Rumor: Bethesda Claims S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Rights

[Andy Chalk]

Rumor: Bethesda Claims S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Rights

The rights to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. franchise are reportedly now in the hands of Bethesda.

There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth among fans of post-apocalyptic shooters late last year when word got out that the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 plug had been Call of Pripyat [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114643-Rumor-S-T-A-L-K-E-R-2-Canceled-GSC-Game-World-Closed-UPDATED] - was a real blow.

But fret not! Or at least, fret about something else, because the word from Sergey Galyonkin is that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is not dead and buried, but is instead in the hands of Bethesda. Between a horrifically mangled Google translation [http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=uk&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fgalyonkin.com%2F2012%2F07%2F31%2Fstalker-2-zhiv-izdaet-bethesda%2F] and the good folks at Rock, Paper, Shotgun, it appears that the studio behind the Elder Scrolls and Fallout franchises now holds the rights to develop and publish a new S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game, although the rights to the brand remain with GSC Game World boss Sergei Grigorovich.

And who is this Galyonkin guy? He was formerly the director of marketing at S.T.A.L.K.E.R. publisher 1C company, and is also the fellow who confirmed the closure of GSC Game World and the end of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, at least in its current state. He has a pretty solid track record of knowing what he's talking about, in other words.

None of this is to say that Bethesda is currently working on a new S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game, and the more cynical-minded folk out there might suggest that the company picked up the game rights simply to eliminate a Fallout competitor. But that's an unlikely proposition; the two games are only superficially similar, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R., despite its genius, has nowhere near enough of an audience to pose a threat to Fallout. It does feature the sort of sprawling, open world that Bethesda games are famous for, however, and before everything fell apart GSC Game World had expressed serious interest in broadening its audience by bringing the franchise to consoles.

Is it? Will it? Could it? Would it? All Bethesda has to say about the situation at this point is, "No comment."

Source: Rock, Paper, Shotgun [http://galyonkin.com/2012/07/31/stalker-2-zhiv-izdaet-bethesda/]

Permalink

 

[Ragsnstitches]

Whelp... we wouldn't have seen another Stalker anyway, with GSC going under.

I'm curious as to what the implication of Bethesda NOT owning the brand of Stalker are. Does this mean they can't expand on the existing universe?

 

[Jack and Calumon]

Well, the horrendous amount of bugs that any given S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game has show that the franchise is a perfect fit for Bethesda and their patented "Invisible QA Department."

In all honesty, at least it's not dead. The franchise has a lot of potential and even though they are VERY rough around the edges at the best of times, an incredibly amazing game is within each one. I only hope that whoever ends up actually working on this title, be it id, Bethesda Softworks or anyone else under the ungodly Bethesda rule, gives it the proper time, attention and polish that a new S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game deserves.

And God help them if it sucks, because ruining that franchise would put any developer in a sink hole they can't get out from, both from a sales perspective and a fan backlash.

Calumon: I preferred it when fans kept people cool, not yelled at everyone.

 

[Rad Party God]

I don't mind, the Stalker series were already a bug riddled mess, it would perfectly fit Bethesda's lineup.

 

[UNHchabo]

Well, the horrendous amount of bugs that any given S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game has show that the franchise is a perfect fit for Bethesda and their patented "Invisible QA Department."

I don't mind, the Stalker series were already a bug riddled mess, it would perfectly fit Bethesda's lineup.

I only just bought the series last week in the Steam sale, but supposedly the "Complete" mod fixes many of the bugs people complained about.

 

[ScruffyMcBalls]

Well, the horrendous amount of bugs that any given S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game has show that the franchise is a perfect fit for Bethesda and their patented "Invisible QA Department."

I don't mind, the Stalker series were already a bug riddled mess, it would perfectly fit Bethesda's lineup.

I only just bought the series last week in the Steam sale, but supposedly the "Complete" mod fixes many of the bugs people complained about.

