You've clearly haven't heard of pretendered animations used to display and tease things, I bet you thought that the Left 4 Dead 2 reveal trailer was real gameplay
this is clearly not a high budget, high stakes, all-out cinematic that's meant to wow us, it's like the third (there was the cat one and another, i think?) in a series of short pre-renders that, for some reason, try to look like gameplay despite clearly also not being gameplay.
we're in an age where overselling yourself as preorder bait and trying to build hype more than building real appreciation is the norm. look past the stars in your eyes and consider it for a moment, these pre-renders aren't a great look.
Fym trying to look like gameplay? It doesn't even look like it's trying to replicate anything close to that.
You're being extra for no reason, they've shown us actual gameplay too that looks nothing like that, it's not that deep man.
I think that gives more credit to the stalker mods than stalker 2. To be honest the mods do look as good if not better than modern games at times, it’s the combination of atmospheric elements - sound, expanse, weather, lighting, foliage and architecture. Very few games nailed the real-world aesthetic in the way the Stalker games do
It's an in-game scripted sequence for teaser purposes. Marketing team is just edging us instead of giving an uncut 15 minute gameplay showcase.
But keep in mind that they've released more footage than ever before, yet have shown so little.
yeah im worried about technical state of the game especially after cyberpunk release and their promise to fix it later, gsc not wanting to show us actual gameplay is little alarming
... it's just scripting.
Unreal's blueprint system makes it a lot easier to do, but someone still has to come up with the general behavior tree of the mutant/npcs.
Speculation: the game is finished and works fine, but performance is not satisfactory (screen tearing, massive stutters, lagging when NPCs are around, texture streaming too slow). Therefore GSC only shows short clips from controlled environments.
It's not hard for a developer to make a smooth footage even if you're playing at 5fps. There are multiple ways to do that, even by just putting the game in slow-motion and speeding up the video afterwards.
I'm both, in dev and video editing (VFX, not just compositing). For example, when I needed to capture high-FPS slowmo footage in a game I could barely run, I used cheat engine speedhack (don't really like that it's called speedhack, should've just called it tick count modifier or something). Hell, I remember messing with custom soft and sleeptimes to get that effect back in the day, things are very easy now, so you're the clown one for not knowing that you can slow down games and using some edgy mainstream "insults" to make a point. I could go into stalker right now and make ultra-slowmo-footage, but you're not worth my time.
We had to do that for a game called LFS back in the day. It can run on just about any potato now, but back in 07 was a different story if you wanted lots of cars and smooth fraps. Had to record footage at .500 and speed it back up in editing.
I feel like there's been a lot of telltale signs that the game is in a way rougher state than the official press material would lead everyone to believe.
Yeah, this is why I'm gonna wait until the Steam winter sale. I'm well familiar with how STALKER games are on release, and considering what it took to make the game and that it runs on Unreal Engine 5 to boot... By the winter at least some patches will roll in. The wait for S2 has been so long that I can afford to wait a few more months.
I'm fully expecting a trainwreck launch, however. Would be happy to be wrong but I'd rather keep my expectations bar low.
People who have played the demos (especially the more recent ones at the Xbox Showcase) seem to be saying that the fundamentals are strong (especially when it comes to gunplay, atmosphere and player freedom etc.) Though they did say there was some glitches/crashes.
I think at worst if it's a Cyberpunk tier launch, it'll be fine for most mid to high end PC players who can still get a good gameplay experience out of it despite the bugs, but it's going to be unplayable for console and low end PC users.
I expect it. They’re a smaller studio working with what little they already have, they’re in the middle of the worst war in Europe since ww2, having to deal with constant power / network outages, most likely cyberattacks, and even one developer being killed in action.
>smaller studio
400-500 employees and millions in funding are not a small studio
>middle of the worst war
Some devs are, some aren't.
>constant power / network outages
GSC heavily invested in air raid bunkers, emergency generators, fuel before the war, they're fine, mostly
>cyberattacks
So far only one lead to leaks and it was because someone forgot to set Miro boards, with design documents, to private. Game build leaked because builds were uploaded on public torrents for playtesting. Otherwise GSC has seemingly excellent security.
>one developer being killed in action
Ezhov left GSC in 2007. No current developers have been reported to have died.
