gsc-game-world posts

Last summer developer GSC Game World announced plans for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, the first real sequel to the company's post-apocalyptic first person shooter that later spawned two stand alone follow up games. Now the official S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Facebook page has posted up a Q&A which gives a little more info on what we can expect from the sequel.

While the Q&A dodges some questions such as if the game will take place in one single zone, how many weapons will there be or if the series' popular character Sidorovich will appear in the sequel it does answer other. The game will have old characters returning while some new characters will pop up and new mutants will show up. The sequel will take place "in the triangle of CNPP, the cities of Chernobyl and Chernobyl 2 (where the huge antenna is located)". It will also have new X-Labs and secret underground complexes to explore and there will be more of a survival aspect to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2. The PC port will use DirectX 11 for graphical features and the Q&A states, "Since we develop primarily on PC, you won't see any compromises in the PC version."

[Via VG247.com]

The X-Ray SDK 0.7 allows users to create custom content for the X-Ray 1.6 Engine, used in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat.

Please, note the following key features of the SDK 0.7:

* For the first time the SDK contains full set of instruments allowing you to create both single- and multiplayer levels.
* The tools are partially documented (in Russian only).

Note: The tools are offered 'as is' and GSC Game World is unable to provide any technical support on this SDK. All the tools questions must be discussed on the official forum.

Download S.T.A.L.K.E.R. X-Ray SDK 0.7 (446 MB)
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While concrete details of S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 have yet to be revealed, the upcoming first person shooter sequel is already running a contest that could get some of its fans to actually contribute to the game. The official S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Facebook page has announced that fans can sent in ideas for quests they would like to see in the game.

The quest suggestions will be evaluated by the development team at GSC Game World and the best ones will be used in the game with the creators of those quests mentioned in the final game's credits. The development team does reserve the right to alter some of the specifics of the quests submitted by fans while still retaining the essence of the original quest idea. The deadline for entries is March 1, 2011.

The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. first person shooter game franchise has spanned three PC game installments and a fourth is in the works. Now word has hit the internet that the game series about a post-apocalypse Chernobyl could become a TV series in its native Russia.

A teaser site and trailer for the show, which is appropriately grim and gritty, are already online (you can check out the trailer after the jump). Kotaku reports that the pilot for the show has been self-funded by the game's developer GSC Game World. Talks are underway with Russian and Ukrainian TV networks to turn the pilot into a full TV series. If that happens and if it is successful we might even see the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. TV series show up here in the US (legally, that is).

The announcements and reveals of new games and release dates continue to come in a flood today with the announcement of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, the full-fledged sequel to the post-apocalyse first person shooter series from developer GSC Game World. In a brief post on the developer's web site the company announced that the game would be due out in 2012.

Little info on the game itself was announced with GSC Game World saying only that, "A completely new multi-platform technology developed by GSC will make the core of the game." The original S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl was first released in 2007 after several years of development. Two stand alone follow-ups to the original game, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat, were released in September 2008 and February 2010, respectively. All three were PC exclusive games. GSC Game World stated today that the series has so far sold a total of four million copies.

[Via Blue's News]

A new multiplayer map for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat, called 'Close Combat,' is available for download. To install the map, download it, run the .exe file and follow the instructions.

"The map, named 'close combat' is a compact game location featuring a warehouse of containers in the Jupiter factory locale. The map is designed for dynamic play with use of close- and medium-range weapons. An interesting touch about the map is availability of one store per two teams for selling picked-up items in TDM (team deathmatch) mode."

Download S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat 'Close Combat' Multiplayer Map (6 MB)
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Next month, Russian developer 4A Games releases Metro 2033, a post-apocalypse first person shooter set in Moscow. Now the development team is trying to stave off rumors that imply the game's engine is based on the same tech used by the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series of shooter games, which take place in and around a post-apocalypse Chernobyl.

Eurogamer reports that Sergey Grigorovic, the founder of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. developer GSC Game World, has claimed in Russian media reports that Metro 2033's engine tech is based on an early version of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s own X-Ray engine, although improved. However, while 4A Games' programmer Oles Shishkovtsov also worked at GSC Game World on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. he tells Eurogamer that is not the case. He states that the X-Ray engine is not capable of handling the features that are needed for current PC graphics technology. Therefore, "The final answer is 'no'. We do not have shared code with X-Ray, nor would it be possible to do so."

Metro 2033, which just announced it will support DirectX 11 graphics, will ship via THQ in mid-March.

US PC gamers now have a specific release date for the new game in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R first person shooter series. Viva Media announced today that it would be handing the North American publishing duties for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat and would release the game to stores on February 2.

The game, the third in the series from developer GSC Game World, will also be the second game released in the US that will have support for DirectX11 graphics out of the box. It will likely be followed by Aliens Vs Predator which is also expected to be released sometime in February.

Developer GSC Game World's third game in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. first person shooter series is getting closer to finalizing a US release date. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Prypiat, which is already out in parts of Europe, was previously announced for a first quarter 2010 release in the US.

Now the game's worldwide publisher BitComposer has revealed that the international version of the game will ship to stores sometime in February 2010. When it's released it will still be one of the few games that will support DirectX11 graphics. At the moment it shares that honor with Battleforge and the recently released Dirt 2.
Download S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat Benchmark (421 MB)
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This benchmark provides detailed information about its performance on various graphical modes and find out how well your system is balanced for gaming and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat.

"This benchmark is based on one of the ingame locations - Pripyat . The testing process includes four stages, those utilizing various weather and time of the day settings (day, night, rain, bright sun). In order to test your system thoroughly the benchmark is provided with a number of presets and options including different versions of DirectX (9.0, 10.0, 11), screen resolutions, antialiasing etc, all at your disposal.

If you like competitions pay attention to the special Test and Rate feature we included into this benchmark. The Test and Rate mode enables you to compare your performance results with those of other players. Be assured, when sending us your test results, we collect only the data explicitly visible in the query; GSC Game World has no commercial or harmful purpose with this test."

Download S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat Benchmark (421 MB)
Check out all S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat downloads