"Fix" is a very, VERY strong word in this circumstance. Being barely playable would be more accurate. The games have always been a mess, whether I was particularly unlucky, I don't know, but it's taken me several fresh files to see the end of each game, and it honestly wasn't worth it.
I'd rather Bethesda pushed the rights on to someone else or buried them, focusing on one good post-apocalyptic game at a time and actually making something remotely passable.

 

[Jack and Calumon]

Well, the horrendous amount of bugs that any given S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game has show that the franchise is a perfect fit for Bethesda and their patented "Invisible QA Department."

I don't mind, the Stalker series were already a bug riddled mess, it would perfectly fit Bethesda's lineup.

I only just bought the series last week in the Steam sale, but supposedly the "Complete" mod fixes many of the bugs people complained about.

I watched my little brother play it with the "Complete" mod, actually and still saw bugs actually, one after the other. The first came after he stabbed everyone in a camp for giggles and because the knife is stupidly overpowered, where he saw someone sleeping a foot off the ground and 8 feet from his bed, slowly floating over to the bed. When he got there, he then decided to faze in and out of the mattress for about 10 seconds before getting up and I presume he wanted to greet him, but instead he ended up moving his mouth up and down and snoring at him, all while staring right in his face and crossing his arms as if he was deliberately trying to get on his tits.

The games are and always will be bug riddled messes, and the problems go beyond what mods can do, it is infested to the point where fumigation for months on end would be the best solution.

Calumon: Even his snoring had an accent. >.<

 

[Blazing Steel]

I'm sure some people are going to be pretty pissed about this, but all I can think about is the game will be:

 

[Andy Chalk]

Some people say the STALKER games were "broken," although I suspect those people don't really understand what that actually means, but I never had any such issues, even with the original Shadows of Chernobyl. I did some .ini tweaking to improve the graphical performance (I think I was playing on a Radeon X800 at the time) and it was actually a pretty solid experience. Definitely Eastern European, with all that entails, but no worse from a bug/glitch standpoint than (dare I say it) a standard Bethesda release. I never really understood why people say the "Complete" mod is necessary to make it playable. It changes and adds things, yes, and may very well make the game "better," but it's hardly unplayable out of the box.

 

[GenGenners]

I'm on the fence here. Good news, but Bethesda has been annoying me as of late.

 

[teh_gunslinger]

Terrible, terrible news, if true.

Bethesda is completely the wrong people to make a STALKER game with their dead, static worlds where nothing happens if it's more than 10 yards from the player.

They wouldn't understand the glory of the Zone being completely oblivious to you. The times you stumble over a corpse and wonder what happened. Or see a fellow stalker shooting it out with bandits and lend him and a hand followed by a wary silence as you loot the corpses with him.

What STALKER is best at is making a living, breathing world that lives on without you. When I quit Skyrim I know nothing will happen until I start it again. In STALKER it feels like the clock will keep running in the Zone.

I urge all of you who think this is anything but terrible to read this [http://tap-repeatedly.com/2011/01/alone-for-all-seasons/] to better understand why it's so terrible.

 

[teh_gunslinger]

Well, the horrendous amount of bugs that any given S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game has show that the franchise is a perfect fit for Bethesda and their patented "Invisible QA Department."

In all honesty, at least it's not dead. The franchise has a lot of potential and even though they are VERY rough around the edges at the best of times, an incredibly amazing game is within each one. I only hope that whoever ends up actually working on this title, be it id, Bethesda Softworks or anyone else under the ungodly Bethesda rule, gives it the proper time, attention and polish that a new S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game deserves.

And God help them if it sucks, because ruining that franchise would put any developer in a sink hole they can't get out from, both from a sales perspective and a fan backlash.

Calumon: I preferred it when fans kept people cool, not yelled at everyone.

Call of Pripyat worked well right out of the box and the only thing the Complete mod does for that is graphical stuff, some combat tweaks and weather and skyboxes. There was no reason to bug fix.

And STALKER isn't really rough around the edges. It's designed with emphasis on game play and interlocking systems and not designed to be easy, slick, welcoming or stream lined.

