalker ( easy mod) . We can see on the damage taken by the character that he don't loose a lot of health when is hurt even by a pack of dogs who kills you in 2-3 bites in master difficulty wearing the same armor that he's wearing
Yea for sure, i just hope with the higher difficulties it actually enhances the AI behavior rather then just increase their damage output and possibly spawn rate. As the video mentioned the AI not only did little damage but the path finding / behavior was also pretty odd.
I think this is going to be a new toolbox for modders. I think we will effectively get an open world metro game with similar levels of difficulty. Modders will need to take it upon themselves to create that brutal, creative ai we are all hoping for.
From what I've seen in this video, the Controlers seem less scary and psy attack seem dumbed down and less damaging, from original game. Fire anomaly also seems to be less lethal and looks more like gas leak from a ground than a flame that materializes out of nothing like in original game. A lot of makeup, but I don't have any hopes this will be the ultimate Stalker experience. I'll leave that to modding community.
All great news! Thanks for the dive! I do understand why the devs would favor making this game accessible to the uninitiated. I think NPC Ai and game diffulty are things that can be gradually amped up via patches. The core game, mechanics, and eye candy are more important. Let's support this one because the game we're seeing was made in a time of war and this dev has endured so much.
im so hyped for it.. the only things im scared of is the CS treatment and becoming THE main character. Then again theyve always been good at making sure you arent, i hope they bring warfare mode back and that slight chance we are the main character, itll be done right for factions and doesnt fall in the trend of "go here do a simple task like what we seen in swamps, then that region gets opened to a faction of your choice." BUT only time will tell how they release it.
I just hope that not long after release we will have modding tools and we can fix the game as it's has been done with previous games. Previous games are only this popular because of the mods, and this has been the case since the shadow of Chernobyl.
This is looking so good. I've put hundreds of hours into the Stalker games and my only real criticism is that they aren't true open worlds. If this is open world Stalker with Metro Exodus quality graphics, I think I'll be playing this for a loooong time.
The A-Life system is a big one. The UE framework doesn't have anything like it so they will have to build the UE equivalent if such a thing is even feasible. Time will tell on that one but so much of the Stalker "magic" and Stalker "moments" revolve around that crazy, brilliant, and sometimes broken A-Life. The modpacks in particular built on and facilitated a dynamic AI system that is simply unmatched, tracking events and individual Stalkers throughout the Zone in real time, most of which is completely outside your current slice of the sandbox. We can hardly expect something similar here, that's unfair but i really hope they can forge the AI beyond simply spawning, rudimentary pathing, targeting and respawning as is rote with so many games. We'll see.
Xray engine also didn't have a framework for a life it was built from ground up for the engine, Unreal engine is more than enough to create and improve A life, if old x ray engine could manage to do so there is no doubt modern ones can do much more, problem most games today ignore good AI and not really focus on them, till this day i never saw AI similar to F.E.A.R devs recently also confirmed of a life 2.0 is still in game and improved a lot upon, but what will be shown to people is under NDA
The original stalker was quite forgiving at its lower difficulties, but it made the tradeoff of making everything a bullet sponge so the recommended difficulty therefor was always seen to be Master, where, yeah, you are made of tissue paper but so is everything else.
the controller seems a bit underpowered, but that was already kind of a problem in the original games, so mod packs like Gamma or EFP made them more brutal, in Gamma atleast they are a walking psy field that if you go to close to him you lose controll of you character and have to watch how your character slowly puts the barrel of his gun under his chin and blows his head of, aswell as when the controller attacks you with the zoom thing, you drop/lower you weapon so you cant just return fire and kill him like that.
I'm super hyped for this. Since the original trio came out for Xbox, I've dumped dozens of hours in all 3, and I'm absolutely hooked on the series. This might actually be the deciding factor on me getting a Series X. Seeing a few of the mod gameplays from Anomaly and Gamma, it's rather clear that some of the gameplay was adopted from the improvements they added to the originals.
@@noobovsky420 Can't blame anyone for playing on console if it's cheaper and eats by far less power. The difference between a PC & a Console in prices is huge, telling to people that they should just change is dumb, even if it's the better experience for those kind of games.
@@Unknown_Genius lmfao this weird new found obsession with "eats far less power" is hilarious. and the price isnt much different if you factor the cost of a tv that actually give these consoles the features theyre supposed to have. a pc that would cost about the same as youd spend on the console and a good tv to run it like something with 120hz or more would cost as much as a pretty decent pc and still be better than the console
@@noobovsky420 "obsession" - If you calculate a consoles power consumption (which barely even has moved for the past 10 years) vs a modern PCs power consumption you're ending up with quite a bit less of electricity costs in most countries - not to say a few hundred to a few thousand less per year depending on how much you use it. Also "a pc that would cost about the same as youd spend on the console and a good tv to run it like something with 120hz or more would cost as much as a pretty decent pc and still be better than the console" that's already bs, as you never even taken the costs for a proper monitor (which already cost the same if often enough not more based on size comparison), speakers (or headset/earphones for that matter) into account to begin with. I play PC myself, but how tf can someone be so in denial about how much of an expensive luxury a PC is compared to the luxury that gaming already is, it's literally the reason as to why console holds the majority of the market.
