S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Cancelled and GSC Game World shut down.

Gameinformer has now confirmed that rumors of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 being cancelled were true. With this announcement, GSC has also been shut down. GSC Game World stated reasons why such as, "We did not reach agreement with the rights owner regarding the use of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. brand." Members of the team have now formed Vostok Games and are working on Survarium; a free to play MMO.

Here's the Gameinformer post if you want to see more info on this story. http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2012/04/25/s-t-a-l-k-e-r-2-cancelled.aspx

Good night, sweet prince. Maybe another developer will pick up the pieces, and hopefully not fuck up the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. universe. Maybe...

Another great pc game shot down. It went out with dignity. It didn't become some bastardized press X win simplified console title. So in a way, this is somewhat bittersweet news. I'd much rather this than Dragon Age 2. Crysis 2, Fear 2, Rainbow 6: Vegas, Fallout 3 e.t.c....

A free to play STALKER MMO sounds interesting. I'm interesting to see how it turns out, anyway.

That is really sad. I really liked the Stalker games.

@MattyFTM said:

A free to play STALKER MMO sounds interesting. I'm interesting to see how it turns out, anyway.

This was being developed. TBH, I think it looks pretty terrible.

Ugh. Every time I hear the phrase "free to play MMO" I cringe at the severe waste of time.

At the very least, even if it's successful, it is of no interest to me.

I haven't seen a free to play MMO that's good and there have been dozens, this is terrible.

This is a total bummer. I loved the atmosphere in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games. Guess its time to start a Kickstarter for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 now...

Well piss.

@Mikemcn said:

I haven't seen a free to play MMO that's good and there have been dozens, this is terrible.

I find Lord Of The Rings: Online to be great. It's 5 years old now but it has had tons of patches and content.

Also it says it's a FPS MMO.

:(

Sad news. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a great game.

Ah hell my computer probably wouldnt have run it because it barely ran the others but that series was always I felt under appreciated.

Struck the right blend of horror ,RPG ,shooting and action and most importantly crazy Eastern European development.

There isn't any justice in this world.

Ah man, that sucks. I've only played one of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games, but I really enjoyed it, and was looking forward to 2. Sad to see yet another company get shut down like this.

the worst news is the free to play MMO :/

What? Who is the rights owner? It would be sweet if, let's say, Bethesda buys the rights of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and tries to make something with it.

@AlexanderSheen said:

What? Who is the rights owner? It would be sweet if, let's say, Bethesda buys the rights of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and tries to make something with it.

I'm pretty sure it's still the former CEO of GSC, and the rumors was that he had left or something during that first news.

also a bethesda made stalker game would be fucking garbage

And a single tear was shed this day.

I'm bummed out by this. but there's a couple problems I have with all this: 1) How could they have issues with the "rights owner" of STALKER when they made it? And 2) Maybe Clear Sky and Fall of Pripyat were better, but I found the first STALKER to be kind of unplayable.

Well that sucks.

massive bummer!

@Animasta: Do you have better ideas? I picked Bethesda because of the engine Skyrim has. It would be better if there were just a map and not multiple territories for example.

@iAmJohn said:

I'm bummed out by this. but there's a couple problems I have with all this: 1) How could they have issues with the "rights owner" of STALKER when they made it? And 2) Maybe Clear Sky and Fall of Pripyat were better, but I found the first STALKER to be kind of unplayable.

The original is widely regarded the best. Clear Sky a bastard child. And COP better but still not as good as the original.

Personally I quite liked clear sky and the original. COP felt to open rather than focused. Over-scripted as well in some missions. Some were obviously scripted. e.g. magically spawning hoards dropping out of thin air in front of you...

How do the Stalker games actually play? People love it and so I'd love to have another game to love, but I really have a short patience for clunky combat mixed with high difficulty and arbitrary micromanagement.

An MMO?

Why do new studios always think this is a good idea?

