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S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 | Xbox e3 Showcase
- Thread starter KyoZz
- Start date
Hezekiah
Banned
Discover the vast Chernobyl Exclusion Zone full of dangerous enemies, deadly anomalies and powerful artifacts. Unveil your own epic story as you make your way to the Heart of Chernobyl.
Choose your paths wisely, as they will determine your fate and shape the future of the Zone in the end.
THIS IS THE ZONE
The Exclusion Zone has changed dramatically after the second explosion hit the reactor in the year 2006.
Violent mutants, deadly anomalies, warring factions have made the Zone a very tough place to survive. It turned out that the center of the Zone hides the source of incredible power representing a serious threat to the inhabitants of the Zone.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
Minimum required CPU - i5 7600K
.
KyoZz
Tag, you're it.
Do you have any recommendation? I played Call of Pripyat & Clear Sky but never this one as it crashed all the time on my rig.
Now may be the time to give it another go
Sygma
Member
ABR COP MOD 2.2.1 for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat
Vanilla, as it should be. Overhaul modification with vanilla story and quests. More enemies, almost no stashes, not sellable looted weapons. High stability.
I do not know if it includes Atmosfear and Absolute Nature, I'd do a very first playthrough with these two combined and ABR if its compatible. Full vanilla gameplay experience, yet enhanced graphically
RadioactiveLobster
Member
For anyone interested, they confirmed all retail copies include a STEAM key.
Best game of E3 in my opinion.
Best game of E3 in my opinion.
.
Kupfer
Member
Nobody?
Don't get me wrong, I love the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, as much as I love the Killzone triology , but the trailer looks unreal and more like a well made CGI clip.
EDIT
Don't get me wrong, I love the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, as much as I love the Killzone triology , but the trailer looks unreal and more like a well made CGI clip.
EDIT
"we strive to deliver" .... this is not a "this is exactly how the game will look"
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Excess
Member
Maybe it's just me because I've seen what an FPS can look like on a high-end PC with a 3080 in 4K, but I was passing that off as real and not a "cinematic", especially if it's slated for 2022.
RadioactiveLobster
Member
There is nothing at all in this trailer that couldn't be run in real-time in-engine.
The reveal trailer from last year they straight up said was a target render of what they wanted the final game to look like.
Them stating this trailer shows "the level of graphics and atmosphere that we strive to deliver on the release" in no way means that it's a full CGI trailer, it just means that this is what they are aiming for upon release and they hope they can hit it without having to downgrade the visuals or performance.
I don't get the Killzone 2 comparison at all. That was clearly fully CG and well outside the scope of the hardware at the time.
The reveal trailer from last year they straight up said was a target render of what they wanted the final game to look like.
Them stating this trailer shows "the level of graphics and atmosphere that we strive to deliver on the release" in no way means that it's a full CGI trailer, it just means that this is what they are aiming for upon release and they hope they can hit it without having to downgrade the visuals or performance.
I don't get the Killzone 2 comparison at all. That was clearly fully CG and well outside the scope of the hardware at the time.
The_Observer
Member
Favorite game from E3. Though it didn't have much to compete with...
Kupfer
Member
In fact, Guerilla Games did a fantastic job and came very close to their render target. Of course I hope that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 will be similarly awesome, what I just want to say is that you should not believe everything you are shown. Killzone 2 and Witcher 3 are very prominent examples. Killzone 2 nailed it, Witcher 3 just didn't and doesn't look like the phenomenal demos we were shown, even on highend graphics cards.
And before everyone jerks off to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 gameplay , realize that the game may not look like what is shown here. If you believe everything that the marketing departments show you, there will be a lot of crying about a downgrade.
I don't know if anyone here remembers the development of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. SoC, but we were promised a lot of things that we were looking for in vain in the "finished" game. It still is one of my all-time favorites, so I'm not hating on the game or the series, I'm just cautious and knowing how developers want to create a hype nowadays, I'm double cautious.
I mean, it works if you look at the reactions to the new trailer. There's no questioning whether it's all real, although the footage shown and the FAQ already give enough indication that we're looking at an embellished sequence.
