Now i am beginning to think that STALKER 2 will be a trainwreck

And the reason for that is simple. The game has been in development for i don't even know how long, they gave us the final release date implying that the game will be released in September no matter what, and you're telling me that almost 4 months into 2024, they still can't even release a short 30sec uncut gameplay vid? Like what the **** is that? Am i the only one thinking that they're trying to hide a trainwreck? This is not normal. It reminds me of CDPR hiding the shit outta CP2077 on consoles, but in Stalker 2 case, they're hiding all platforms because its a shitshow to say the least.

If they don't go in depth (as in showing a bunch of different gameplay videos of different lenghts) during the Summer Game Fest, it is guaranteed to be a mess. The war in Ukraine excuse ain't gonna cut it, they're not in Ukraine for some time now.

I dunno. This game had a pretty cursed development timeline. It's a miracle that it's even coming out at all. So it wouldn't be the end of the world if it wasn't that great. If we see anything from it, it'll probably be at the MS showcase first, maybe?

It would make sense for it to be shown on the Xbox showcase, but what i am paying attention is what they'll be showing. If its yet another cgi or some 1sec cuts of gameplay, this game is fked. Not having shown any uncut gameplay a few months from launch makes no sense. They're also the same dev that wanted to introduce NFT's into the game........

It's being build with consoles in mind. Bioshock, Fear 2 and Crysis 2 instantly come to mind.

Goo Goo Ga Ga time.

Happily be wrong.

• None of the original devs are working on this (Check 4A and Vostok)
• The original writer wasn't hired
• Making a succesful game is hell, and that's under normal conditions
• I expect this game to launch broken and incomplete with the main reason being Putin's evil war

Honestly this is the least of my worries.

Why? It destroyed these games.

@uninspiredcup: Ah so if it turns out crap it's because it was made with consoles in mind, but if it's great what then?

Metro is better than all those games combine LOL!!

Yup. Quite a few red flags with this game.

A PC game that they changed to a console game. Like Crysis 2, FEAR 2, and yeah. Just what cup said. Will have many cinematics, most likely. They have shown barely anything, which is most likely because nothing is good enough to show.

Highly doubt it will be what fans want.

They might not be in Ukraine, but they could have gamily and friends that are their or scsttered across the world.

If there was one game I'd give a lot of slack it would be this one..

If its great despite being a PC series that they change to work for consoles and their gamers? That'd be great. But when has that happened? Crysis and FEAR went from awesome PC games to really bad console games. Thinking the same will happen to STALKER makes sense.

on the surface that sounds worrying but is it not a common thing in the gaming industry?

reminds me of when people were asking for a fallout new vegas 2 from obsidian but then someone pointed out the original team had all departed.

not sure how much of a worry it should really be. like, how many of the original half life team worked on alyx, or how many of the dark souls team worked on elden ring, or dishonored team worked on dishonored 2 etc. etc.

is it not more of a who's in charge now, their feelings on earlier instalments and what are their motivations with the new game concern?

it happened 20 years ago. it didnot happened with any of Arkane game they remain immersive sims.

Prey is far more old schooly than Crysis ever was.

Launched day and date on consoles.

I would argue Max Payne 3 is the best game when it comes to gameplay. Launched two weeks on consoles before it launched on PC.

@Litchie: What do work for consoles and it's gamers mean?

It is a comon thing, Dragon Age Dreadwolf isn't being worked on by the original Dragon Age team, nor is the next Mass Effect being worked on by the original Mass Effect team.

But with no independent previews on Stalker 2 isn't it idle hope to just expect this game to resemble the older games? What are we basing this on? That the studio name and game name are the same?

FYI Putin hampered this game.

the lack of gameplay footage, independent or not, is 100% a concern given that it's less than five months from release. but to me it's more of a concern that the game won't launch when advertised, rather than it won't resemble the older games.

it'll 100% resemble the older games. crysis 2 resembled crysis 1. to me the question is more will the design philosophy of the original games be compromised. maybe detrimentally to cater to a broader market, maybe (much more of a long shot) to improve on it. let's not forget, vanilla stalker needs a lot of mods.

without seeing gameplay footage we don't know anything, all we have is questions

i was thinking about this when i read cup's post. other than those two games, are there any others that started life as pc only but changed for the worst when their sequels went to both pc and console? i couldn't really think of any.

diablo maybe (don't play the games so can't comment), fallout (arguable), far cry maybe. the first fc was decent. the second was more ambitious (so doesn't really fit the sentiment) just poorly executed (nice way of saying it was shit). plus i didn't personally think crysis 2 was that bad

Crysis 2 > Crysis.🙃

@Macutchi: every time I replay Crysis 1 I realise again that replacing an entire power (speed, strength) in crysis 2 with a button was a stupid mistake.