@Brodehouse said:

How do the Stalker games actually play? People love it and so I'd love to have another game to love, but I really have a short patience for clunky combat mixed with high difficulty and arbitrary micromanagement.

This is not your game.

@SaturdayNightSpecials said:

An MMO?

Why do new studios always think this is a good idea?

MMO's do not suffer from piracy. If you look at the pc market in recent years, it has moved to casual bejewel games, free2play and MMO's. This is because of scum stealing games jumping on torrents and acting like huge scum that is the cancer of pc gaming. Making a free2play MMO rather than a single player game is logical for the pc. AAA single player games (outside of strategy titles) on the pc are more or less dead. Pc gamers do not like to hear this and do everything they can to vehemently dismiss it. But that is the way things are now.

Can't say I'm at all surprised by this news.

@AlexanderSheen said:

What? Who is the rights owner? It would be sweet if, let's say, Bethesda buys the rights of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and tries to make something with it.

They did that already. It's called Fallout

Meh, bummer. 
Oh well, 'plays other games'

@TheHumanDove said:

@AlexanderSheen said:

What? Who is the rights owner? It would be sweet if, let's say, Bethesda buys the rights of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and tries to make something with it.

They did that already. It's called Fallout

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is not even close to Fallout.

@TheHumanDove said:

@AlexanderSheen said:

What? Who is the rights owner? It would be sweet if, let's say, Bethesda buys the rights of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and tries to make something with it.

They did that already. It's called Fallout

Stalker is loosely based on a 1979 movie called "stalker" which was based on a book called "roadside picnic". It pre-dated fallout by a number of decades and is considered a masterpiece. True story.

Gallery

@whyareyoucrouchingspock said:

@SaturdayNightSpecials said:

An MMO?

Why do new studios always think this is a good idea?

MMO's do not suffer from piracy. If you look at the pc market in recent years, it has moved to casual bejewel games, free2play and MMO's. This is because of scum stealing games jumping on torrents and acting like huge scum that is the cancer of pc gaming. Making a free2play MMO rather than a single player game is logical for the pc. AAA single player games (outside of strategy titles) on the pc are more or less dead. Pc gamers do not like to hear this and do everything they can to vehemently dismiss it. But that is the way things are now.

Sure, the witcher 2 may have been pirated quite a bit, but it was still insanely profitable to the devs themselves.

Also the fact of the matter is that indie games sell like hotcakes on computers and whenever something appears on steam, it will be bought more often then pirated, the only real reasons to pirate is to either test the game and make sure it can run, and getting old ass games on your computer. (Ones even GOG can't even get like I have no mouth and I must scream.)

However to people who don't pay... why isn't there an ACTUAL internet police force that shuts down pirating websites more often? I mean... fuck... sure megaupload was destroyed by the fbi thankfully, but it needs to happen way more often to these pirating groups, make it legitiment fear of pirating and people will stop doing it!

@Jay444111 said:

@whyareyoucrouchingspock said:

@SaturdayNightSpecials said:

An MMO?

Why do new studios always think this is a good idea?

MMO's do not suffer from piracy. If you look at the pc market in recent years, it has moved to casual bejewel games, free2play and MMO's. This is because of scum stealing games jumping on torrents and acting like huge scum that is the cancer of pc gaming. Making a free2play MMO rather than a single player game is logical for the pc. AAA single player games (outside of strategy titles) on the pc are more or less dead. Pc gamers do not like to hear this and do everything they can to vehemently dismiss it. But that is the way things are now.

Sure, the witcher 2 may have been pirated quite a bit, but it was still insanely profitable to the devs themselves.

Also the fact of the matter is that indie games sell like hotcakes on computers and whenever something appears on steam, it will be bought more often then pirated, the only real reasons to pirate is to either test the game and make sure it can run, and getting old ass games on your computer. (Ones even GOG can't even get like I have no mouth and I must scream.)