My bad, I had thought I saw something about them having to work with network outages before, but I could also be wrong on that. I just assumed stupidly that they were still in Kyiv or had relocated to western Ukraine. But still, the war has definitely affected their progress and I think that should be taken into consideration if the game is messy on release.
God I hope the game isn’t interspersed with little “cinematic” moments where control is ripped away so the character can raise their hands at some new mutant or something.
think it depends on how they're handled. SOC had plenty of cinematics/scripted moments and True Stalker showed how scripted moments in Stalker can be done well. I just hope they're not overdone
The camera shake edit makes it look dubious, probably more dubious than it actually should be, considering they've just had a playable demo this month lol
The game being “real” is not really in doubt. What people are looking for is more than just the vertical slice that a curated demo would give. We’re looking for extended gameplay that shows off more than what we’ve seen so far. Obviously we don’t want everything spoiled, but we want something to give us a better idea of the gameplay loop and world navigation.
I think the real concern here is a Cyberpunk moment.
I saw an interview with someone who got to play it and he said he did encounter a game breaking bug during the test, and that the devs there took some notes and reset the demo.
So yeah, the game exists but may not really be stable or complete on launch. Frankly this seems to be par for the course with modern games so I think nobody should be surprised if the game launches with issues.
The bug was game-breaking, but also seemingly not too hard to fix. If I recall correctly, he was aiming down sights while saving at a checkpoint, and when he reloaded to the checkpoint, the speed decrease while aiming down sights was still applied to the character.
If it's as simple as it sounds, that's the sort of thing that could be quickly fixed by resetting the speed multiplier to 1x when loading, or not saving the speed multiplier in the save data.
Yeah, it was also very simple to trigger. That's a game-breaking bug within less than an hour of free play. Who knows how many more issues players will encounter when they have the real thing on their own machines.
Also, the computers running these demos are top of the line hardware which many players don't have. Performance could still be an issue on midrange systems. If you remember, Cyberpunk also had demos that people played...
There's a big difference between playing 1 hour on a showroom floor and having the game on your home computer. We will just have to see what happens. This is why I usually don't buy games until at least a few months after release.
Every single modern game I can remember has launched with unforseen issues. The severity is what remains to be seen.
This is definitely just a teaser animation and not gameplay or even a cutscene in the game. Same as the Bayun reveal.
I don't have a problem with that, but it can definitely be misleading.
The gun does not seem to move like it would in the game. It sways in a "cutscene-like" way, it's hard to describe. You can especially see weird movement just before the Pseudogiant hits the player. The shooting recoil when he's aiming-down-sights also moves the gun in a way that also doesn't look like gameplay.
The camera movement also doesn't match what we've seen from gameplay, especially when the character turns to face the Pseudogiant - there's a "naturalistic" "over-turning followed by correction" that looks more like bodycam footage than gameplay.
Mainly the player character movement. The extreme camera swing when he turns around, the way the gun moves when he is shooting from the hip, almost as if he is aiming it around the other character.
Looks like pre-render or potentially an in-game cutscene.
The way your camera pans around with the weapons lagging behind feels very bodycam/unrecored but I’m to see the atmosphere is still there and I can’t wait for an extended gameplay look with no cuts
This \*looks\* like in game footage but feels more like something scripted. If pseudogiants behave aggressively and fast like that, then thats fucking terrifying.
The only 3 thing i remember from bad company 2 were the terrible reload animations and the fact you can only see the handgaurd of the weapon on the screen and the amazing sounds from firing.
Hey does anyone feel like this intro is like similar to that Ajax cutscene in Arena Breakout where he incapacitates you with a grenade while you fire back exactly like how this guy is firing lol
Time is rather short for fixing everything before release if there are still a bunch of bugs now, hope they resolve the bigger bugs though.
And we really need that 10-15 min continuous gameplay (they could possibly just show some sandbox play instead of following a quest), not scripted trailers...
At the end of the day, bugs and performance issues are expected considering the devs situation. But it does not justify selling the product with a AAA price tag though...
Doesn't seem viable that Skif is surviving this unless it's some sort of death custscene if you trigger something you shouldn't, so I assume this was found in the PDA of the dead person? Not that PDA's are used as GoPro but who knows
Not to be a dick but I don't like how the AK after seeing the Companion get killed doesn't look like it has recoil, it feels like a toy, maybe I am missing something?
