Just a few weeks after announcing its delay into November, GSC Game World has given eager S.T.A.L.K.E.R. fans a brand-new look at the upcoming S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl via a 35-minute “Developer Deep Dive,” which showcases the sequel in some of the most detail we’ve seen yet with a mission walkthrough accompanied by commentary and insight from the team.
During the video, the team talks at length about the game’s huge world made up of 20 distinct regions that each have their own biomes, dangerous and weird anomalies and residents, with players pretty well free to explore the world however they want. In this particular video, we get a look at a swampy area in which the player is currently undertaking a mission to rid the location of some traps and reach a base.
The key takeaway the studio is attempting to impart in this video is clearly that of player freedom, which comes through in just about every aspect from the world itself and how/where you choose to get around it, to the very mission design whether it’s major choices in how to progress to a certain objective or smaller, subtler details that can impact your successes (or failures).
The moment-to-moment is also packed with choices, with dozens of weapons to find, use and upgrade as well as equipment to manage and hunger/tiredness levels to think about when planning any kind of approach. Enemies will seemingly be cunning too, and in an organic way where they’ll actually hunt players using knowledge gained to figure out where they might be – rather than simply having player information fed to their AI.
The game looks a treat as well, at least in the heavily-controlled slice presented here, with incredible amounts of detail and well-researched interpretations of the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone. Towards the end of the deep dive we get a look at how many of the visual elements came to life with motion capture and attention to every last characteristic, including more than 3 hours of cutscenes.
You can watch it in full below:
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Heart of Chornobyl launches on November 20th for Xbox Series X|S and PC. It’ll be available via relevant Game Pass subscriptions on day one.