However to people who don't pay... why isn't there an ACTUAL internet police force that shuts down pirating websites more often? I mean... fuck... sure megaupload was destroyed by the fbi thankfully, but it needs to happen way more often to these pirating groups, make it legitiment fear of pirating and people will stop doing it!

I do not quilify indie games as "AAA". They do not have the big budget super million dollar stuff the big boys have. Doesn't matter if you think it's better, the budget is nearly always lower with lower sales. They require less sales and usually appeal to non-gamers as well. The people who don't jump on torrents.

I agree, piratebay should be taken down. It makes me sad when I see some fool cry "long live the bay" like it's a force for good. It just a bunch of greedy little pricks nicking shit at the end of the day. It's a lifestyle for many pc gamers. Not a thought for anyone other than themselfs.

"Survarium is described as a massively multiplayer, free-to-play first-person shooter"

Like I said in the mirc chatroom, f they manage to deliver a multiplayer STALKER that is like a co-op story-driven game, that would be SWEET. Like the same experience as Shadow of Chernobyl, atmosphere and mutants and quests, but done online with other players.. 
 
But I doubt it. Fuck.

@Aetheldod said:

@iAmJohn: From wikipedia
The background and some terminology of the game ("The Zone", "Stalker") is borrowed from the popular science fiction novella Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky and the 1979 Andrei Tarkovsky film Stalker that was loosely based on it, as well as Stalker, the film's subsequent novelization by the original authors. The term "Stalkers" was originally used for the scientists and engineers who explored the interior of Chernobyl's "sarcophagus" after its hasty construction in 1986. So I suppose the rights belongs to Boris and Arkady Stugatsky

wrong. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is different than Stalker in the rights of copyright law, plus the game was never actually based in the same world as the movie (which is also fantastic however! y'all should watch it). The rights are with someone who left the company as far as I know. which isn't much

@AhmadMetallic said:

Like I said in the mirc chatroom, f they manage to deliver a multiplayer STALKER that is like a co-op story-driven game, that would be SWEET. Like the same experience as Shadow of Chernobyl, atmosphere and mutants and quests, but done online with other players.. But I doubt it. Fuck.

Thats basically what this MMO sounds like. People seem to be ignoring "fps" totally.

It could end up being really great.

@whyareyoucrouchingspock said:

@AhmadMetallic said:

Like I said in the mirc chatroom, f they manage to deliver a multiplayer STALKER that is like a co-op story-driven game, that would be SWEET. Like the same experience as Shadow of Chernobyl, atmosphere and mutants and quests, but done online with other players.. But I doubt it. Fuck.

Thats basically what this MMO sounds like. People seem to be ignoring "fps" totally.

list of all good MMOFPS:

@Animasta said:

@whyareyoucrouchingspock said:

@AhmadMetallic said:

Like I said in the mirc chatroom, f they manage to deliver a multiplayer STALKER that is like a co-op story-driven game, that would be SWEET. Like the same experience as Shadow of Chernobyl, atmosphere and mutants and quests, but done online with other players.. But I doubt it. Fuck.

Thats basically what this MMO sounds like. People seem to be ignoring "fps" totally.

list of all good MMOFPS:

Why do I need to do that exactly? The entire MMO landscape could be terrible and wouldn't mean this game would be bad.

@whyareyoucrouchingspock said:

@Animasta said:

@whyareyoucrouchingspock said:

@AhmadMetallic said:

Like I said in the mirc chatroom, f they manage to deliver a multiplayer STALKER that is like a co-op story-driven game, that would be SWEET. Like the same experience as Shadow of Chernobyl, atmosphere and mutants and quests, but done online with other players.. But I doubt it. Fuck.

Thats basically what this MMO sounds like. People seem to be ignoring "fps" totally.

list of all good MMOFPS:

Why do I need to do that exactly? The entire MMO landscape could be terrible and wouldn't mean this game would be bad.

I was being sarcastic in my saying there is no good MMOFPS, and there probably never will be. At least not in the near future. FPS's are much more twitch based than the RPG, or even an RTS.