I would love to see an Ironman mode as well as some sort of sandbox mode to skip the main story if you wanted to. But maybe that's all for later when the first modpacks come out.
4:05 player character was never a hero character or a superhuman in previous STALKER games. You were just a STALKER like other NPCs. You could be killed quickly by anyone if you had poor gear.
either way i'm just hyped that we getting a new engine for stalker and Unreal looks to be super kick ass and i can't wait to see and play S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 and to see how long it takes for a Gamma version of the game to come out.
Not "dumbing down" Stalker is a big deal. So many studios have destroyed what makes their games unique by making it more accesible to a wider audience. A game for everyone is a game for no one.
biggest red flag of gaming is when the game is "too big to experience in one playthrough." usually that means broken, unplayable mess (Cyberpunk), or sprawling nothingness (NMS, Starfield.) Seems like the word "experience" is subjective in the world of gaming. let's hope this has a smooth launch 🙏
I think people expect to much, stalker is not what the modders made, stalker isn't hardcore like gamma, this is just going to be stalker but made with a new engine with new technology and better understanding on what will appeal to a huge market, not the gamma guys/gals, I do hope the modders embrace stalker 2 and push new stuff into it. I also would like someone to mod the original games into the stalker 2 game ala skyblivion >.>
Original game was never super hardcore. Even on gamepad. Mutants and zombies on video behave right in the same way as in original game. Zombies just go straight on you and dogs circling close around player performing random attacks. I don't see any signs that AI was nerfed.
If anything, the damage looks to be reduced & the impact of dog bites & controller's attacks feels insignificant - if there was no health bar I wouldn't be able to tell that player's getting damaged at all up until the image started to get reddish (which seems to be happening below 50% HP here).
Thing is - 15 years passed after last Stalker game came out and AI is a garbage in this video. As well as animations, sound, enviroment do not react on anything, grass do not move etc. No shadows from anomalies, boxes getting destroyed from a knife like they made out of paper etc. I don't like what i see, it's 4/10 game, even old stalker is better
@@F1stzz it's the lower difficulty. everybody has been playing on master so long that the lower difficulties have been forgotten. there is a clip in another trailer where a dog rips out a third of the health bar.
If theres no on-off toggle for those massive ui indicators that tell you what you can pick up, or for the crosshair, its gonna be annoying for me. Also i dont get why looking at the minimap takes you out of the game and into a menu, and why the weapon wheel slows down time.
02:38 yep, that is a NATURAL AI behavior... Let's just ignore the flying bullet next to the head, lets stay more steadier so the next one hits the target
You know those were zombies, right? You did watch the deep dive, right? And even if you did not, why did you assume those were just regular human npcs?
SVOBODA! 1:48 / 8:02 What's with the match-ditching reload animations?! No one would ever ditch a helical-feed cylinder drum! Drop one of those things, and it'll never work again! 1:59 FLESH'd...out. Because fleshpigs! 🙃 2:49 Not every stock is made to withstand bashing like that. If you did that with a G36 IRL, the stock would break. AK stocks can withstand that sort of treatment. 3:31 The proper way to link mags together. They should both be facing up (edit/note: as they are there.). SIG rifle mags are also made to be joined together like that. In movies, they always have one mag facing down - which has been done before IRL - but the real-world results are random and risky. Cartridges can fall out if the recoil is sharp enough, or the mag spring and follower can get messed up, especially while lying prone. 4:59 Do fully trimmed-down sawed-off shotguns (the ones that are as compact as possible) fit in your pistol slot? It always irks me when a trimmed-down gun takes up the same space/slot as a full-size gun. It defeats the whole point of trimming it down into its most compact form. Still makes it lighter and easier to carry, but at the expense of handling characteristics and a bit of damage reduction (due to the slow-burning nature of shotgun powder). 5:28 Fleshpig! 🙃 5:52 Why's the MAC-10's stock stuck in its storage position? Is there an in-game justification for that? Like, is it rusted shut or something? 5:58 Looks like we've gone back to aiming the side-by-side wrongly (muzzles tilted up for no reason). Should aim straight down the rib regardless of barrel length and regardless of the presence or absence of a bead sight. 7:12 Is that combo sight fully functional? Why do we still have to have that old relic on the G36?! That sight sucks IRL! It's better to have the "scope with iron sights on top" combo. You still get the dual-function sight, but with a much clearer sight picture when using the pistol-style fixed CQC backup irons. 8:39 Should've used Oblivion Lost as an example since it really is a mod for "the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game." GAMMA is a mod for Anomaly which is a stand-alone mod that departs from the core games while also combining elements from all of them (which unfortunately includes grasping the GP-25's dinky nub grip like a foregrip while firing the host rifle like in CoP and Clear Sky, something only an incompetent rookie conscript would do IRL, except an incompetent rookie conscript would never be issued a GP-25 since they're issued to senior riflemen). 8:47 Wanna try some Zone Sportsmanship Challenges? 9:47 Kudos (with a hard "s" since it's singular) for every programmer who ever tried to depict both-eyes-open aiming in FPS games. It's only too bad it's never worked out. But what's the point of having the rear sight so close to the "eye" when ADS-ing?! I've never understood that.
