Stalker 2's Massive Handcrafted Map Stands Out

[Vayra86]

Playstation players


I meant to say, Playstation players are going to miss out and Xbox and PC players are in for a big win. Would update the article soon enough.

Care to explain the madness?

Ah you made an x360 turn... errr 180 Good

 

[A&P211]

The size of the map and the eye-candy and the artwork are great but it's relative. It could be a huge map filled with too much repetitious boring crap or it could be a map filled with fun and interesting challenges or anything in between. Gamers buying STALKER games aren't looking for a pretty walking simulator. They want a challenging shooter with horror and survival as key ingredients.

This is one of the games that I want to turn out well but I will have to wait for feedback after release as usual.

Starfield comes to mind

 

[Event Horizon]

Game like Starfield, Ubisoft games, and even Elden Ring all relied on procedural generation (to varying extents) to produce a large open world. They're claiming Stalker 2 is all handcrafted.

 

[Yraggul666]

I just want it to be good and not rushed; i played all of the other games and those were ahead of their time.
So it's powered by UE5, now where's the guy who said i'll max it full details on my 6800XT!?

 

[neatfeatguy]

Game like Starfield, Ubisoft games, and even Elden Ring all relied on procedural generation (to varying extents) to produce a large open world. They're claiming Stalker 2 is all handcrafted.

Here's the Kulik's quote about how they made the map - he says "we almost didn't use any procedural generations...".

"We have 20 different regions, and in these regions, you may find big locations with big hubs where some different people and different factions are living, but still, you may notice smaller locations and mini locations. The main feature here is that we almost didn't use any procedural generations to create this world, and this huge map is made all by hand of our guys from [the] level design department, so each location you will experience in the game is quite unique," says Evegeniy Kulik, technical producer of Stalker 2.

I honestly think the story and title needs some words adjusted/added to make it clear that it's "almost" all completely handcrafted.

Also, with the game being ran on UE5, does that mean that some Intel CPUs may have troubles running it or has Intel actually fixed the issue with their patch?

 

[Macro Device]

ROFLing over that «Троещина» meme (Троещина [pronounced roughly "Troyeshchina"] is a location in Kyiv, Ukraine which is mostly considered non-Kyiv by those who live on the so-called right coast).

Map size is a good thing but you can have a gargantuan map with little to no content on it or a tiny bit of land covered with scrapers with every single floor being full of interesting stuff. Hope it won't be Cyberpunk 2077 level bad launch.

 

[las]

Hope this game won't fail.

Quality over Size please.

 

[Easo]

What are your thoughts on Stalker 2 so far? Can this game be the winner of Game of the Year 2024 Award? Feel free to drop your thoughts in the comments.

Please be realistic, it has little chance for GoTY. I expect bugs and bugs and bugs, as well as some strange design decisions.
64km2 sounds good but likely it will be twice less in the actual size due to what is actually accessible.

 

[Dwarden]

the map is significantly smaller than Arma 2's Chernarus, Arma 3's Livonia and Altis ,
same goes for DayZ standalone's Chernarus/Livonia

the playable area will be more similar in size to Arma 3's Malden and Arma 2: OA size of Zargabad citymap

but generally 8x8 km size map shall offer enough playability for while

it's atm unclear if it can be expanded and if there will be support for community maps of same or larger size

 

[cant-game-right]

I am not exactly sure how map size correlates to the game being a GotY contender or to any quality in any way.
That’s ignoring for a second that GotY awards are mostly meaningless fluff.

It's not the map size, it's that it's big and handcrafted! It's not procedurally generated, it's not broad and superficial like we've often seen from "big" maps. I'm expecting something similar to Kingdom Come Deliverance in terms of density.

 

[Praesi]

Sounds nice and all.
And the Fact aside that i realy enjoyed the Stalker Games so far, I have not forgotten the amount of Lies and BS the Devs promised us before the Release of Shadow of Chernobyl.

 

[Yraggul666]

Again! Where's the guy who said i won't need an upgrade to run it 165Hz maxed out!?!?!?