Early S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat Details Unveiled

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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Early S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat Details Unveiled


The latest issue of Russian gaming magazine S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl [http://gameplay.com.ua/].

The May 2009 issue of the magazine describes Call of Pripyat as a sequel, beginning a few days after the events told in Shadow of Chernobyl. With the Zone now open and the game's various factions vying for position, the military becomes more actively involved as well, sending in heavily armed troops to take full control. Naturally, "something goes terribly wrong," and all the helicopters sent into the Zone mysteriously vanish. But where a massive military assault failed, one man - the right man - yes, that's you - might just succeed in uncovering the truth.

This time around, players won't be able to join factions. A few members of Duty and Freedom were able to penetrate into the "Backwater" and bandits still roam freely, and while players can accept missions from any or all of the three groups to help them achieve their goals, that's as far as it goes. Side quests will be more varied and detailed than in the previous games; instead of the MMOG-style "kill five boars" missions, developer GSC Game World [http://www.gsc-game.com/] is creating roughly 70 unique side quests that will add significant new depth to the game.

Day and night cycles will figure prominently. The world will be considerably more dangerous at night as monsters become more active, but possibly more lucrative as well: Some quests will only be available in the dark hours. New creatures have been added while others, like the bloodsucker, will be reworked, and instead of being scripted events, "blowouts" will be random (and fortunately rare) events, changing the positions and types of artifacts and anomalies and giving players a good reason to remember where the nearest shelter is.

The article claims Call of Pripyat will address the "mistakes" of the first two games, Shadow of Chernobyl and the prequel S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky. "There won't be helicopter bosses, infinite faction wars and other elements that are theoretically interesting, but doesn't fit to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. at all," the translated preview says. "Well-turned features like new detection system or weapon upgrading will be there too, but in overall look the Call of Pripyat is closer to the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. concept with dangerous, desolated and silent Zone where Stalkers are rare and gloomy loners, where's no place for huge groups and tons of gunfights."

The full preview, which touches on other topics including weapon and armor changes, the open-ended game environment and improvements to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s A-Life system, can be read at FPSBanana [http://www.fpsbanana.com/threads/152022?26]. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat is scheduled for release in fall 2009.


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Scypemonk

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Sep 26, 2007
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Only thing i'm wondering about, is if they will polish the game more than their previous ones before they release it. Because thats pretty much THE thing that reviewers and gamers complained about.
 

Internet Kraken

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Oh boy this sounds lovely.

What I really like is that they are going to take out all those elements from Clear Sky that felt out of place. Seriously, that chopper boss fight pissed me off. It was so random and out of place. Plus I had to kill it with a pistol.
 

The Rogue Wolf

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I dunno, hearing how bad Clear Sky was sort of turned me off of the franchise, even though Shadow of Chernobyl was a diamond in the rough. And I too hope that they spend a LOT more time this go-around polishing the game and killing off bugs.

Side note- did anyone actually side with a faction in SoC? I mean, getting Duty pissed off at you basically made the Bar a no-go area, and getting on Freedom's bad side made getting through their checkpoint by Red Forest an absolute pain.
 

Odjin

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Nov 14, 2007
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A new game would be nice... but only if they fix the broken engine. It's not fun to start 10 times and hoping it won't crash again at some random and illogical point. If they fix that and go back to the SoC experience they've got a winner at hand.
 

syndicated44

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Got every stalker yet may be a bit buggy but patches mostly fixed it and more S.T.A.L.K.E.R. can never hurt.
 

sgtshock

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Keane Ng said:
Get out of here, STALKER.
I said come in, don't stand there!

I actually got STALKER Clear Sky for Christmas, and still havent opened it. Not that I'm not interested, or didn't like STALKER, I'm just occupied with other games. Maybe I'll give it a try soon.
 

CatinHat

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Shadow of Chernobyl was a kick ass game, then came ClearSky. That game should burn in deep fires of gaming hell. CTD's, bugs out of every part of the game, no tech support from GSC Game World, and it went so far as people wanting to sue them for a crappy game. They quit trying to patch to SP part of the game and now only really doing MP.

They should fix a game before making a new game that is going to have as many bugs. Why do they have to fellow the path of EA?

Long Live the Old Shadow of Chernobyl
 

eviljetsam

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Apr 30, 2009
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Hmmm, in theory this sounds good, as the side quests in SoC were really irritating and pointless. Although I haven't played Clear Sky, I've heard that it too had its issues which prevented it from being a truly great game
 

Internet Kraken

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You know I never had that many glitches with Clear Sky. I guess I'm just lucky. Either that or Clear Sky hates computers that can run it with good graphics.
 

Andy Chalk

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Nov 12, 2002
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The Rogue Wolf said:
Side note- did anyone actually side with a faction in SoC? I mean, getting Duty pissed off at you basically made the Bar a no-go area, and getting on Freedom's bad side made getting through their checkpoint by Red Forest an absolute pain.
I found it was better to stay friendly with both factions, without getting too entangled in either. I definitely preferred Freedom and once I reached their base the Duty bar was rendered pretty much irrelevant, but I always like to keep my options open.

Haven't played Clear Sky yet but it's very high on my list.

And according to the article, Pripyat will be rendered with a high degree of accuracy. "100% precise recreation of east Pripyat part, with central post office, school and other famous places... The most important is that this level won't be corridor-like as Limansk in CS or Pripyat in SoC - no, it'll be huge territory with lots of various quests and non-linear exploring possibilities."