All the statements about freedom, gameplay mechanics, etc., give me the same vibe as when Dying Light 2 was first announced. I really do want to believe all these claims, but let's not get too excited about it before the game is actually out in November.
5:08 kinda disappointing that they put all that effort into graphics, but still use that outdated “zoom the whole view” effect for scopes. Using dual render to properly portray scopes has been around for over a decade now in several other games.
You mean PiP or Picture in Picture scopes like in Squad? Yeah, that'll kill your frames when the game is already graphically intense. I'm not against it in a future patch for better hardware down the line.
@@splewy if PiP you mean they drastically lowered the resolution outside the scope and blurred the hell out of it so you can't see that it's low resolution? Proper PiP doesn't downscale the external resolution much if at all.
@@P3RF3CTD3ATH yeah honestly I’m fine with the heavy blur effect. That’s how it looks in real life. The image you see within a magnified optic is not on the same focal plane as everything else, so it actually wouldn’t make sense for a game to render both as in focus.
Whoooa the visuals are next level only thing that worries me is that the seems like the gameplay was made playing with controller and that controller aim from the inputs i observe on screen looks really clunky with strong aim assist from what i can tell, i hope they improve that, you'd be surprised if only play mouse and keyboard just how well and accurate a well tuned controller aim input system can be (i mostly play PC but adore devs that put the time in to make super good aim for controller) and a good input system should pretty much mean that aim assist is just not needed it borderline makes the need for aim assist obsolete.
I genuinely believe that whatever the community might come to miss, they will implement themselves -very- quickly. I've witnessed the Stalker modding community at work for over a decade; they are as capable as the GoldSrc and Source modding communities, if not more capable. And not many game modding communities can measure up with Half-life.
"The concept of Freedom was a big talking point." But what about Duty?
get out of here, stalker.
"Put that shooter away, stalker."
DEADLY ANOMALIES, DANGEROUS MUTANTS, ANARCHISTS, AND BANDITS. NOTHING WILL STOP DUTY ON ITS TRIUMPHANT MARCH TOWARDS SAVING THE PLANET!!!!!
@@skullknight0024 "POOT DAT SHOOTER AWAEY, STOKER"
DOOTY KILL ZONE WITH PKM
It feels almost surreal that this game is closer than ever to releasing for real. STALKER 2 is one of those games that's been surrounded by rumors, has died, got revived, and its development has been through hell and back (including a literal WAR)
Agreed, i’m glad to see this is an actual game that will be released sometime soon… not to mention it actually looks pretty good! Glad STALKER is still gonna be around for a while! 🔥
It is definitely one of the games of all time
The same thing happen with Shadow of Chernobyl. I remember seeing screenshots of it and reading articles in gaming magazines hyping it up and it sounded great, but then it basically got scrapped and I didn't hear anything about it for years. Then suddenly it was out.
@@pcppbadminton and it was AMAZING. I've got such great memories of playing this game, and it managed to grow a great modding community too.
And don't forget that one of the devs got killed on the front
And i think their Building also got bombed but luckily it didn't really affect the game development much
Tis but a scratch!
Cant wait for this game to finally release. Hopefully, with everything that happened, yhe community will be very supportive of this game
Absolutely, cannot wait
If anything Anomaly 2 is gonna be lit in 2030
@@BButcher-hg4nr Unreal engine isn't X-Ray engine and modding is very difficult.
@yakivpopavich "yes the devs said mod support will be built into the game. no modding isnt going to be good"
@@yakivpopavich Eh, a lot can happen in 7 years
About the AI, iirc the devs have said that for trailers and marketing they dumbed down the AI a lot so that its more "enjoyable" to watch.
that sounds good and bad, on one hand im a fan of hardcore stalker like ai but on the other hand not to the point of shooting through bushes or killing me in 2 seconds. But we'll haft to wait and see how it works out.
@@whitewolf1015 iirc based on what people said after playtesting at Gamescom, the ai were intelligent and tuff to go against
I would also assume that gsc would have thought about ai seeing through foliage since there is so much of it
I'll wait and see -- UE games have notoriously unimpressive AI due to plugin bloat. The original Stalker games had some amazing AI, and really made the play experience completley unique.
x to doubt
i hope mod support is fully supported, cause mods thrive in anomily, so for stalker 2 i cant wait to see what ppl will make.
It is. First UE5 game with actual mod tools. It's going to be crazy
@@Medicbobs UEFN - Fortnite had it first :P
Yup the devs confirmed they wanted it to be mod friendly
So I can get rid of this horrible crosshair
@@axelarnaud7547fr why is there even a crosshair with these visuals it looks terrible
I cannot wait for this game, can’t believe they’ve had to make it during an actual war in their country. Massive support for the stalker team and Ukraine🔥
They really have proven that both EA, 343, and activision have some fucking explaining to do
If only the US didn't have a coup
They moved out a while ago not sure why people still think they're developing this game with bombs dropping over their head
@@pandapancakes37doesn't matter...they still managed to develop this game during a war and complete it
@@dr._breens_beardWe’ve always known the answers. People like to be ignorant. It’s bliss.