@Animasta said:

@whyareyoucrouchingspock said:

@Animasta said:

@whyareyoucrouchingspock said:

@AhmadMetallic said:

Like I said in the mirc chatroom, f they manage to deliver a multiplayer STALKER that is like a co-op story-driven game, that would be SWEET. Like the same experience as Shadow of Chernobyl, atmosphere and mutants and quests, but done online with other players.. But I doubt it. Fuck.

Thats basically what this MMO sounds like. People seem to be ignoring "fps" totally.

list of all good MMOFPS:

Why do I need to do that exactly? The entire MMO landscape could be terrible and wouldn't mean this game would be bad.

I was being sarcastic in my saying there is no good MMOFPS, and there probably never will be. At least not in the near future. FPS's are much more twitch based than the RPG, or even an RTS.

I don't agree at all. Much of the problem from MMO's specifically comes from copy pasting previously creating formula's by Everquest and World Of Warcraft.

I recall years ago fps practically had no story, involved brown corriders and key finding. Then came along Halflife. Everything changed. This happens with every genre. Given how popular MMO's and in general, online persistence have become. I wouldn't say too long. It's moving out of traditional format into all gaming formats.

@AhmadMetallic said:

Like I said in the mirc chatroom, f they manage to deliver a multiplayer STALKER that is like a co-op story-driven game, that would be SWEET. Like the same experience as Shadow of Chernobyl, atmosphere and mutants and quests, but done online with other players.. But I doubt it. Fuck.

@whyareyoucrouchingspock said:

@Animasta said:

@whyareyoucrouchingspock said:

@AhmadMetallic said:

Like I said in the mirc chatroom, f they manage to deliver a multiplayer STALKER that is like a co-op story-driven game, that would be SWEET. Like the same experience as Shadow of Chernobyl, atmosphere and mutants and quests, but done online with other players.. But I doubt it. Fuck.

Thats basically what this MMO sounds like. People seem to be ignoring "fps" totally.

list of all good MMOFPS:

Why do I need to do that exactly? The entire MMO landscape could be terrible and wouldn't mean this game would be bad.

I can appreciate that this game might be good for people looking for that experience, but part of the appeal for me when it came to playing STALKER was the feeling of isolation moving between points in the world, only occasionally coming across other people for missions or combat.

No matter how good a MMOFPS could or might be, it's not going to be that experience for me, because I have no interest in constantly having other players with names like "MahBallzak289" running past and/or trying to kill me for points while I'm trying to accomplish goals in the game.

fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck

@whyareyoucrouchingspock said:

@Animasta said:

@whyareyoucrouchingspock said:

@Animasta said:

@whyareyoucrouchingspock said:

@AhmadMetallic said:

Like I said in the mirc chatroom, f they manage to deliver a multiplayer STALKER that is like a co-op story-driven game, that would be SWEET. Like the same experience as Shadow of Chernobyl, atmosphere and mutants and quests, but done online with other players.. But I doubt it. Fuck.

Thats basically what this MMO sounds like. People seem to be ignoring "fps" totally.

list of all good MMOFPS:

Why do I need to do that exactly? The entire MMO landscape could be terrible and wouldn't mean this game would be bad.

I was being sarcastic in my saying there is no good MMOFPS, and there probably never will be. At least not in the near future. FPS's are much more twitch based than the RPG, or even an RTS.

I don't agree at all. Much of the problem from MMO's specifically comes from copy pasting previously creating formula's by Everquest and World Of Warcraft.

I recall years ago fps practically had no story, involved brown corriders and key finding. Then came along Halflife. Everything changed. This happens with every genre. Given how popular MMO's and in general, online persistence have become. I wouldn't say too long. It's moving out of traditional format into all gaming formats.

that's not even what I mean. It's way easier to make a MMORPG, because the combat is not that... urgent. Queue up commands an what not. FPS's are too fast for the MMO format to realistically portray. realistically portray well, that is.