What’s happening through the hiss and crackle of static electricity? This is a transmission from the Gamescom area, where a trio of RPS survivors are fighting to stay alive despite all kinds of dangers. You don’t want to know what they told us about the toilets. One of them, James, found himself in the same room as the developers of Stalker 2, GSC Game World, and had the opportunity to ask them what’s in store for the game, now that its 2.0 update and its Cost of Hope expansion have been released. The answer is a second “different” DLC and a free multiplayer mode which, according to the studio, will not only recycle mechanics seen elsewhere.
“The most important things, not very close but close, are that we are working on DLC 2 and multiplayer,” GSC CEO Ievgen Grygorovych said when James asked him what the future of Stalker 2 would look like. Those are the “most important next two steps,” but director and creative lead Mariia Grygorovych made it clear that both are currently still in the works and the studio aims to bring to fruition places things that don’t just repeat what they’ve done or seen other developers do before.
As for the second DLC, Ievgen said it will feature a “different type of storytelling and experience” from Cost of Hope, which he hopes will provoke reactions in the sense that it’s not what players expect, but in a good way.
As for free multiplayer, already teased shortly after the shooter’s release, the two men outlined a similar philosophy. “We think we’re not doing something that everyone would do,” the CEO said. “We are not trying to copy other mechanics and we are doing something that our players, who play 2000 hours in our game, would like.”
“Not many of our players really expect multiplayer, since we are primarily a single-player game and a business,” Mariia added. “So we’re just experimenting with what we can do in multiplayer.” She noted that this may not be what some players expect, simply because different sections of the community will expect entirely different things from this mode. As for what you can expect, Ievgen clarified that the mode, which GSC hopes to announce very soon, will not be “session-based like Counter Strike.”
For now, sit back and read James’ review of Cost of Hope and his testing of Update 2.0. FWWSSSSHHHHH. That’s it, he disappeared into the static again. Here’s hoping the unholy halls of Cologne don’t eat him alive before he can unearth more whispers to relay.
