It’s been a wildly successful period for theStalker 2developers at GSC Game World. Despite being developed amidst a brutallydisruptive war, their game has garnered critical success and evenrecently hita 6 million player milestone.
But it may be surprising to hear that this wasn’t the first attempt at a fully fledged Stalker 2.After thesuccess of the original trilogy, the team ambitiously prepared to develop a sequel.
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In alengthy interviewwith Eurogamer, Andrii Verpakhovskyi, one of the developers behind the original Stalker games, discusses precisely what life was like at that original studio, including how inexperienced the work atmosphere was compared to western studios.
Additionally, he delves deep into the original plans for Stalker 2, and howthe ambitious goals brought about by the success of previous titles were ultimately what stabbed them in the back.
According to Verpakhovskyi, the original development behind theStalker serieswas much less professional than you may believe, asthe team “had no formal higher education at all. It was this idea of, ‘Let’s build something in a garage, just scaled up a little bit’”
Despite a lack of experienceand a relatively harsh deadline of six months, the team behind the first entry,Shadow of Chernobyl, achieved some amazing feats, such as “AI agents that were smarter than an average human.” They were so smart, in fact, thatthey had to dumb them down for launch.
It all felt a bit like running a street gang… Everything was goal-oriented, with a solid dash of craziness. We were basically trying to have as much fun as possible with the game we were building.
Through the typical struggle between deadlines and passion, Verpakhovskyi describes howtheir ultimate goal was to make a game they were proud of, not hoping to seek approval from a larger audience.Before hitting a massive level of success, criticism could only come from within the team.
Yet once they did begin to achieve success, their ambitions grew, and sadly, it became increasingly difficult to meet deadlines. After spending time developing the first level of the second entry, Clear Skies, the team realized they “had six more months to go and 11 more levels to build. Uh oh."
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After the initial trilogy, this mixture of ambitions and deadlines was seemingly the final blow that impacted their ability to roll out Stalker 2.Despite their ideas for a full sequel, the team was thoroughly demotivated throughstress and burnout.
By the time of the third game, resources were stretched so thin that they turned their Quality Control Department into designers. Verpakhovskyi reflects, “that was a beautiful bunch of thugs and madmen, the true reflection of the street life of an industrial neighbourhood in Kyiv at the time.”
However, for a fully fledged Stalker 2, the teamaimed much higher.The lore would delve deeper into the zone’s mysteries, adding more detailed history and filling out the puzzle they established with the original games.
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As for gameplay, the team hoped “the new game to be as genre-defining for open-world shooters as the original Stalker was,” which was by all means an insanely tough objective to reach.
We were basically trying to hit the Pixar level of quality, and we were not even close to that level of awesomeness.
The team ultimately fizzled out of development, with Verpakhovskyi leaving after thorough burnout.The entire team and the sequel’s development were halted less than a year later.
The interview ends with Verpakhovskyi’s wonderful recollection of meeting thenew Stalker 2team at Gamescom. In a passing of the torch moment, he notes how he could tell“they’re going to make a beautiful game. Absolutely in the spirit of the original Stalker.”
Despite what could have been, it’sinsanely impressivethat we even got a Stalker 2, especially considering the weight behind the development. We highly recommend theoriginal interviewfor more details about the original Stalker’s development and the Stalker 2 that never came to be.
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