"OH boy, here I go, dying In the truck graveyard again"
Yah now imagine playing there with modern graphics at night time while it's raining, i can imagine how creepy it will be especially that now we have proper reflections, lighting going to reflect all surfaces very well 😂
@Krahamus all throughout the zone they can hear you scream.
id be willing to bet that the player was using game journalist mode that likely increases meds and ammo drops. i recall early on, the devs were looking to the community for how they should implement progression, and the community almost resoundingly said to make it similar to anomaly and other mods that make the game more tune-able or difficult
That’s the only way to appeal to multiple categories/skill sets of players. I hope it’s true bc ANOMALY really did that well imo.
The crazy thing is this game looks and feels amazing and it Hasn’t been touched by modding community yet ohh boy can’t wait!!
The freedom and immersive sim elements really get me excited for this game
*listens to the entirety of LevelCap's video, him describing the game*
"Yeah, that sounds like S.T.A.L.K.E.R."
There's far too many people who have played Anomaly/Gamma but haven't played the actual Stalker games, and these people fail to realize that the massive overhaul mods they love so much aren't representative of the original Stalker experience and in some cases these overhauls are barely comparable to Stalker at all outside the virtue of taking place in the same world and location (looking at you, Gamma). I feel like these people are setting themselves up for disappointment when Stalker 2 inevitably releases and is nothing like the mental image they've built up of "The Stalker Experience™" from these mods that are so wildly different from the original games.
You probably feel good wearing that good guy badge
The only difference between the originals and modded that really matters to most players is gunplay, if the game's fun and guns work players will like it. It already looks like the aesthetic is locked down and that's always been a constant.
Source: Trust me bro.
@@nymez6968 The source is you can play the old STALKER games and see for yourself. Hes completely right Stalker is way more narrative driven then people might think then the Anomaly/Gamma sandbox experience... It is possible that STALKER 2 might be able to captivate both the original STALKER franchise and the sandbox experience you obtain from Anomaly or Gamma. That would be the best case scenario...
@@ratedxvn I played every Stalker game the day it launched. I was talking about the statement claiming a lot of fans never did and only played mods. I dont‘t buy that.
I hope there is difficulty! Like easy/normal/hard//survival or something. Ive loved gamma. The difficulty in gamma was just made for me. Not looting full weapons, grinding just to have a working weapon, starting with a mosin Nagant that Jamms every bullet to the first working and fixed ak or m4 was a tresure to experience. I whould love Modders to bring gamma to stalker 2. But obviously stalker 2 has adopted many Mods like food and drinking animations, leaning left and right, all that. Im really hyped for stalker 2. Ive played every mainline stalker game and played lots and lots of hours in anomaly and gamma. Gamma as specially! 🍃🦋
You won't get anything like the Gamma progression, crafting and difficulty curves here and we can't expect it. Stalker 2 is a primarily console targeted, narrative shooter with rudimentary survival and crafting mechanics. As a Gamma vet that's all i want tbh, the Metro experience bringing the narrative shooter gameplay to the Stalker sandbox. You can bet your house the huge modding community will be all over it to forge Stalker 2 into the survival shooter format that, let's be honest, kept this franchise alive.
I just bought the remastered stalker game and I'm loving it!
The sound design seems promising too. In the original footage, the way the bullpup rifle's gunshots reverb back at you in realisticlly delayed intervals is going to potentially make distant gunfights between NPCs sound even more immersive.
I recently played the MW remastered , and "All Ghillied Up" mission came up , and me ...Damn I Wanna play STALKER 2 SO BAD.i play all the games so much vanilla and modded to hell and back , and this vid . damn i am so hyped, it looks so new and glorius + respecting the past.
@@Vajrubaj you get the vibe
Stalker was never 'extremely difficult'. Yes, it could be difficult on hight levels of difficulty, but most of 'extremely' was added by mods. Do not expect from story driven game to be hardcore. It shold be accessible to most of players.
I like that they added survial elements which were added by mods for original trilogy.
As for difficulty in shown gameplay I think that they toned down AI and difficulty, because such showcase is made to show how player plays, not how he constantly dies. But I also hope that game will have a good difficulty and hud customization.
As a DayZ Player i am super hyped for this!
What….this is nothing like dayz
@Ahmadabdal_ dayz has a stalker mod which I loved! Gun play seems similar from the other stalker I played, plus it's open world, the guns themselves also! I was more getting at the mod more then it being similar though 😅
DayZ has nothing to do with Stalker lol.
Yea dude that stalker mod on Dayz is awesome! These other clowns commenting are incompetent lol
@@dom2flyy314 or they're not aware of the Dayz mod
Massive S.T.A.L.K.E.R. fan. I played SoC all the way back when it released and I also played Clear Sky and CoP when they released (I miss expansions). I have played through SoC probably around 6-7 times and in anticipation of this new one I have replayed through all 3 of the games. They still hold up in so many ways like their world, the AI, the atmosphere, and the feeling of dread. Can't wait to finally play a modern version of the game with the decade plus of game design improvements.
I couldn’t be anymore excited, there goes my whole month of November lol
Unless it gets another delay, let's be real, it'll most likely not release this year anymore, if it does Im happy, but if it doesn't I still prefer a fully fletched out product.
