GSC Game World, face to face.
As you all know, Clear Sky will be a prequel to the original game. In other words, it will reveal events that happened before the events of Shadow of Chernobyl. Overall, the gameplay will remain unchanged. As before, it is still a first-person-shooter with RPG elements with some Survival Horror mixed in. We still have to wander around the Zone in search of stashes, artifacts, exploring the place in general, avoiding anomalies, competing with other Stalkers, and earning cash for better gear. But when it comes to the small details, many many new additions and changes will come.
Guy in front of PC
"As opposed to the original game, we decided to make the storyline a bit deeper, if you will. The storyline of the original did not feel too important, if a little tacked-on. In this game, the storyline will be expanded, but with more free room in between it. Other than that, we added more eye-candy. Better graphical effects, made the game more aesthetically pleasing along with the way weapons and NPC's are rendered. We wanted to make this into a game that will be remembered. Other than that, the storyline is a bit more cinematographic, if you will, with more events and action. It will also depend somewhat on the player's preference how he wants to approch some situations.
Anton Bolshakov - Project Director
"We wanted to also go back to Stalker's roots, bring back many features that were either cut due to time, bugs, or other reasons. We still have many unfinished features that we were unable to implement from way back in 2003, 2004. We want to try to bring them back because to this day, some of them have not been done by anyone else."
Oleg Yavorskiy - PR Manager (I KNOW HIM!! )
"This game has really moved forward in its imagery, features, game elements, and gameplay from the last game. The project now has a somewhat different main storyline, new main character, and in general we just tried to move this game forward into the same exact concept we had when we first began. This concept was apparently too ambituous, but now we have learned from past mistakes. This will be the Stalker that many have waited and for and not gotten, for those that complain that not everything that was promised was delivered, those who were disappointed by the end product. "
Bolshakov
"This project is intended mainly for the already existing fans of Stalker and those that weren't satisfied by the first game. We analyzed what many said made Stalker great and tried to improve on that, we looked at people's reactions to some features and design decisions, what was generally liked and disliked, the fans really played a large role in the direction we are going with this project."
Yavorskiy
"In this project we decided to listen more to the opinions of the players (unfortunately this was our downfall with the first game seeing as how the excitement of the fans made us excited and ambituous as well, which led to the project becoming too big and forced to be cut down), we changed what was most disliked and improved on what was liked such as the balance, economy. We worked really hard on all the features we changed, and its really proving to be an interesting project for us. "
One of the largest changes from the last game is the non-scripted global war of factions that will go one parallel to the main storyline of the game. If in the original the only thing that the player was able to do is wander around, earning cash and stocking up on ungodly amounts of weapons and items, then in Clear Sky will arise the oppertunity to actually affect the whole world of the game. In other words, to pick the best side and clear the entire zone of competition.
Bolshakov
"This time we put alot of effort into the missions, making sure they were different and interesting. We also made sure that you don't get assignments just from a certain group of people or a certain individual. You can meet a squad passing by you and they can give you an assignment that will coincide with what this squad set out to achieve or retrieve."
Man in Green
"Each grouping in the Zone has its own general objective. For example, Duty hates Freedom, they have different ideologies and outlooks on what is happening in the Zone, so their objective is to eradicate them. Each faction has its ineterests and tries to conquer important resources or territories. For example, a faction can try to take control of a hge anomalous area, this area is essentially a resource point since large anomalous fields contain resources, in other words, artifacts. Other than that, there are also scientific points."
Yavorskiy
"Generally, there are 3 types of points. Territory, resources, and scientific points of interest in which discoveries can be made and utilized in some cases to make new gear and equipment, in other words, something very new and very interesting technology-wise."
Man in Green
"There are certain points in the Zone that interest all factions. If you meet someone from a certain faction in a certain zone, he can give you a mission or some insight as to what interests the faction in this territory, for example a mission such as "help us capture that factory" or "reclaim that territory with our help."
Yavorskiy
"Truth be told, we tried to depart from the not-too-good and simple side-missions from the fisrt game. It was very difficult to converse or socialize with others, no motivation to trade, and the missions were not good if an NPC even gave you one. Now such opportunities will exist, there will be many many more of them, we are fully developing the A-Life system and just making what we had before in the beginning and what we set out to do back then which we didn't accomplish with the first game. This system in STALKER is completely new to gaming in general and I feel it has alot of potential."
Guy in front of PC
"*most of it is unintelligible*
Now they can defend in groups, cooperate with each other."
Man in Green
"Now we've also introduced something known as "group AI." It affects factions and their interests, it determines their course of action in certain situations, what they want, what they need, what needs to be captured, and how their goals will be achieved. All of this happens "in simulation," in other words, it's not scripted, it's purely the AI calculating and determining what should be done and what is the right course of action. If in the first game, only some pre-determined particular characters could give you quests, for examp,e, everyone knows Nimble that you need to save from the Bandits, then now practically every member of a group can give you a mission, he will give you a sort of "list of interests" of his faction at the moment. You just walk up and ask "what interests this faction at the moment and how can I help."
Yavosrkiy
"Now factions by themselves fight for these three main things. If the player get involved in this war, he helps his brothers capture and claim territories or pieces of a territory from other clans, and in conclusion it might all end with a massive raid on the main base of the enemy faction. It won't be something like let's say Medal Of Honor, here in Chernobyl, conflicts of that mangnitude cannot happen. Clashes here are more local, let's say 10-on-10 or more characters can fight."
Man in Green
"Thanks to the A-life system, everything is random, nothing can happen the same way playthrough after playthrough. It's all unscripted, which points are captured by which factions, it's all different each playthrough."
Yavorskiy
"Bases will all live their own lives independently and in full-time. There will be normal grunts that you can join to go on missions with, you can get a randomly generated mission generated by the A-Life system, in other words they are generated depending on the situation and dynamically. "
Man in Green
"Now factions will periodically send out squads on missions, and these will be real squads. They will sometimes go to capture a territory, etc. You can of course go along with them. The player will also notice if he clears a territory full of mutants that was generally avoided by Stalkers due to the infestation. Afterwards Stalkers might start enetering or passing through this area that was once infested by mutants. Now that the area's safer, it will be used more often. It is a more "living" system than before when the player can actually see results brought fourth from his actions. The size of the territories will also determine how many free spaces are available for STALKER to enter, like in an RTS. A space frees up, and room for new units is created. "
If before the quantity of factions that had their own full-fledged bases was only two, then now that quantity will increase substantially. Their structures and organization will also change.
Man in Green
"All factions that were in the first part plus a few new ones. Let's say the Military which is hostile towards everything by default...it might even be possible to join the Bandits. These groupings they are all living in this world, all have their goals, you can join them and help out by capturing points, carrying out missions."