But that's gaming, I don't think in any other hobby people trust the manufacturers and advertising as much as they do with computer games, because the desire for what is shown is so great that people want to believe it.
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PanzerAzel
Member
Yeah I'm sorry, as a big STALKER fan, this trailer is a significant bummer for me.
STALKER was great because it had a core design philosophy of total indifference to the player's presence. No script heavy campfire conversations, merchant dance routines, or anything created to enforce mood that makes it evident that the developers are catering to crafting a specific, scripted, hand-held "experience" they want the player to see. That has never been what made STALKER atmospheric. The Zone was the experience, it didn't give a fuck you were there, atmosphere came from the completely dynamic and emergent situations afforded by game systems interacting with one another.
This looks pretty, but the appeal to a cinematic structure (which is what I was fearing it was going to do) is 100% antithetical to what make STALKER, STALKER. What if bandits or mutants attack during that campfire conversation? I assume A-Life is still in play at all times? Will the party break up and deal with the dynamic emergent threat the Zone presents? For a segment of gameplay footage, it doesn't look like it, it looks like that can now only happen after the developers deem it permissible. That isn't STALKER, and that one change, if it in fact exists, rips the soul right out of the game.
….and I have to laugh at that gunplay. This looks like it's targeting Call of Duty and Battlefield players. Gone are the long-distance, 100+m peek-your-head-out-and-pray-you-don't-get-it blown-off tactical engagements, making every round count. Any veteran STALKER player knows you run and gun like that and you're gonna be dropped faster than a hot potato. Perhaps it's done for marketing, but again….that isn't STALKER. I was really hoping they would've taken inspiration from Tarkov (whose gunplay would be a perfect fit for a STALKER sequel); instead, it looks like they've taken inspiration from the bulk of console shooters.
I hate to be a negative Nancy here, but I have to say, if this really is a "gameplay trailer", the apparent appeal to scripted set pieces and the tendency towards a cinematic approach and arcadey combat is concerning to see. This whole trailer screams to me the developers have very little clue what makes this franchise so beloved and engrossing.
My hopes for this have, unfortunately, plummeted.
STALKER was great because it had a core design philosophy of total indifference to the player's presence. No script heavy campfire conversations, merchant dance routines, or anything created to enforce mood that makes it evident that the developers are catering to crafting a specific, scripted, hand-held "experience" they want the player to see. That has never been what made STALKER atmospheric. The Zone was the experience, it didn't give a fuck you were there, atmosphere came from the completely dynamic and emergent situations afforded by game systems interacting with one another.
This looks pretty, but the appeal to a cinematic structure (which is what I was fearing it was going to do) is 100% antithetical to what make STALKER, STALKER. What if bandits or mutants attack during that campfire conversation? I assume A-Life is still in play at all times? Will the party break up and deal with the dynamic emergent threat the Zone presents? For a segment of gameplay footage, it doesn't look like it, it looks like that can now only happen after the developers deem it permissible. That isn't STALKER, and that one change, if it in fact exists, rips the soul right out of the game.
….and I have to laugh at that gunplay. This looks like it's targeting Call of Duty and Battlefield players. Gone are the long-distance, 100+m peek-your-head-out-and-pray-you-don't-get-it blown-off tactical engagements, making every round count. Any veteran STALKER player knows you run and gun like that and you're gonna be dropped faster than a hot potato. Perhaps it's done for marketing, but again….that isn't STALKER. I was really hoping they would've taken inspiration from Tarkov (whose gunplay would be a perfect fit for a STALKER sequel); instead, it looks like they've taken inspiration from the bulk of console shooters.
I hate to be a negative Nancy here, but I have to say, if this really is a "gameplay trailer", the apparent appeal to scripted set pieces and the tendency towards a cinematic approach and arcadey combat is concerning to see. This whole trailer screams to me the developers have very little clue what makes this franchise so beloved and engrossing.
My hopes for this have, unfortunately, plummeted.
martino
Member
Gameplay is always great but too often those gameplay demo now are heavily scripted sections of final games not really representative of most of it.