Because it’s stalker not only do we have established lore and locations…but do to unreal 5 we have expansive space to explore which was far from my original understanding of what this experience was going to be! I’m very optimistic about this project based on the developers enthusiasm and passion. Also this is my ideal type post apocalyptic experience. It’s giving metal gear solid meets fallout meets escape from tarkov with the open world looting and exploration and pacing. It’s seems like it will have enough weapons for playstyle variety and sniping looks promising seeing as it appears there is realistic hit box’s. The story looked cool from the original trailers and I’m sure there’s plenty of replay value tbh. Where im at in life I need a big solo first person shooter that takes itself seriously vs all the online fps games we have gotten in the last 5 years. This is for me.
i am a Gamma fan boy, i really like the direction that mod pack went. but i dont want stalker 2 to be like that. Stalker 2 should be like the originals, give us some modding tools and we make our own Gamma/misery/Dead air/EFP and so on.
As much of a fan of Stalker I am, I'm still going to wait for reviews on this one.
I thought the same thing about Skyrim when it was coming out, so I hope to be pleasantly incorrect on this one as well.
It will be available on Game Pass September 19
@@polacoloco2010 Game Pass is basically enabling Ubisoft's idea of a lack of ownership on games.
@@polacoloco2010no, not until November, it was delayed again
@@Billy-bc8pk Its not the same thing.
@@SheHerFemme They can take all the time they need tbh, i don’t want it to feel rushed…
This and space Marines 2 are the only games I've been looking forward to this year
I didn’t see any subtitles for some reason, so stoked you have a breakdown
bro has a skill issue watching yt videos...
i cant tell you how sad i was when it got delayed... but i am still so dam excited.
Man, I can’t wait for this game. I’ve been wanting a new STALKER game for years and years. I’ve modded the crap out of the old games just hoping to make it behave, look, and feel like a different modern take on it.
I love how it’s literally got all of the same weapons (plus new ones), armor, gadgets, healing items etc as the original games and I’m so damn hyped.
The presentation was likely played on Easy. Most presentations are. The difficulty being too easy an the AI braindead is concerning. The AI has a few months of tweeking ahead, and there likely will be difficulty options. Game looks gorgeous.
if it doesn't take 20 makarov mags to kill a single guy then this isn't true stalker 💔
Hope there is a way to toggle on/off the waypoints, og stalker trilogy had rough spots on map that you would need to search immediate environment iirc. Glad to hear my clear sky brethren have made a return, but hopefully not to get wiped for a second time. Also those tripwire grenade traps are taken directly from Metro (not complaining).
Its crazy seeing how much inspiration they took from the modding community... From the eating & drinking animations to controllers having a zombie horde, there's a big sense the community inspired the next iteration of the game, and I'm hear for it.
UE5 huh, Don't know if it will be as modable as the original, the modscene there has it all figured out. Well see what they add and make available.
UE5 is a new "standart" , so modders will jump in soon
kinda crazy, i think the main competition it has is stalker gamma. I assume they will be nothing alike but still hope modding has a future in stalker 2
I am hopeful that this game will fill the old fantasies of the original games, however I am skeptical - and that's not to discredit the devs. These types of games are notoriously difficult to run in an open-world, so I'm anticipating that this game isn't 100% open as it claims. Likely individual zones separated by loading screens. Kinda sucks, but understandable. I just don't want them making that promise and then players getting disappointed. I'm really hoping they looked to the modding community for feedback based on their previous games, and maybe implemented those systems. What I will say for certain that I'm happy about seeing in this gameplay though - weird as it may be - is the 'shitty' GUI and inventory space. It fits so appropriately to the STALKER universe and the art direction seems so counter to the visual upgrade to them game, but that almost gives it its charm. Love it. Looking forward to playing this despite the above. I know they've been working hard on it and shits been rough. They'll likely be receiving my support regardless of the game's performance because their effort is commendable both during the development pitfalls and the fact that they're trying to bring this game back to the modern tongue at all when everyone thought it was abandoned.
It is an open world, its literally said seamless open world game of 64sq km, unreal engine can run seamless open world without problem look at games like squad, hell let loose with big maps of same size.
@Krahamus 'Seamless' has been a completely ambiguous term over the last decade. Some even called Last Light a seamless open world. It wasnt. It had large areas that took hours to complete, but the game was still segmented into zones based on large story segments.
Squad and HLL are awful examples because they're linear games that don't have dynamic events on the map. Players call things in. We're talking about a persistent world here.
As I said, even if it weren't seamless, I wouldn't discredit the devs. I'm just saying they need to be careful with that moniker.
i just hope they really do make the factions more dynamic, even with mods its usually very surface level things in the base games and freeroam mods
For the difficulty subject i'm pretty sure that they play on novice (very easy ) or stalker ( easy mod) . We can see on the damage taken by the character that he don't loose a lot of health when is hurt even by a pack of dogs who kills you in 2-3 bites in master difficulty wearing the same armor that he's wearing
Yea for sure, i just hope with the higher difficulties it actually enhances the AI behavior rather then just increase their damage output and possibly spawn rate.
As the video mentioned the AI not only did little damage but the path finding / behavior was also pretty odd.