In C1 you can speed reload, you can even speed crawl. In Crysis 2 you can run a wee bit faster.

In C1 you can strength jump to places that wouldn't be accesible, you can destroy entire houses by throwing an enemy into them. In C2 you can kick a car really hard.

It's a crying shame really. They had all these cool powers in Crysis 1 and condensed them and reworked them to be less cool.

Alternatively I think Diablo is an example where the change in team changed the game dramatically.

The original team for D2 went on to make Torchligh 1&2 and those are just leaps and steps better than D3 or Diablo 4.

etc...

@uninspiredcup: yeah rainbow 6 is a fair shout.

dragon age was a multiplat from what i remember.

i liked f3 and nv and didn't play previous games, plus bethesda bought the franchise from interplay and radically changed them into elder scrolls style games which were already multiplat.

thief remake was shit but can we blame that on consoles? not sure. same with duke nukem, it was in development for about 14 years.

the rest i was never a big fan of so don't really have an opinion on, ubisoft have turned most things they touched to shit

Multplatform but now XbabyGoogaga lead design platform.

Thus, Rainbow 6: Gears Of War, wow America so kewl!

Xbox has been a cancer to PC game design. Also pc pirates helped I guess. And company greed, make slop for the masses.

imo.

yeah crysis 1 is one of my all time favourites. crysis 2 was a hard pill to swallow at the time, definitely in part because of the compromises to the game play and environment style. it wrapped constraints around the environment and simplified and consolidated an effective power system, rather than evolving it. but it was equally the complete detachment of the story from the cliffhanger ending of c1 that was frustrating.

however, once i'd made my peace with those things, i did quite enjoy the game, and there were definitely elements of the spirit of the first and warhead in there

@uninspiredcup said:

@Macutchi said:

@Litchie said:

If its great despite being a PC series that they change to work for consoles and their gamers? That'd be great. But when has that happened? Crysis and FEAR went from awesome PC games to really bad console games. Thinking the same will happen to STALKER makes sense.

i was thinking about this when i read cup's post. other than those two games, are there any others that started life as pc only but changed for the worst when their sequels went to both pc and console? i couldn't really think of any.

etc...

They are all 20-25 year old games.

All those games are more Dynamic than Crysis 1 ever was.

@ghosts4ever said:

They are all 20-25 year old games.

All those games are more Dynamic than Crysis 1 ever was.

Nothing you listed here is close to depth of the games I just listed.

The last one is Call Of Duty in a tunnel with Ivan Drago.

The only console shooter worth praising as on a par is Doom 64.

@Macutchi: you and I are of the same mind. I too ended up liking C2 but I return to Crysis 1 way more often. And Warhead is just nice and compact.

Crysis 2 then ends where you meet this German professor. And then Crysis 3 once again opens, forgets the previous game's ending and for a large part the plot. Haha

@uninspiredcup: the new ghost still spouting the same old shit about the same old games the old ghost did. even when they're nothing to do with the thread topic

I mean, the first one was too.. however, there is a certain charm to jank if it's still fun to play. Elder Scrolls games are a good example.

@uninspiredcup said:

@ghosts4ever said:

They are all 20-25 year old games.

All those games are more Dynamic than Crysis 1 ever was.

Nothing you listed here is close to depth of the games I just listed.

The last one is Call Of Duty in a tunnel with Ivan Drago.

The only console shooter worth praising as on a par is Doom 64.

nope. Prey is system shock 3. more bioshock than bioshock

Doom 2016 and Eternal are 2 of best shooters of last/current decade. perfect example of how to make modern and old school shooter. (lol giving example of Duke forever when it was about to be doomed when it was announced)

last one you never played and I mention its departurre from early games.

These are mid compared to proper old school shooters, including Duke3D. Which regardless of what some far-leftest history revisionist who can't play games will try claim, absolute masterpiece. Endlessly replayable. Eric Roberts best of the best.

New Doom is improved Shadow Warrior reboot Painkiller style game, give it that. Not old school. Good action, braindead compared to proper old school games.

Game journos can complete.

atleast its "painkiller" style rather than COD style. got a give em to credit.

It won't be a train wreck, but it will be a mediocre 72/100 metacritic title just like the other Stalker games.