That i like a lot less and for now outside tech and graphics displayed supposedly representative of final game i'm not sure what to think about it for something else, especially as a stalker entry.
That i like a lot less and for now outside tech and graphics displayed supposedly representative of final game i'm not sure what to think about it for something else, especially as a stalker entry.
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Kupfer
Member
You're not, what you say is 100% true. I guess the game is made for the newer generation of players, who haven't even played the originals but modern console shooters.
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its good time to go replay again previous stalkers with large mods. they just amazing
stalker was allways on high pc specs... but its like first stalker runs on dx8 static lighting option so any integrated gpu can run it rly
and trailer is just trailer , made for all those action fans that shoot first and check later ... noone would play stalker as they shown in trailer lol
i mean this is amazing place
but those faces and voices by fire dont look very russian or tuff at all. and they talked russian but again kinda not convinsing there
stalker was allways on high pc specs... but its like first stalker runs on dx8 static lighting option so any integrated gpu can run it rly
and trailer is just trailer , made for all those action fans that shoot first and check later ... noone would play stalker as they shown in trailer lol
i mean this is amazing place
but those faces and voices by fire dont look very russian or tuff at all. and they talked russian but again kinda not convinsing there
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SirKicksalot
Member
The rookie village and the bar were safe areas in the original. Plenty of safe campfires across all three games.
Did enemies interrupt conversations in the original? I know you can die in the conversation menu because of radiation or bleeding but I can't remember if enemies could start a fight.
kuncol02
Banned
"trailer reveals actual gameplay footage" second part may be mistranslation. Remember that English is not their first language (and probably not even second).Nobody?
Don't get me wrong, I love the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, as much as I love the Killzone triology , but the trailer looks unreal and more like a well made CGI clip.
EDIT
"we strive to deliver" .... this is not a "this is exactly how the game will look"
PanzerAzel
Member
Difference being, safe areas in the original were aligned with the logic of the game narrative, it wasn't intrinsic to the core game design philosophy, evidenced by the fact modders were able to remove safety zones.
When I see scenes like the campfire or the merchant labeled "gameplay", I fear the game world is being paused so the developers can hit play. It doesn't appear as if the world, nor the player, has any agency at that time, at least from the camera angles which appear controlled. Yes, I've had conversations and trade interrupted by world events all the time in STALKER. Guys breaking off to start fighting. I've failed missions because NPCs have been killed doing their own thing far off on the other side of the map. I've been killed while talking/trading because a rival faction just happened to wander by. The Zone is alive, and it is the star of the game.….not the player. They're simply an inhabitant.
If the developers have precluded dynamism and emergence in lieu of scripted and cinematic sequences to instill atmosphere (which this trailer is heavily suggesting), they have, ironically, stripped the game of its strongest source if it. I don't want to sit through their controlled narrative, I want to sow my own by experiencing the dynamic nature of evolving and emergent systems that afford a living, breathing world to experience. That's what STALKER is, it's why people love it, and it's why it has a passionate modding community behind it to this day that's kept it alive. It is an exemplary design philosophy that has unfortunately be triumphed and replaced by linear, cinematically infused set pieces that revolve around the player to give them a tailored experience.
It is really ironic that in this design philosophy striving to grant players an immersive, atmospheric experience, developers are doing nothing so well as robbing players from truly compelling ones they create themselves.
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SirKicksalot
Member
A-Life 2 is confirmed.
Sometimes I wonder how much of this reverence for Stalker comes from playing with mods for over a decade.
I just replayed the first game for a couple of hours with no mods except ZRP (so bug fixes only). I finished X-18. There's a good amount of cutscenes and scripted shit, which has always been pretty clumsy and it's even funnier now. I just realized the introductions to Cordon, Garbage, Agroprom and Dark Valley are exactly the same - a scripted dude follow me for some shootbang mission (the depot and Duty checkpoint calls for help are suspiciously similar too). The game spawns military dudes at Agroprom, both above and underground, at the military base and at X-18 to push you on a set path. It literally spawns 14 bandits when you cross an invisible line in the key for X-18 quest.