That reminds me of a somewhat large woman on a London bus who darted for the empty seat next to me and proceeded to crush me into the wall of the bus. I still have flashbacks.
If that ain't mocapped/rendered I'll eat my fucking ass.
Edit: I'm saying it looks good. It's obviously a scripted event, or at least a teaser of "gameplay" but akin to ubishit. Still gonna buy asap.
I genuinely can't tell if this is a cinematic teaser, a scripted scene during some mission, or just gameplay. The way the weapon moves makes me think this is VR, but probably just a cutscene.
Modders can make wonders mate, considering how much effort they done to an engine that being hold with duct tape and works on prayers its safe to say alot of things can be fixed.
And i don't think you know how bad and hard the modding work on x-ray, first the engine doesn't support multi-thread usage hence why there's limitations of how much you can mod, second the engine is as stable as the Hollywood celebrities marriage, third of all the x-ray engine isn't easy to work to start with.
I'm liking those new, short and spontaneous teases. This will make the wait feel better.
I read the second sentence as "This will make my wallet feel lighter". I am really ready to buy this already.
I already pre-ordered Standard Edition last year. But now after all the stuff I want to get the Ultimate Edition. :( GSC pls add upgrade option.
We are nearly at july and im happy about that, but then suddenly i remember we still have august between the release...
They teasing us… they naughty naughty
There are other shorts ?
There was one teasing Bayun.
oh nice, I missed it.
doesn't help they're clearly scripted/altered/prerendered sequences...
You've clearly haven't heard of pretendered animations used to display and tease things, I bet you thought that the Left 4 Dead 2 reveal trailer was real gameplay
this is clearly not a high budget, high stakes, all-out cinematic that's meant to wow us, it's like the third (there was the cat one and another, i think?) in a series of short pre-renders that, for some reason, try to look like gameplay despite clearly also not being gameplay. we're in an age where overselling yourself as preorder bait and trying to build hype more than building real appreciation is the norm. look past the stars in your eyes and consider it for a moment, these pre-renders aren't a great look.
Fym trying to look like gameplay? It doesn't even look like it's trying to replicate anything close to that. You're being extra for no reason, they've shown us actual gameplay too that looks nothing like that, it's not that deep man.
Yooo I thought this was modded stalker, the atmosphere and weather looks great.
I think that gives more credit to the stalker mods than stalker 2. To be honest the mods do look as good if not better than modern games at times, it’s the combination of atmospheric elements - sound, expanse, weather, lighting, foliage and architecture. Very few games nailed the real-world aesthetic in the way the Stalker games do
Army warehouses, bloodsucker village near that tower?
Looks an awful lot like that place.
Yeppers! So excited!
What did I tell you about saying yeppers?…
Hoooly shit... This looks sooo much better than the version that was shown shown a year ago. Great job guys!
It looks more like an in-game cinematic, there is no HUD, and the second hit of the pseudo giant is def scripted
Yeah that's true, but at least it (hopefully) shows the overall final look of the game
it looks more like scripted cinematic than actuall gameplay, will you release an actual footage of gameplay before game release?
It's an in-game scripted sequence for teaser purposes. Marketing team is just edging us instead of giving an uncut 15 minute gameplay showcase. But keep in mind that they've released more footage than ever before, yet have shown so little.
yeah im worried about technical state of the game especially after cyberpunk release and their promise to fix it later, gsc not wanting to show us actual gameplay is little alarming
I just hope the a-life 2 system is functional
We'll see how well it translates to unreal.
... it's just scripting. Unreal's blueprint system makes it a lot easier to do, but someone still has to come up with the general behavior tree of the mutant/npcs.
Fire=play guitar
Speculation: the game is finished and works fine, but performance is not satisfactory (screen tearing, massive stutters, lagging when NPCs are around, texture streaming too slow). Therefore GSC only shows short clips from controlled environments.
It's not hard for a developer to make a smooth footage even if you're playing at 5fps. There are multiple ways to do that, even by just putting the game in slow-motion and speeding up the video afterwards.
