S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is Dead

[Gahars]

It looks like the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. franchise has walked into an unforeseen anomaly (in this case, a squabble over copyrights) and the results aren't pretty: the developers have stopped all work on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2.

The sequel to GSC Game World's post-nuclear first-person shooter S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl is no more. The team behind the troubled S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 says that development on the project has frozen and that the studio has been shuttered.

Luckily, though, all is not lost.

After failing to reach an agreement with the rights holders of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. property, the game's creators say they moved onto a new project. According to developer Vostok Games, Survarium is a free-to-play "MMOFPS game set in the near future."

"The game focuses on a mass-scale ecological catastrophe on Earth, the reasons behind vaguely known," says Vostok Games. "Impassable woods advance onto cities from every side, maddened animals and birds attack industrial complexes, military structures, warehouses and power plants. Towns are cut off from each other, there are no water supplies, no electricity, gas, communication is lost. Countries collapse, anarchy spreads throughout the world. Now force dictates who to survive."

Source: Gametrailers

I can't speak much for the quality of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game(s, if you count the expansions), but everything I've seen and heard about it seems pretty nice. I was following the sequel with some interest, so this is definitely a disappointment. Still, the new game is certainly a new direction for the developer, so hopefully it'll work out.

Survarium is set to release on PC sometime towards the end of 2013. While we wait, how about some music to brighten the mood?

 

[ferofax]

yep. no reason for all those assets to go to waste. strip em of every single trace of STALKER and turn it into a new IP.

 

[Celice]

I heard about this earlier. I'm really interested to see what new types of mutants the group can come up with... and I hope that their new goal doesn't mean they're going to make a hugely different kind of game... in their developer video, they were saying that wanted to extend the zone beyond just a small area, referencing last year's (year before's?) oil spill and nuclear disasters in Japan. That would really stretch out the game into different directions that I don't think could be sustained without radically altering how the stalker-like gameplay would be.