In a surprising twist, the vanilla game is actually easier than I remember. The guns are fun, the ragdolls are awesome and the AI is smart, but it's nowhere near the autism of the mods. Once you get the rapid-fire AK you can point and shoot your way to victory as long as you control the recoil. Speaking of mods and reverence, what's with the difficulty misinformation? In SoC, the enemies always have a 20% chance to hit and increasing the difficulty does not affect anything about them, it just handicaps the player.
The final quarter, even more if you go for the true endings, is a shooting gallery. In Clear Sky, the entire second half is Call of Duty: Chernobyl, complete with a helicopter boss, and the first half is mostly about shooting dudes and capturing control points. CoP just gives up once you reach the final quests.
I think GSC's goals and the community's preferences have never been the same. Clear Sky is what they came up with after THQ forced them to focus and cut a lot of stuff from the first game. The first thing they did with their freedom was a combat-focused game with the worst grenade spam ever. After GSC was closed, Vostok made a mediocre multiplayer shooter that never got any singleplayer content and is somehow still alive (I think they also made a shitty Battle Royale). As for the Metro guys, lol.
The only old GSC staff that share this mythical vision of RPG simulation Stalker are the ones that left early and made Boiling Point, White Gold and Precursors. I think you have a better chance of getting something like that out of Stalker 2 now that a huge brand new team is working on it. Surely many of them played Stalker 15 years ago and share this particular vision.
PanzerAzel
Member
Hopefully, I'm only going by what I'm seeing in the trailer.
Granted (and perhaps unfairly), I am comparing this new trailer to what STALKER has morphed into with mods many years post release (it's been quite a while since I've played straight up vanilla+ZRP, I'm predominantly an Anomaly player). But even then, modders only work within the framework the engine and overall design affords them. They are not fundamentally changing the game systems.
STALKER had some scripted sequences, but I'm hard-pressed to even qualify your examples as such in the manner in which I'm using the term. What you're referring to are more like trigger points. You meet someone, a mission or narrative script is triggered, then the A-Life takes over and you accompany the NPC to various result dictated by it, instead of the developers crafting the journey step by step. It's the difference between walking up to a campfire and having the NPCs begin idle chatter while plucking some strings, vs walking up to one and having the game strip control from your hands to force you to sit down to be able to play out an entire five or ten minute motion-capture storytelling session as the trailer looks to be doing. There's a big difference between the two, even if both run scripts.
My fear is the game will inject these small, sporadic set-piece cinematic interruptions instead of letting the game play itself out through its systems without the infringement on player or world agency. It may seem like a small complaint, but it's this aspect of STALKER's design that makes it feel so indifferent and apathetic to player presence, as well as highly unpredictable, which is what helps to nurture such effective atmosphere.
SirKicksalot
Member
Some new info and a look at the motion capture process. Confirms the weapon and pick-up animations are in-game. Confirms a couple of new locations. The swamp and tower are the ones from Clear Sky. Teases new faction. Top kek at the end reveal.
In other news, 2011 Stalker 2 content was leaked on June 1. GSC says it doesn't represent the new game* and gave their blessing to enjoy its contents. The leak includes game content and documentation (game design documents, art etc.). Parts of it were leaked before. Here's a torrent that includes everything, plus the X-Ray 2 source, tools and some patches to access the content: https://rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6065173 You can also check this for discussions, tips and tricks and alternate download locations: https://ap-pro.ru/forums/topic/2632-materials-stalker-2-2011/#comments
It's very unfinished so don't expect much. Looks like cancelling it was the correct decision. That's all they had while claiming it was 70% done lol.
Also, we already knew that Survarium runs on X-Ray 2, but this leak is proof that it also recycled some Stalker 2 models.
* one of the Stalker 2 physical preorder bonuses is a Zone Permit, which is a thing in the old version.
roosnam1980
Gold Member
great news , already looks dope
Sosokrates
Report me if I continue to console war
I wonder if this gameplay demo was UE4 or UE5?
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Mister Wolf
Member
I true next gen showcase.
This game looks so good. Really hope the game world is full of oddities and discoveries.
I need to see a lengthy showcase of uninterrupted gameplay, like 15 minutes of pure STALKER 2 gameplay.