@@T-Minus10s i agree i felt it was too easy. But gsc said many times that even veteran stalkers gonna do hard time through the game
I mean the game already looks phenomenal but imagine Gamma mod on top of this. Hyped for this one.
you talked about mod support and I`m a little concerned about that since unreal engine is kinda known for not being that easy to mod
Unreal Engine got one of the best mod supports and especially with inbuilt tools its easy to learn compared to most other engines.
I think this is going to be a new toolbox for modders. I think we will effectively get an open world metro game with similar levels of difficulty. Modders will need to take it upon themselves to create that brutal, creative ai we are all hoping for.
I've been waiting 14 years for this game!
I really hope they put an AUG in game. I love the AUG.
about the AI , they stated that it was set in the easiest difficulty for the trailers.
I hate how hyped I am for this game. And looking at the graphics I fear my pc will run it at 30fps
This is the kind of areas we should have in Gray Zone. This looks great and interesting
Bought this game just after the invasion. Can’t wait to play it soon.
The 2 things i want. At some point. Coop, And mods. If we can achieve those. we got it made. and so far looks like it will be decent on launch.
From what I've seen in this video, the Controlers seem less scary and psy attack seem dumbed down and less damaging, from original game.
Fire anomaly also seems to be less lethal and looks more like gas leak from a ground than a flame that materializes out of nothing like in original game.
A lot of makeup, but I don't have any hopes this will be the ultimate Stalker experience.
I'll leave that to modding community.
All great news! Thanks for the dive! I do understand why the devs would favor making this game accessible to the uninitiated. I think NPC Ai and game diffulty are things that can be gradually amped up via patches. The core game, mechanics, and eye candy are more important. Let's support this one because the game we're seeing was made in a time of war and this dev has endured so much.
I remember hearing that just for the trailers they turned the ai difficulty way down to show off gameplay easier
im so hyped for it.. the only things im scared of is the CS treatment and becoming THE main character. Then again theyve always been good at making sure you arent, i hope they bring warfare mode back and that slight chance we are the main character, itll be done right for factions and doesnt fall in the trend of "go here do a simple task like what we seen in swamps, then that region gets opened to a faction of your choice." BUT only time will tell how they release it.
Cool to see the duga featuring in it. I've climbed part of it!
i sure hope the game has that classic stalker aim.
elbow knees foot shoulder mid air aiming you mean lol 🤣😉🤭
Man, just look at those Clear Skies.
17 years have passed in the game's world :)
That controller gameplay is....rough. Why game developers don't get someone who's played games before, to showcase the game, is beyond me.
Super hyped about Stalker 2. Everything sounds exactly like my cup of tea! Looks awesome!
I like that they dropped the PIP scopes. The fps drop from them and the laggy way they feel are just not worth it.
I just hope that not long after release we will have modding tools and we can fix the game as it's has been done with previous games. Previous games are only this popular because of the mods, and this has been the case since the shadow of Chernobyl.
A video like this I could happily watch several more minutes of thoughts and footage.
This is looking so good. I've put hundreds of hours into the Stalker games and my only real criticism is that they aren't true open worlds. If this is open world Stalker with Metro Exodus quality graphics, I think I'll be playing this for a loooong time.
Great video man. Im really excited for this game, however it turns out Im definitely going to check it out.
Damn I've played so much of this series over the years and the fan mods that I know basically every location in the video by name.
The A-Life system is a big one. The UE framework doesn't have anything like it so they will have to build the UE equivalent if such a thing is even feasible. Time will tell on that one but so much of the Stalker "magic" and Stalker "moments" revolve around that crazy, brilliant, and sometimes broken A-Life. The modpacks in particular built on and facilitated a dynamic AI system that is simply unmatched, tracking events and individual Stalkers throughout the Zone in real time, most of which is completely outside your current slice of the sandbox. We can hardly expect something similar here, that's unfair but i really hope they can forge the AI beyond simply spawning, rudimentary pathing, targeting and respawning as is rote with so many games. We'll see.
Xray engine also didn't have a framework for a life it was built from ground up for the engine, Unreal engine is more than enough to create and improve A life, if old x ray engine could manage to do so there is no doubt modern ones can do much more, problem most games today ignore good AI and not really focus on them, till this day i never saw AI similar to F.E.A.R devs recently also confirmed of a life 2.0 is still in game and improved a lot upon, but what will be shown to people is under NDA
The original stalker was quite forgiving at its lower difficulties, but it made the tradeoff of making everything a bullet sponge so the recommended difficulty therefor was always seen to be Master, where, yeah, you are made of tissue paper but so is everything else.
Nah. Thats actually rumor, that is not true. Higher diffilculties made enemies more spongy, than lower in fact.
the difficulty thing isn't true, it just forced people to make headshots in order to survive.
Until you got to the NPP and you regret that choice lmao
God, I'm so sad it was delayed 2 months but I can't wait to play it nonetheless.
Honestly, even if it had "Freedom" akin to Metro Exodus, I think I'd still love it.
the controller seems a bit underpowered, but that was already kind of a problem in the original games, so mod packs like Gamma or EFP made them more brutal, in Gamma atleast they are a walking psy field that if you go to close to him you lose controll of you character and have to watch how your character slowly puts the barrel of his gun under his chin and blows his head of, aswell as when the controller attacks you with the zoom thing, you drop/lower you weapon so you cant just return fire and kill him like that.