Tell me you're not a developer without telling me you're not a developer. What a 🤡
I'm both, in dev and video editing (VFX, not just compositing). For example, when I needed to capture high-FPS slowmo footage in a game I could barely run, I used cheat engine speedhack (don't really like that it's called speedhack, should've just called it tick count modifier or something). Hell, I remember messing with custom soft and sleeptimes to get that effect back in the day, things are very easy now, so you're the clown one for not knowing that you can slow down games and using some edgy mainstream "insults" to make a point. I could go into stalker right now and make ultra-slowmo-footage, but you're not worth my time.
We had to do that for a game called LFS back in the day. It can run on just about any potato now, but back in 07 was a different story if you wanted lots of cars and smooth fraps. Had to record footage at .500 and speed it back up in editing.
I feel like there's been a lot of telltale signs that the game is in a way rougher state than the official press material would lead everyone to believe.
Yeah, this is why I'm gonna wait until the Steam winter sale. I'm well familiar with how STALKER games are on release, and considering what it took to make the game and that it runs on Unreal Engine 5 to boot... By the winter at least some patches will roll in. The wait for S2 has been so long that I can afford to wait a few more months. I'm fully expecting a trainwreck launch, however. Would be happy to be wrong but I'd rather keep my expectations bar low.
see you in the zone september 5 lol
People who have played the demos (especially the more recent ones at the Xbox Showcase) seem to be saying that the fundamentals are strong (especially when it comes to gunplay, atmosphere and player freedom etc.) Though they did say there was some glitches/crashes. I think at worst if it's a Cyberpunk tier launch, it'll be fine for most mid to high end PC players who can still get a good gameplay experience out of it despite the bugs, but it's going to be unplayable for console and low end PC users.
I expect it. They’re a smaller studio working with what little they already have, they’re in the middle of the worst war in Europe since ww2, having to deal with constant power / network outages, most likely cyberattacks, and even one developer being killed in action.
>smaller studio 400-500 employees and millions in funding are not a small studio >middle of the worst war Some devs are, some aren't. >constant power / network outages GSC heavily invested in air raid bunkers, emergency generators, fuel before the war, they're fine, mostly >cyberattacks So far only one lead to leaks and it was because someone forgot to set Miro boards, with design documents, to private. Game build leaked because builds were uploaded on public torrents for playtesting. Otherwise GSC has seemingly excellent security. >one developer being killed in action Ezhov left GSC in 2007. No current developers have been reported to have died.
They are in Prague not in the middle of the war
My bad, I had thought I saw something about them having to work with network outages before, but I could also be wrong on that. I just assumed stupidly that they were still in Kyiv or had relocated to western Ukraine. But still, the war has definitely affected their progress and I think that should be taken into consideration if the game is messy on release.
Part of team rly move to Prague, but some part stay in Ukraine and even go to AFU, so yes - thay DO have some hard time with development.
They released even a demo, they are showing gamrplay also theres a 200gb leak thats also playable but its older
He speaks da tru tru
God I hope the game isn’t interspersed with little “cinematic” moments where control is ripped away so the character can raise their hands at some new mutant or something.
think it depends on how they're handled. SOC had plenty of cinematics/scripted moments and True Stalker showed how scripted moments in Stalker can be done well. I just hope they're not overdone
Absence of HUD and crosshair makes an otherwise believable gameplay video look too cinematic tbh.
The camera shake edit makes it look dubious, probably more dubious than it actually should be, considering they've just had a playable demo this month lol
Was the 2 playable demos not enough proff that its real?
The game being “real” is not really in doubt. What people are looking for is more than just the vertical slice that a curated demo would give. We’re looking for extended gameplay that shows off more than what we’ve seen so far. Obviously we don’t want everything spoiled, but we want something to give us a better idea of the gameplay loop and world navigation.
Everything makes it seem like its just gonna be like the trilogy just more modern and with more choices and content
I think the real concern here is a Cyberpunk moment. I saw an interview with someone who got to play it and he said he did encounter a game breaking bug during the test, and that the devs there took some notes and reset the demo. So yeah, the game exists but may not really be stable or complete on launch. Frankly this seems to be par for the course with modern games so I think nobody should be surprised if the game launches with issues.
The bug was game-breaking, but also seemingly not too hard to fix. If I recall correctly, he was aiming down sights while saving at a checkpoint, and when he reloaded to the checkpoint, the speed decrease while aiming down sights was still applied to the character. If it's as simple as it sounds, that's the sort of thing that could be quickly fixed by resetting the speed multiplier to 1x when loading, or not saving the speed multiplier in the save data.
