Eyes open. Our character, lying on the ground, is awakened in the worst possible way: a mutant dog attacks him in the leg. He points his pistol, but it jams. The beast then leaps at the throat of the unfortunate… Thus begins the first extract of STALKER 2, unveiled to the public at Gamescom, the video game fair held from August 23 to 27 in Cologne (North Rhine-Westphalia).
The watchword of the Ukrainian studio GSC Game World is clear: preserve the fundamentals of the precedents STALKER, three shooters released between 2007 and 2009. “It’s a direct sequel. You can expect new locations and new mechanics [de jeu]but above all we have improved the old ones »explain to World Maksym Yanchyi, head of development for the Xbox version.
The objective is also to embark a new, wider audience in “the Zone”, an unforgettable video game space – very freely inspired by the novel Stalker: picnic by the roadside (1972), by Arcadi and Boris Strugatski, and the film made by Andrei Tarkovski, Stalker (1979) –, located near the Ukrainian Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Anomalies, radiation, colorful characters, strange missions, mutants… Each step leads us to a new surprise.
But for more than eighteen months, Russia’s war in Ukraine has plunged the teams into a much more unstable and oppressive reality than that depicted in STALKER 2.
Departure from Kyiv
The dispute “leaves scars on every team member”, modestly summarizes Maksym Yanchyi, who, like many of his colleagues, has found refuge in Prague, in the Czech Republic, 1,000 kilometers from the Kiev premises. The distance from his native country is a deep wound for the young man.
The evacuation of employees was not improvised. At the end of 2021, when Russia begins to mobilize its troops on Ukraine’s eastern border, GSC Game World executives are already planning for the worst. They have two coaches parked near their premises and store 2,000 liters of petrol and essential supplies in their offices.
Even before the Russian invasion begins, they take the decision to transport those who wish to Ouzhhorod, in the west of the country. Two hundred employees and their families, five hundred people in all (not counting pets), take place in the coaches. With only one suitcase per person.
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