Good morning friends! The New Year is approaching, which means it’s time to discuss shooter news!
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 almost lost fan love, and the course of the advertising campaign raises more and more doubts.
The English-language magazine PC Gamer published an article with several new screenshots and information about Stalker 2: in short, the game takes place in the present day, the Exclusion Zone will change noticeably; they promise a big non-linear story with many forks, and there will be no right or wrong decisions in the plot; the new Varta faction is similar to Debt, but is already a completely paramilitary group, but believes that the Zone is worth studying, ensuring the safety of research. They also talked about a mutated psi-deer.
If you still haven’t come to your senses after the graphics in the so-called gameplay trailer, new screenshots raise the bar for expectations from the visuals even higher. In the pictures shown, the game looks too good, which today is perceived with both enthusiasm and caution. Will the game look like this at release?? Does Unreal Engine 5 really allow you to squeeze out such rich graphics?? Or maybe… it’s just dust in the eyes? Of course, you want to believe in the best, however, the studio itself raises the quality bar for itself and if anything happens, you only have yourself to blame.
So, just recently, fans were able to solve another code by obtaining a set of concept art and notes on the ARG plot, in addition, by piecing together a new screenshot from the game. He already looks an order of magnitude more down to earth than everything that is shown to the general public.
The studio’s new campaign to integrate NFTs into an unreleased game, which is now very fashionable among managers of large publishers, added fuel to the fire of doubts. Just as fashionable as all their other “ingenious” solutions to destroy the core audience. Fortunately, Ukrainian developers quickly sensed the smell of burning chairs and decided not to create new problems for themselves, as was the case with the indignation of fans from additional tales around the campfire for pre-orders, microtransactions and season passes. Metaverse according to Stalker is canceled.
Be that as it may, it is still confusing that until today the advertising campaign focuses great attention solely on the quality of the picture, while other aspects are practically not covered. But Stalker is not only graphics.
The release is still scheduled for April 28. Only 4 months before the game’s release, and we still haven’t seen full gameplay. Do you think it will be postponed and do you believe in the success of the game??
Ready or Not
The tactical shooter Ready or Not has entered early access and I have already released a review of the game. However, today we will discuss another serious news related to the mention of the location in the school and the probable reason for the loss of the publisher.
Ready or Not is being developed by the New Zealand indie studio VOID Interactive, about which almost nothing is known, but the team previously entered into a partnership with the publisher Team 17, famous for such games as Hell Let Loose, The Escapists, Worms and others.
Just a few days before the game was released into early access, the studios stopped collaborating. The reasons for this are not known, but the network suggests that this may be related to the location in the school, which was previously reported by one of the developers on the Reddit forum.
Later the studio gave an official dailyspinscasino.co.uk comment. In short, the development of Ready or Not has maintained and will continue to maintain a high level of realism and authenticity, with an understanding of responsibility to the players and the community, as well as those who have first-hand been affected by real-life tragedies. This is the main mission of the developers.
In simple terms, the studio does not intend to deviate from the path, and Ready or Not will not become a typical pussy shooter, which only a few developers are capable of these days, we agree?
Escape from Tarkov
New Year’s activities have started in Escape from Tarkov. Now, in each of the locations except the Laboratory, Santa Claus can appear – Wild, dressed in New Year’s decorations. He will not attack you, on the contrary, he will give you a random gift. However, he will respond to your aggression with fire, and if you kill him, the game will punish him with a reputation penalty from the Buyer.
There are also new tasks for the merchants Flea Marketer and Mechanic. Among other things, the player is required to discover Christmas trees. Thus, the developers decorated some points of interest in the locations with festive garlands, Christmas trees and gifts. It would be a good idea to check them for valuable balls and useful loot.
Earlier in December, Tarkov was updated to version 12.12. The patch became the largest and most revolutionary: the long-awaited voice communication appeared, a new large location appeared, the system of weapon malfunctions expanded and inertia of movements appeared.
Also during the New Year holidays there is a 25% discount on the game and official merch.
Thunder Tier One
The realistic top-down shooter Thunder Tier One from the independent studio KRAFTON, led by the former head of PUBG action and gameplay development, has been released . The main game mode is a cooperative story-based passage of nine scenarios.
The game’s setting takes place in the nineties, immediately after the collapse of the USSR. You are a member of an elite special forces unit fighting terrorists in a fictional Eastern European state. In addition, the game can offer PvP and PvE modes, as well as full modding support in future updates.
Battlefield 2042
Battlefield 2042 is doing poorly. Free weekends and a 34% discount in no way saved the game from rapidly losing its online presence. Even the previous Battlefield V overtook the controversial new product in terms of the number of concurrent players.
In addition, citing insider information, the next season may be postponed until spring. In the meantime, players will continue to die of boredom and monotony, scattering across neighboring projects.
Indie developers are even making fun of the new Battle. Thus, the Riverside Sports team announced the parody shooter Clownfield 2042 – with destructibility, tornadoes and, of course, bugs, which the developers highlight as a separate important feature.
Release will take place on December 31st.
Pioneer
The authors of the post-apocalyptic shooter Pioneer shared some details about the project. Thus, GFA Games received investments from the Chinese publisher Tencent. This will help expand plans for the project. The studio is actively growing, now the staff numbers 20 people, not counting freelancers.
The game world of Pioneer covers 50 square kilometers, including completely different biomes. In addition, player groups will be able to capture and control its territories. The increased influence of factions will open up access to new equipment, equipment and merchants, and MMORPG elements have already been developed: equipment ratings, item rarity, status effects and others.
The game is scheduled for release in 2022. In addition to PC, Pioneer may also appear on consoles.
It is already known that the shooter will be distributed according to the Buy-to-Play model, and before the release, players will be able to try out the beta version of the project.
Deadside
Deadside developers have announced their roadmap for next year. Thus, the game location will be expanded and filled with a variety of gameplay: missions, PvE events, random events and non-combat mechanics. They plan to increase the number of players at the location, from fifty to one hundred people.
Finally, equipment will appear: at first it will be motor boats, but by the end of the year they will also sell cars. The weapon system will undergo significant changes: weapons of different classes will be balanced, sound and animation will be improved. The system for crafting items and respawning characters will be reworked.
Let me remind you that earlier this year, the Bad Pixel studio entered into a partnership with the indie publisher tinyBuild, which in turn attracted a team from Demagic Games to the development to help speed up the development of the game.
Tactical shooter Argo, a free analogue of ARMA 3, is closing. After years of decline and silence, the studio published its decision to close the project forever. As they say, Press F. I wonder if any of you have played Argo?
Hired Ops
But Hired Ops is alive and continues to be updated! The shooter received a major patch with a new location, weapons and training mode. Also, the developers again rebalanced the in-match store, removing unpopular mechanics from there, and moving the selection of armor and ammo to the character leveling and weapon customization menu. The character leveling itself has also changed a lot: now you can freely switch between perks, instead of a fixed choice as before. In this regard, a free global reset of experience was made so that players could distribute it taking into account the changes.
The new location Construction will be already familiar to players coming from Contract Wars. Some old locations have undergone minor geometry changes.
Previously, Hired Ops became free, and was released in April of this year, but without finding success, it continues to be slowly updated by the AbsolutSoft studio.