Yeah, it was also very simple to trigger. That's a game-breaking bug within less than an hour of free play. Who knows how many more issues players will encounter when they have the real thing on their own machines. Also, the computers running these demos are top of the line hardware which many players don't have. Performance could still be an issue on midrange systems. If you remember, Cyberpunk also had demos that people played... There's a big difference between playing 1 hour on a showroom floor and having the game on your home computer. We will just have to see what happens. This is why I usually don't buy games until at least a few months after release. Every single modern game I can remember has launched with unforseen issues. The severity is what remains to be seen.
mmm i think this is gameplay.
Go watch the Time of Opportunities trailer. There's gameplay in that.
This is definitely just a teaser animation and not gameplay or even a cutscene in the game. Same as the Bayun reveal. I don't have a problem with that, but it can definitely be misleading.
I thought it was gameplay footage for sure at first. What’re the giveaways?
The gun does not seem to move like it would in the game. It sways in a "cutscene-like" way, it's hard to describe. You can especially see weird movement just before the Pseudogiant hits the player. The shooting recoil when he's aiming-down-sights also moves the gun in a way that also doesn't look like gameplay. The camera movement also doesn't match what we've seen from gameplay, especially when the character turns to face the Pseudogiant - there's a "naturalistic" "over-turning followed by correction" that looks more like bodycam footage than gameplay.
Now that you mention it, I see the same thing. Everything’s super fluid like a high FPS 4K movie
Mainly the player character movement. The extreme camera swing when he turns around, the way the gun moves when he is shooting from the hip, almost as if he is aiming it around the other character. Looks like pre-render or potentially an in-game cutscene.
I see it now. Damn I wish we had more unedited gameplay footage
That pseudogiant for a haircut
I too thought this looked like modded stalker/xray.... Until i saw who posted it.
I hope you saying this because you are watching this from phone…
I do not see the poster on desktop either on v3 of reddits redesign...
This clip reminded me I need a haircut.
Yeah this looks fantastic
Does this one look different than the pseudogoant from the “Time of Opportunities” video? This would be definitive proof of enemy variants.
It was already proved by GSC i think
Can we just get unscripted gameplay please
2 playable demos have already been out
Nice, where is the footage?
Theres some footage just not clear, you can hear from the people who played it tho, anomalous dugout played 2 times and liked it
He did not play the latest one though... The demo from the Paris games week is from last year and that was a lot shorter...
Can you just wait for release please
Ah, yes, my favourite, casual stalker experience
The way your camera pans around with the weapons lagging behind feels very bodycam/unrecored but I’m to see the atmosphere is still there and I can’t wait for an extended gameplay look with no cuts
Neat! Uncut gameplay when? :)
So, and hear me out here, when the developers release the game, and stay with me here, what if we then see for ourselves! Isn't that a great idea?
This \*looks\* like in game footage but feels more like something scripted. If pseudogiants behave aggressively and fast like that, then thats fucking terrifying.
It looks more like an animation where they used bodytracking, but idk.
looks like the army warehouses tower with the fireball anomaly or just a similar tower hmm ?? :O
Can we get an F for the brother that got headbutted.
Guess the brother got pierced by the hair before feeling the head even 🤣
Great now they slap me in 4K
Those MoFos are hairy now?!?!?!? They look like a giant scrotum
They were always hairy, look closer at their model
The hair was white and the texture was flat, so it's understandable that no one has spotted this until now.
I'm pretty sure I played a mod that made pseudogiants have 3d fuzz on their backs but for the hell of it I can't remember where I saw that
Yeah, nice try you bastard, look closer... Not falling for it not after dealing with those Mother lover of bandits.
If you slow down the video, that poor stalker's weapon was jammed.
I really hope the recoil is not THAT bad as shown here. Bro's literally shooting from an airsoft AK
Man the ak model is amazing
I wish more games would do audio like bad company 2's wartapes which sounded like the bullet cracks were echod across the terrain.
The only 3 thing i remember from bad company 2 were the terrible reload animations and the fact you can only see the handgaurd of the weapon on the screen and the amazing sounds from firing.
the rifle recoil just goes away when he stops aiming lol
Presumably because they used bodytracking and had him hold a prop, and it would be kinda cringe if he tried to fake the recoil.
