S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Gamescom News in under 3min

A quick update on all the news and everything we learned so far about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl and the 15min demo that a few people were able to play at Gamescom 2023!

[AB-vpmi]

One thing that everyone's missing is that weapon upgrades change the appearance of the weapons! We can see in Come to Me trailer the protagonist is wielding a Viper 5 (MP5) with a drum magazine, while the Bolts and Bullets' is a standard magazine.

Another thing that caught my eye was that you can now shoot at anomalies to trigger them instead of throwing bolts it seems.

And maybe the DEMO is a toned down version of the game, or maybe it doesn't have RTX. The ambient occlusion seems to be turned off.

And one last thing, we are subconsciously comparing this to MW2 graphics and, inevitably, Anomaly/GAMMA.

I say we have faith. It's a miracle this game is even thinking about seeing the light of the day, let alone being released and have a gamescom DEMO.

[viliussmproductions]

Thank you for a concise video and not dragging it out to 10 minutes

[Chonstantin]

I don't care about graphics, only ambience, atmosphere, animations, story.

[P-Likan]

Graphics can be improved with mods, gameplay and atmosphere is paramount. The game still looks quite good to me. I am sure it will be a very good game on release. Modders will turn it into a legendary one. There is so much passion around Stalker and talent among modders.

[tomigun]

You have to downgrade graphics, if you're making Stalker, and not CoD (a narrow arcade tunnel shooter with tiny maps).

[thereverent]

I love that you called us the "anomaly Bros" :D (at least i played SOC after playing 200+h of GAMMA)

[fvhrenheit]

idk if 3 extra months are going to change anything

[Krahamus]

I was able to play demo at gamescon, and can tell you all that graphics are not bad, far better than anomaly/gamma on max settings, with all graphics mods, i seen lots of people saying that anomaly/gamma graphics are better, its not true, if you put side by side these mods and stalker 2 you will see like day and night stalker 2 looks much better, textures, lighting, and bunch of other modern lightning features, much more decorations in houses, it looked very good during the rain, as it got foggy, by atmosphere it feels like stalker game, fps problems I haven't encountered and it felt smooth compared to trailer where it shown some fps drops, i could say between 30-60 fps, AI was similar to original one, they flank you around, you have to use cover and lean to not get hit often, animations and everything felt smooth and fluid, there was some bugs with shotgun for me but not a big deal, some point inspiration definitely taken from anomaly like 3D PDA you take out of your pocket, consumables animation's, reloading guns, jammings, anomalies can be now discharged, very lackluster was inventory could say bare bones, in general enjoyed playing it, wish could have more time.

[dededede]

After many years we get finally closer to the release i hope the final product will be as good as the old stalker

[RecklessSatyr]

The thing to remember is that the game will be a frwsh release. There might be much development time and extra stuff coming

[nomustacheguy]

Given what they've been through, they can take their time to polish it. Regarding the lighting/graphics, stalker was always about the mad AI, ridiculous atmosphere & the odd cat jumpscares. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a good launch.

[blooocki]

Here's a bit of positive news:

Just wanted to provide some info from a non-english speaking reviewer who got to play the demo on Gamescom. Besides what everyone already heard and saw, the graphics ain't as bad as they appeared in the trailer. According to him the game looked somewhere between the 'Come to me' trailer (or whatever it's called) and the last trailer we got from gamescom. He's also got to speak to the devs and they said they intend on improving the graphics to match the initial trailers. Most importantly he said that everything felt like the original stalker that we all love, the atmosphere/vibe were exactly what a veteran of the series would want and that the hiccups can be fixed given the timeframe. Like for example the indoor glass wasn't breakable, which hopefully will be a thing on release.

There were some wonky moments with AI when after he died they kept charging at him from their original location. However, overall the ai seemed to display tactics like taking cover, holding ground and flanking (if my memory is correct). Also there was moment where he tried to loot but couldn't because the key mapped to looting wasn't working - another anomaly of course.

From his perspective it seemed that they had to stitch together a rushed trailer for Gamescom which caused it to be actually worse than the actual demo.
For anyone interested in the review and can understand it:

[nier]

People forgot we've got the best community in the gaming history, The community could literally turn this game to whatever they want, like the 1st trilogy to something like Anomaly Gamma. and on top of that, GSC 100% support the Modder.

[EZ_company]

gameplay is always first. why does it seem like this concept is completely lost today

[brunoparadigm]

Glad to hear about the delay. I am excited for this game but I rather have the game released right instead of a beta release.

[FelipeLobo]

Ojalá arreglen el humo de las armas, se ve horrible.... y deben pulir algunos detalles, ahora bien no me molesta que pase de ser un mundo abierto, a uno tipo Metro, si mejoran la gráfica y física, mejoras en interacción con otros personajes, además de que nuestras acciones puedan impactar el final del juego también. Saludos

[blooocki]

I actually didn't notice the graphics being worse till it got pointed out to me

[max_blackened]

New trailer is most likely captured without ray tracing. Old one, judging by reflections, is definitely with it.

[chloewebb]

Im an old school fan, but im not an "anomaly bro", more of an "anomaly ho" lol
no but seriously,
I am a total ho for that game, I've been playing GAMMA and EFP forever now lol
The new game is looking to hit the sweet spot and deliver a true STALKER sequel that can do the game and the community that it create, absolute justice. I don't care if it's got some rough edges, so long as the game can run on my RTX2060 on medium settings, I'll be happy.

[brawler]

Even if the supposed downgrade is true, who fuckin cares? Gameplay above everything else, alongside atmosphere and actually being stable.