 

[tmande2nd]

OH NO THE GAME I THOUGHT DEAD IS COMING BACK!
OH NO A COMPANY I DONT LIKE IS MAKING IT!
PANIC!

God its like all the Fallout puritans screeching about being betrayed and how isometric heresy was committed all over again.
Oh wait they still do that.

 

[Jack and Calumon]

Well, the horrendous amount of bugs that any given S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game has show that the franchise is a perfect fit for Bethesda and their patented "Invisible QA Department."

In all honesty, at least it's not dead. The franchise has a lot of potential and even though they are VERY rough around the edges at the best of times, an incredibly amazing game is within each one. I only hope that whoever ends up actually working on this title, be it id, Bethesda Softworks or anyone else under the ungodly Bethesda rule, gives it the proper time, attention and polish that a new S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game deserves.

And God help them if it sucks, because ruining that franchise would put any developer in a sink hole they can't get out from, both from a sales perspective and a fan backlash.

Calumon: I preferred it when fans kept people cool, not yelled at everyone.

Call of Pripyat worked well right out of the box and the only thing the Complete mod does for that is graphical stuff, some combat tweaks and weather and skyboxes. There was no reason to bug fix.

And STALKER isn't really rough around the edges. It's designed with emphasis on game play and interlocking systems and not designed to be easy, slick, welcoming or stream lined.

There's no real need to defend the game, I'm not decrying it, though the notion that it works out of the box is a funny one as I expect a game to do that anyway, and if it's commendable that happens, then it says a lot about the series.

I kid really, CoP had a lot of improvements over the other games, it had the least amount of bugs in the series, and is currently the best one available in terms of gameplay and technical prowess. Despite all this, it is still not bug free (after all, what is?) and "Worked well" would not be the words I would use to describe it. It still had crap loads of bugs and glitches, like entering some imaginary 5th dimension when colliding with some of the furniture you can find.

As for it being rough, yes, I appreciate the fact that it is rough around the edges as it does increase the atmosphere of the difficulty of surviving. However, it should still be polished. The graphics are dated by modern standards, AI is stupid, and need I mention the bugs? I know the game isn't meant to easy, slick, welcoming or stream lined but neither was Dark Souls and that was still an incredibly polished game with edges so smooth I use them to spread the butter of my toast in the morning.

Calumon: I don't know why he won't use a knife. :S

 

[WanderingFool]

OH NO THE GAME I THOUGHT DEAD IS COMING BACK!
OH NO A COMPANY I DONT LIKE IS MAKING IT!
PANIC!

God its like all the Fallout puritans screeching about being betrayed and how isometric heresy was committed all over again.
Oh wait they still do that.

Yeah... thats shit is never gonna get old...

 

[Radioactive Kitten]

I can only hope that they treat it with the respect it deserves, and recognize what made STALKER great in the first place (as in, persistent world that lives on without player input, delightfully punishing difficulty, atmosphere so thick you could cut it with a knife). The thought of a Bethesda-developed STALKER doesn't exactly sit well with me, and I'd greatly prefer that they licensed it out to someone that can handle it and make a worthy entry for the franchise.

Also, fully patched, Shadow of Chernobyl and Call of Pripyat are quite fine, CoP more-so because it released in a much better state than SoC did. Clear Sky is another story, and still seems prone to crashes even with bugfix mods, but CS was always the black sheep in the STALKER family.

I'm also not exactly a fan of the Complete mods because, at least in SoC's case, it actually makes the game easier and introduces some mechanics I'm not fond of. For SoC, I prefer just running with the ZRP bugfix mod if I play vanilla, or AMK if I want to play modded. For CoP, I just get Atmosfear and a few other minor tweaks. I also don't bother with any overhaul mods for CS and just stick to a bugfix mod and make a few config tweaks.

 

[Tohuvabohu]

....

I just hope Bethesda sticks to publishing this time and hand the game over to someone else. I'm going to wait to see what happens next before I react any further, if they even decide to do anything with it.