YouGamers is reporting -- well, it's a press release -- that bitComposer has acquired game rights to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

bitComposer Entertainment AG has acquired the exclusive worldwide rights for future video game adaptations of the acclaimed S.T.A.L.K.E.R. brand from Boris Natanovich Strygatsky. This is the second strong international license that the Eschborn-based company has acquired within the space of a few years, and this move ensures that the successful series will continue.

This kinda means nothing; the former devs are busy with surverium or whatever the fuck it was, and bitComposer is still pretty small. I mean unless the E.Y.E. devs make it or the people who made the precursors, I don't think anyone can do what that dev studio did properly.

Wait so is GSC still in charge of development? Are these guys just publishing the game? They're already credited as publishers in Call of Prypiat's wiki page, so I'd assume so.

@Snail@Animasta: Things are getting… weird?

Multiple outlets are beginning to question this press release, including The Escapist and Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

[Escapist] UPDATE: GSC Game World, the company that developed the first three S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games, has told me that it, and not bitComposer, are "the sole owners of all the intellectual property rights to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game series and the brand overall, including all the trademarks, the game universe, the technology etc."

[RPS] UPDATE 2: It seems we might be looking at STALKER for bitComposer and a separate franchise to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Confusing, eh?

@fluxbit: Wow boy. This could fun.

I hope that the news don't stop here and we get a clarification on what the heck actually happened. That RPS quote got me particularly confused.

What seems to have happened is that GSC still has the rights to its STALKER games, but bitComposer acquired separate rights to the games universe from the guy who wrote the books STALKER is based on.

Weird. Seems someone else owns the rights to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. on Rock Paper Shotgun there was a link in the comments to a Russian site:

http://galyonkin.com/2012/12/12/net-nemtsyi-ne-kupili-s-t-a-l-k-e-r/

although it doesn't translate all that well, it seems like GSC didn't sell the rights, but Boris Strugatsky's heirs did? There's also something there about 8 months of royalties. This story seems to be getting weird indeed.

Bit Composer owns the rights to that STALKER movie based on the book.

Source

@Inkerman said:

What seems to have happened is that GSC still has the rights to its STALKER games, but bitComposer acquired separate rights to the games universe from the guy who wrote the books STALKER is based on.

@No0b0rAmA said:

Bit Composer owns the rights to that STALKER movie based on the book.

ah. that makes sense. had no clue about the movie, might have to watch that at some point.

Yeah, if it's even real, it would just be a license to make a game off of the original book Roadside Picnic which is a lot different than the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games and the Tarkovsky movie.

@oraknabo: I would be really interested seeing what kind of game could be made using the movie as inspiration though.

@Wampa1: Yeah, as much as I love the existing games, I always wished there was a little more of the movie in them. It would be interesting for navigation through the zone to be a lot more dangerous, almost a puzzle to get from one place to another. I'd also like to see you have to sneak back and forth through the cordon to deal with high paying clients outside and lead people into the zone.

I also think a pretty crazy game could be made from Roadside Picnic.

OH MAN THIS IS WAY BETTER.

stalker the movie could have a really interesting movie made of it if it's as... purposefully unclear as the movie is.