Fallout 3 has 93 le metacritic which indicates critic know what they are talking about and it's a much better game.

(Vegas not even 90 sucks)

Vegas was way more broken, and being much more broken than a Bethesda game is saying a lot.

I know you are kidding, but I wanted to be sure others didn't think you were serious.

This statement implies Fallout 3 is broken. Which it is.

And has 93 le metacritics, aside from being shit.

What was stated was a fact. You can take it seriously or not.

The quality of FPS dipped due to the rise of Xbox popularity. And when there is even a glimmer or an illusion of PC quality, youngers like Ghost get excited.

This Xbox game put many PC games that time to shame. it was masterpiece.

More simple, slower, smaller.

PC gamers are often older, more experienced, needs less handholding than console gamers, and have better hardware. In Crysis 1, you had big open levels. You had these suit abilities you could switch between. Then they make Crysis 2 with consoles in mind. They remove the ability to switch suit abilities (among other things, like prone). They made much smaller levels. Crysis 2 is a simplified, dumbed down version of Crysis to fit consoles and their gamers better, in other words.

FEAR 2? Same shit. Dumbed down, smaller.

STALKER 2? Most likely same shit.

Nobody in their right mind would.

Cool. Then you're not repeatedly reacting to it.

Good job.

@ghosts4ever said:

@uninspiredcup said:

The quality of FPS dipped due to the rise of Xbox popularity. And when there is even a glimmer or an illusion of PC quality, youngers like Ghost get excited.

This Xbox game put many PC games that time to shame. it was masterpiece.

This is a goo goo ga ga compared to something like Thief.

Even Thief wasn't safe. OG PC game too intelligent for modern gamers. Rebooted into edgy "can't wake up" Evanescence fanboy because the original thief wasn't stupid enough to appeal to Xbox bros.

Reminds me of Rainbow 6 where it turned into shitty Gears Of War stick to wall game for toddlers.

Dues Ex also dumbed down with stupid character. Edgy Christian Bale Batman voice man and looks like someone shat gold all over the place. It's ok, not as bad as these but stupid compared to Dues Ex.

Play Underrail, game journos didn't like it. Really good. Maybe port it to console one day and the Bethesda children can see what a proper RPG is.

@Litchie: Ah so it's just your personal opinion, and nothing factual, got it.

lol. Levels being smaller and systems being simplified is just opinion?

Yup. I liked the first one of the new Deus Ex games, but the main character was very cringe. You'd have to be 8 years old or Ghosts to find him cool.

You gotta ask yourself why these games were coming to console if they were born on PC? maybe they sold like 💩 so the devs went chasing the money.

Why do think that everyone who plays games on consoles are dumber than their PC counterparts? where that notion came from could only have been from a jealous hermit.

Surely none of these games were made because of consoles constraints, nah there were "dumbed" down to suit the console audience, sounds dumb af in itself, but hey whatever makes you sleep at night.

Or maybe they sold well enough to warrant sequels, but there's more money to be had if you release the game on more platforms than one. Rocket science, I know. Either way though, not sure why that's important to note for this discussion.

I don't. Which is why I didn't say that. But console gamers are often younger, or more casual.

They made smaller levels to make the game run on worse hardware that can't handle bigger levels. They gimped the suit system because they want it to work well with controllers that have less buttons than keyboards.

Devs designing their games for the systems and audiences they release them for sounds "dumb af"? Kay. I think it's more that you're a console fan with a weird disadain for PC and was hurt by my words.

@uninspiredcup said:

@ghosts4ever said:

@uninspiredcup said:

The quality of FPS dipped due to the rise of Xbox popularity. And when there is even a glimmer or an illusion of PC quality, youngers like Ghost get excited.

This Xbox game put many PC games that time to shame. it was masterpiece.

This is a goo goo ga ga compared to something like Thief.

Different genre. different games. cant be compare.

This is part stealth, part action, part FPS. and done absolutely fine.

even it release same year as Half life 2 and almost as good.

its also far more dynamic than Crysis. even bioshock was more dynamic than Crysis lol.

only this community find it. entire reddit is excited as many people already played STALKER 2 beta version. its still stick to same route.

the game already show its open ended, have inventory system, A life system, Zone atmosphere but still "hurr its going to be dumbed down dumbed down".

complain about Crysis 2 is its being samller level while STALKER 2 still retain open ended. then what is the complain? jump to conclusion because because.

but this community also hate Metro which is far better than shit games many so called PC gamers praise.