"The zone is vast because of freedom"
I be like 😮
I'm super hyped for this. Since the original trio came out for Xbox, I've dumped dozens of hours in all 3, and I'm absolutely hooked on the series. This might actually be the deciding factor on me getting a Series X.
Seeing a few of the mod gameplays from Anomaly and Gamma, it's rather clear that some of the gameplay was adopted from the improvements they added to the originals.
Get a pc lol that’s the real way to play stalker man.
@@noobovsky420 Can't blame anyone for playing on console if it's cheaper and eats by far less power.
The difference between a PC & a Console in prices is huge, telling to people that they should just change is dumb, even if it's the better experience for those kind of games.
@@Unknown_Genius lmfao this weird new found obsession with "eats far less power" is hilarious. and the price isnt much different if you factor the cost of a tv that actually give these consoles the features theyre supposed to have. a pc that would cost about the same as youd spend on the console and a good tv to run it like something with 120hz or more would cost as much as a pretty decent pc and still be better than the console
@@noobovsky420 "obsession" - If you calculate a consoles power consumption (which barely even has moved for the past 10 years) vs a modern PCs power consumption you're ending up with quite a bit less of electricity costs in most countries - not to say a few hundred to a few thousand less per year depending on how much you use it.
Also "a pc that would cost about the same as youd spend on the console and a good tv to run it like something with 120hz or more would cost as much as a pretty decent pc and still be better than the console" that's already bs, as you never even taken the costs for a proper monitor (which already cost the same if often enough not more based on size comparison), speakers (or headset/earphones for that matter) into account to begin with.
I play PC myself, but how tf can someone be so in denial about how much of an expensive luxury a PC is compared to the luxury that gaming already is, it's literally the reason as to why console holds the majority of the market.
@@Unknown_Genius still not a real argument over pc vs console man. Hilarious again. Keep going.
I would love to see an Ironman mode as well as some sort of sandbox mode to skip the main story if you wanted to. But maybe that's all for later when the first modpacks come out.
I sure hope they have shader cache preloading and we dont get the stutter Unreal engine games are notorious for on pc
4:05 player character was never a hero character or a superhuman in previous STALKER games. You were just a STALKER like other NPCs. You could be killed quickly by anyone if you had poor gear.
I can't wait for this! I've been playing a stalker mod on DayZ for years
either way i'm just hyped that we getting a new engine for stalker and Unreal looks to be super kick ass and i can't wait to see and play S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 and to see how long it takes for a Gamma version of the game to come out.
I have waited so long for this... (as we all have) and I can't wait to play it!!!
Planning to cover or play Delta Force more?
Not "dumbing down" Stalker is a big deal. So many studios have destroyed what makes their games unique by making it more accesible to a wider audience.
A game for everyone is a game for no one.
i never played the first and i dont know anything about the stalker games but this looks really fun and interesting so ill be picking it up for sure.
Excited but do wish this was PC only, UI and some game design seems to be dumbed down to work on console.
biggest red flag of gaming is when the game is "too big to experience in one playthrough." usually that means broken, unplayable mess (Cyberpunk), or sprawling nothingness (NMS, Starfield.) Seems like the word "experience" is subjective in the world of gaming. let's hope this has a smooth launch 🙏
I think people expect to much, stalker is not what the modders made, stalker isn't hardcore like gamma, this is just going to be stalker but made with a new engine with new technology and better understanding on what will appeal to a huge market, not the gamma guys/gals, I do hope the modders embrace stalker 2 and push new stuff into it.
I also would like someone to mod the original games into the stalker 2 game ala skyblivion >.>
Original game was never super hardcore. Even on gamepad. Mutants and zombies on video behave right in the same way as in original game. Zombies just go straight on you and dogs circling close around player performing random attacks. I don't see any signs that AI was nerfed.
If anything, the damage looks to be reduced & the impact of dog bites & controller's attacks feels insignificant - if there was no health bar I wouldn't be able to tell that player's getting damaged at all up until the image started to get reddish (which seems to be happening below 50% HP here).
Thing is - 15 years passed after last Stalker game came out and AI is a garbage in this video. As well as animations, sound, enviroment do not react on anything, grass do not move etc. No shadows from anomalies, boxes getting destroyed from a knife like they made out of paper etc.
I don't like what i see, it's 4/10 game, even old stalker is better
@@F1stzz it's the lower difficulty. everybody has been playing on master so long that the lower difficulties have been forgotten. there is a clip in another trailer where a dog rips out a third of the health bar.
If theres no on-off toggle for those massive ui indicators that tell you what you can pick up, or for the crosshair, its gonna be annoying for me. Also i dont get why looking at the minimap takes you out of the game and into a menu, and why the weapon wheel slows down time.
Only thing bugging me is the small radius of the crosshair like in BF5, this can eliminate the need to aim down sight in some cases
that’s how it was in the other stalker games, i played gamma a lot, i disable the crosshair for realism
Game of the year ❤
02:38 yep, that is a NATURAL AI behavior... Let's just ignore the flying bullet next to the head, lets stay more steadier so the next one hits the target
You know those were zombies, right? You did watch the deep dive, right? And even if you did not, why did you assume those were just regular human npcs?
why would zombies care about bullets?
