Stalker 2 dev diary teases a new faction, and explains mysteries from the trailer

A new developer diary has been posted by GSC Game World, following up on the game's E3 trailer and providing some more detail about what exactly we were looking at, as well as revealing a couple of easter eggs.

GSC's Zakhar Bocharov talks about the gunfight at the bandit's camp seen in the trailer, and emphasises the new animations for installing weapon modifications on-the-go. This is something of a minor theme in the video, as it later returns to the (highly impressive) NPC animations and shows some of the motion-capture and facial technology that went into creating this look.

Bocharov also says this scene teases a new faction. Fans reckon this is referring to the graffiti seen near the beginning of the segment which apparently includes the Ukrainian for 'guard' (timestamped trailer here), suggesting a military faction opposed to the known bandit faction. Furthermore, Bocharov points out that a location seen in the trailer, featuring a heavily-leaning tower, is a location from Stalker: Clear Sky that's been further ravaged by time.

Stalker 2 images.

(Image credit: GSC Game World)

The new detector seen in this scene is named after the Ukrainian term for a branch or stick, 'gilka', thanks to its visual appearance, while the artefact that protagonist Skif collects near the aberration is called jelly, and recovers your stamina.

Perhaps the sweetest little detail, however, is a cameo in the campfire scene at the end of the trailer, as seen here.

Stalker 2 images.

(Image credit: GSC Game World)

As Skif gets up to leave for Pripyat, this man grabs him and says "good hunting stalker." Turns out that this is no less than Sergiy Grygorovych himself, the founder of GSC Game Worlds and creator of the series. Good hunting to you too, GSC, and please bring us all something from the zone to treasure.

Rich Stanton
Senior Editor

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."

Read more
A smiling man in military fatigues
Get in here, stalker: Stalker 2’s Patch 1.3 is here with a whopping 1,200 fixes
A Stalker, posing.
'Massive' Stalker 2 patch adds A-life updates and 1,700 other fixes to GSC's survival shooter, so many you'll need to go on a little quest to read them all
A ferocious fish-man
Frogwares shows off The Sinking City 2's first in-game footage and launches a Kickstarter safety net: 'After 3 years of this horrid war hanging over our daily lives, we've learned to adapt'
A gas-masked figure stands near ruined train tracks and a tank, surrounded by green crystals
Survival-stealth sequel Chernobylite 2: Exclusion Zone hit its Kickstarter goal in four days
Atomfall Gamescom screenshots
Atomfall dev says Rebellion's open world shooter has 'some experimental stuff' that can have a 'huge influence' on the game world: 'It might work out. It might not'
Stalker 2
It launched upside down and on fire, but busted and brilliant Stalker 2 has attracted 6 million players to the Zone in the last 3 months
Latest in FPS
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Ogryn
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide adds a psychic horde murderzone mode and makes Ogryns even smashier
Starfield's companion robot giving a thumbs-up
Former Bethesda dev who quit Starfield to go solo says it's 'much less stressful as an indie' without daily meetings or 'office politics': it's 'very refreshing to just care about the game'
A crew of prospectors in Wildgate, featuring a robot, a rabbit man, and a small aquatic creature in a combination mech/aquarium.
Blizzard co-founder Mike Morhaime's new company is putting Sea of Thieves-style shenanigans in space with a new crew-based shooter
Team Fortress Spy being shocked
An FPS studio pulled its game from Steam after it got caught linking to malware disguised as a demo, but the dev insists it was actually the victim of a labyrinthine conspiracy
Neighbors Suburban Warfare screenshot a child aims a slingshot at a man from across a cul-de-sac.
A beta of backyard FPS Neighbors: Suburban Warfare is out now, and the balance discussion is hysterical: nerf trash can lids and children
Fragpunk
Somebody finally figured out casual Counter-Strike
Latest in News
A mech awakens.
Mecha Break developer is considering unlocking all mechs following open beta feedback
Lara Croft Unified Art
Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics lays off 17 employees 'to better align our current business needs and the studio's future success'
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened
Junah beginning a battle in Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Today's RPG fans are 'very sensitive to feeling like they wasted time' when they die, says Metaphor: ReFantazio battle planner—but Atlus still made combat hard anyway