‘Stalker 2’ trailer features appearance by series creator

Fans of upcoming post-apocalyptic FPS Stalker 2: Heart of Chernobyl noticed an easter egg in the latest trailer.

The trailer shown last week as part of the Xbox E3 presentation shows a mixture of gameplay intercut with a scene of various men sat round a campfire. Towards the end player character Skif turns to his left and sees GSC Game World founder Sergiy Grygorovych and CEO wish him “good hunting, stalker.”

Grygorovych founded GSC Game World in 1995 while still a teenager with a team of 15 in a two-room apartment. Over the next five years, the company expanded to include 200 employees across five offices.

However in 2009 during Stalker 2‘s initial development, the company shrank to around 50 employees and Grygorovych dissolved the company in 2011 to ensure everyone was paid. Stalker 2 was then officially cancelled in 2012.

But in 2014, GSC re-opened and announced Cossacks 3, a remake of the first game, which released in 2016. In 2018, Grygorovych announced that development of Stalker 2 would be resuming in a Facebook post, according to IGN.

More recently, GSC Game World released a short dev highlights video on its YouTube channel. The clip shows some behind-the-scenes footage of the performance capture sessions and mentions Grygorovych’s appearance.

Stalker 2 also featured at the ID@XBox showcase. GSC showed off the level of detail that goes into showing the outfits wear and tear. There was a close up look at characters teeth, giving every character a “one-of-a-kind smile”.

Stalker 2: Heart of Chernobyl will release in April 2022 exclusively on Xbox Series X|S and PC. PC gamers however may need to upgrade their hardware first.

Elsewhere, Rivals of Aether creator Dan Fornace has tweeted about the difficulties of making fighting games accessible to new players.

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