Funcom, the MMO studio behind games including Age of Conan, The Secret World, and Conan Exiles, is getting up to something new. It won't say what it is until February 28, but it's teasing the project with a countdown site that you can try to pull some clues from at countdown2zero.com.
My immediate, split-second reaction was one of hot excitement, because "Booze helps when coming back from the Zone" is the kind of thing a guy says to another guy as they pound radioactive vodka in a ruined bar in Rostok. Could it be a new Stalker—my heavens, a Stalker MMO? The bar in the countdown looks suitably dilapidated, but I don't see any Russian, and the faux-Guinness sign hanging on the wall is completely out of place for the Exclusion Zone.
Clicking on the names along the bottom of the screen—Pripp, Selma, Dux, and Bormin—reveals outlines of characters who will presumably take their places at the rail when the countdown hits zero. Pripp and Borman are good Stalker names, but I'm not so sure about Selma, and Dux appears to be wearing a top hat—stylish, unquestionably, but not much use against the Brain Scorcher.
As much as I want this to be a Stalker MMO, then, I really don't think it is. What might it be instead? I honestly have no clue. But to prove that I did put some effort into trying to figure it out, I will note that 7.62-59 ammunition is Czech, apparently for the Mosin-Nagant, a Russian bolt-action rifle developed in the late 1800s that, like so much Russian hardware, is simultaneously so simple and good at what it does that it remains in use today.
Theorize from there as you see fit. We'll let you know when we know.