9:00 yea, I would have ran away in the og games. But this doesn't seem scary or risky
So the fallout we’ve been wanting forever
Sounding like a Witcher 3 amount of detail 😊
SVOBODA!
1:48 / 8:02 What's with the match-ditching reload animations?! No one would ever ditch a helical-feed cylinder drum! Drop one of those things, and it'll never work again!
1:59 FLESH'd...out. Because fleshpigs! 🙃
2:49 Not every stock is made to withstand bashing like that. If you did that with a G36 IRL, the stock would break. AK stocks can withstand that sort of treatment.
3:31 The proper way to link mags together. They should both be facing up (edit/note: as they are there.). SIG rifle mags are also made to be joined together like that. In movies, they always have one mag facing down - which has been done before IRL - but the real-world results are random and risky. Cartridges can fall out if the recoil is sharp enough, or the mag spring and follower can get messed up, especially while lying prone.
4:59 Do fully trimmed-down sawed-off shotguns (the ones that are as compact as possible) fit in your pistol slot? It always irks me when a trimmed-down gun takes up the same space/slot as a full-size gun. It defeats the whole point of trimming it down into its most compact form. Still makes it lighter and easier to carry, but at the expense of handling characteristics and a bit of damage reduction (due to the slow-burning nature of shotgun powder).
5:28 Fleshpig! 🙃
5:52 Why's the MAC-10's stock stuck in its storage position? Is there an in-game justification for that? Like, is it rusted shut or something?
5:58 Looks like we've gone back to aiming the side-by-side wrongly (muzzles tilted up for no reason). Should aim straight down the rib regardless of barrel length and regardless of the presence or absence of a bead sight.
7:12 Is that combo sight fully functional? Why do we still have to have that old relic on the G36?! That sight sucks IRL! It's better to have the "scope with iron sights on top" combo. You still get the dual-function sight, but with a much clearer sight picture when using the pistol-style fixed CQC backup irons.
8:39 Should've used Oblivion Lost as an example since it really is a mod for "the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game." GAMMA is a mod for Anomaly which is a stand-alone mod that departs from the core games while also combining elements from all of them (which unfortunately includes grasping the GP-25's dinky nub grip like a foregrip while firing the host rifle like in CoP and Clear Sky, something only an incompetent rookie conscript would do IRL, except an incompetent rookie conscript would never be issued a GP-25 since they're issued to senior riflemen).
8:47 Wanna try some Zone Sportsmanship Challenges?
9:47 Kudos (with a hard "s" since it's singular) for every programmer who ever tried to depict both-eyes-open aiming in FPS games. It's only too bad it's never worked out. But what's the point of having the rear sight so close to the "eye" when ADS-ing?! I've never understood that.
All the statements about freedom, gameplay mechanics, etc., give me the same vibe as when Dying Light 2 was first announced. I really do want to believe all these claims, but let's not get too excited about it before the game is actually out in November.
I am worried about the optimization, like every other post 2023 game
5:08 kinda disappointing that they put all that effort into graphics, but still use that outdated “zoom the whole view” effect for scopes. Using dual render to properly portray scopes has been around for over a decade now in several other games.
You mean PiP or Picture in Picture scopes like in Squad? Yeah, that'll kill your frames when the game is already graphically intense. I'm not against it in a future patch for better hardware down the line.
@@P3RF3CTD3ATH Call of Duty managed to make it work on consoles way back in 2013. It can’t be that hard to make the effect run efficiently.
@@splewy if PiP you mean they drastically lowered the resolution outside the scope and blurred the hell out of it so you can't see that it's low resolution? Proper PiP doesn't downscale the external resolution much if at all.
@@P3RF3CTD3ATH yeah honestly I’m fine with the heavy blur effect. That’s how it looks in real life. The image you see within a magnified optic is not on the same focal plane as everything else, so it actually wouldn’t make sense for a game to render both as in focus.
Really looking forward to this one. Probably my most hyped game of 2024. Just hoping it runs at a frame rate higher than powerpoint.
Whoooa the visuals are next level only thing that worries me is that the seems like the gameplay was made playing with controller and that controller aim from the inputs i observe on screen looks really clunky with strong aim assist from what i can tell, i hope they improve that, you'd be surprised if only play mouse and keyboard just how well and accurate a well tuned controller aim input system can be (i mostly play PC but adore devs that put the time in to make super good aim for controller) and a good input system should pretty much mean that aim assist is just not needed it borderline makes the need for aim assist obsolete.
The AI at 7:12 has me concerned
They are zombies, shooting without aiming, even in the original trilogy they are the one of the easiest mutant/humanoids to deal with besides flesh
I'm pumped for this game. It seems like a day 1 buy for me. My kinda Tea ☕
Thanks for this breakdown!
I genuinely believe that whatever the community might come to miss, they will implement themselves -very- quickly. I've witnessed the Stalker modding community at work for over a decade; they are as capable as the GoldSrc and Source modding communities, if not more capable. And not many game modding communities can measure up with Half-life.