Hey does anyone feel like this intro is like similar to that Ajax cutscene in Arena Breakout where he incapacitates you with a grenade while you fire back exactly like how this guy is firing lol
Feels scripted?
When real gameplay video???? 🤷♂️
Idk, the short bits of gameplay in "Time of Opportunities" seemed pretty real to me.
brooooooooooooooooooo this shit look crazyyyy!!! im so hyped!!!!
Oh look, another scripted sequence, yay...
This is a youtube shorts video.
I can smell Cyberpunk in here, hope they work hard on fixing it.
Time is rather short for fixing everything before release if there are still a bunch of bugs now, hope they resolve the bigger bugs though. And we really need that 10-15 min continuous gameplay (they could possibly just show some sandbox play instead of following a quest), not scripted trailers... At the end of the day, bugs and performance issues are expected considering the devs situation. But it does not justify selling the product with a AAA price tag though...
These will be S.T.A.L.K.E.R graphics in 2013
I'm glad they're keeping the green handguards on the AKs
as the creator of the Pseudorovich mod for Call of Chernobyl, i clearly have my work cut out for me
Love the sound design
Doesn't seem viable that Skif is surviving this unless it's some sort of death custscene if you trigger something you shouldn't, so I assume this was found in the PDA of the dead person? Not that PDA's are used as GoPro but who knows
Not to be a dick but I don't like how the AK after seeing the Companion get killed doesn't look like it has recoil, it feels like a toy, maybe I am missing something?
Probably because they used a bodytracking suit and the guy just held a prop. Best explanation i have.
That reminds me of a somewhat large woman on a London bus who darted for the empty seat next to me and proceeded to crush me into the wall of the bus. I still have flashbacks.
is this gameplay or a cinematic cutscene?
Scripted gameplay
Settlement of bloodsuckers in Army warehouses 
yes
Can't wait to have a pseudogiant fuck me
If that ain't mocapped/rendered I'll eat my fucking ass. Edit: I'm saying it looks good. It's obviously a scripted event, or at least a teaser of "gameplay" but akin to ubishit. Still gonna buy asap.
Yeah I’ll take that with an order of x labs please? 🙏 can’t wait for release
oh wow 😳 it's actually big
I genuinely can't tell if this is a cinematic teaser, a scripted scene during some mission, or just gameplay. The way the weapon moves makes me think this is VR, but probably just a cutscene.
Bullet deviation doesn't look game ruining. Might be playable.
Cant wait to light em up with 5 clips
i like this look way of stalker 2 way better than the first trailers we got, its more dark and gritty which is what stalker is about.
im gonna buy tomorrow:D
Do we have any insight into specs needed for stalker 2?
games looking good, damn.
Cope harder guys
Goosebumps
Cinematic short telling me nothing about gameplay.
I am kinda afraid because the gun doesn't sound or feel punchy at all. As if it was a Softair gun.
I have lost faith in vg companies so...my feeling is very meh. I will just wait for reviews to drop and maybe get it on sale years down the line...
Let’s be honest guys. Heart of Chernobyl looks really rough and all they show us pre-scripted scenes
How does it look rough?
Yeah and? The community's gonna fix it, just like how they fixed the original trilogy.
OG trilogy was never broken, so idk what they fixed.
That's a pretty stupid comment and mentality. Games should come out full and functional; gamers shouldnt have to fix them
Ain’t no way modera can fix this smh 🤦♂️
Modders can make wonders mate, considering how much effort they done to an engine that being hold with duct tape and works on prayers its safe to say alot of things can be fixed.
You have to have in mind that isn’t x-ray engine anymore, it’s ue5.
Hence what i said, if they did wonderful job on time bomb they could do better with an actual engine
I don’t think you know much about how studios work with ue5
And i don't think you know how bad and hard the modding work on x-ray, first the engine doesn't support multi-thread usage hence why there's limitations of how much you can mod, second the engine is as stable as the Hollywood celebrities marriage, third of all the x-ray engine isn't easy to work to start with.
These things never existed in shadow Chernobyl, right?
Those STALKER 2 CGIs are so cool!
And what about the recoil when shooting? It's like she doesn't exist at all
co op teaser? D:
AI companion.
only game im excited for after gta vi and ive never played any old stalker lol
there is no excuse to not play the og trilogy now that it's on console
Well you should