S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat may Only be Released Next Year for Most of us

After S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat went gold the other day, a release date was revealed for the Russian version, which will be early October. The German release is November, and the rest of the world will have to wait until...Q1 2010! What!? That could be anywhere from January until the end of March!

This has led to people making bets about how much this title will be pirated. Only thing is, they'll regret downloading an overseas copy if the game is as buggy as Clear Sky was. That's kind of the one big deterrent I can think of. The other being that they won't understand a thing being said without some sort of translation mod, if anyone bothers.

Speaking of which, if S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat comes out next year, then that's fine, but I expect the game to be nearly bug-free! Do you hear me GSC GameWorld? If S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat is anywhere near as buggy as S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky was on release, then I'll be really pi$$ed.

Sources:

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Fans Annoyed With Pripyat Release Dates

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat Goes Gold

Just to show that the anticipation for the next game in the series is at an all time high, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat has gone gold.

The developers claim that the game will be released in early October- in Russia. The western release dates were at one time scheduled for November. That was the case with S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky- it came out a month later after the initial release.

Voodoo Extreme puts the game's release at late December.

There's still some concern for which company will distribute the game in the US.

Stalker Campfire Guitar Music Recreated

I read something interesting today: a guy over at ttlg.com forums has taken it upon himself to recreate the guitar tracks from the Stalker series. Which guitar tracks? You know- when the stalkers sit around the campfires and whip out an acoustic guitar from their back pocket and start strumming some catchy tunes.

Anyhow, he's done most of them and he's provided them for download here.

These songs, according to the same thread, are traditional Russian and Ukrainian songs. There's a track, off of the same album, In Moscow, called "Moscow Evenings", on YouTube.

Want Stalker on Console? Be Prepared to Wait

There have been rumours since May or so this year, with many hopefuls wishing that Stalker might make an appearance on consoles- the Xbox 360 in particular.

GSC Game World, the developer of the series, which so far includes Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl, Stalker: Clear Sky and the upcoming Stalker: Call of Pripyat, has said in an interview with Stalker-Portal that there won't be a console port perhaps until after Call of Pripyat has been releases, if at all.

Some gems that were translated from the interview, which is in Russian from what I understand:

"We think that whatever port of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. for Xbox 360 won't come out before the full release of the game's sequel."

"At the moment, all are busy with preparing the PC version of the game," added Yarovsky of Call of Pripyat. "What comes after - we'll see."

"We have become a developer not only for the Xbox 360, but also for the PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii," he said. "We've been also developing a prototype for the PSP, but currently there's not enough manpower to make our ambitions come true."

I don't see Stalker as much of a console title, but I imagine it's only a matter of time. At least for once, this dev is focusing on the PC and not the console, like so many other titles. Consolers might get the Prestige Edition of Modern Warfare 2, but they won't have Stalker- at least, not for now. Maybe next year?

If all goes well, Call of Pripyat should be out in November this year. There's been a Stalker title for both 2007 and 2008, so there's no reason to doubt it completely, but I would say that perhaps by the end of the year it will be released. That's playing it safe.

Sources:

http://www.stalker-portal.ru/page.php?id=5580
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. for Xbox 360, but it "won't come out" before Pripyat
News: No console S.T.A.L.K.E.R. before Pripyat

Finally Some Stalker News...A lot of News

Quite a fair bit of Call of Pripyat news lately.

Stalker: Call of Pripyat (some spell it as Prypyiat) now has a publisher in bitComposer Games. Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl had THQ, and Clear Sky had Deep Silver.

I don't know what the hell's up with joystiq- they claim that Namco Bandai is the publisher. The official site says it's bitComposer Games...

Call of Pripyat, despite rumours and earlier reports, is a PC exclusive, and is set for a November 2009 release if all things go well. I'd say by the end of the year, maybe.

And, as I was just checking, a new trailer for Call of Pripyat has just been added to the downloads section on the main site. And there's some new Call of Pripyat screenshots as well. Cool!

STALKER: Clear Sky v1.5.10 Patch Out

In my experience, one of the buggiest games I've ever played, has been patched...again.

I'm still running the game on 1.5.07.

The Perfect STALKER: Less bugs upon release

This originally appeared when I typed it on the TTLG forum last year, in order to explain my point:

"S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky is nowhere near finished

I’m very disappointed with S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky. To think that they released this eagerly anticipated title with all the promise of enhanced graphics and gameplay, and what do I get? A rushed, very raw and buggy title; what a waste of money and time it has been trying to get this game to work.

There’s no point in raving about the game and how it looks and plays if you struggle to even get it to play. It keeps crashing to the desktop all the time, and I even have the 1.5.0.4 patch! You think this would have been the first thing they addressed.

Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl felt raw and unpolished; not the best game and not the worst, but it least it was more stable. I swear it’s been a long time since I’ve come across something so half-baked in a game, and it’s a major title too! It’s got so many damn bugs, it’s unbelievable. 

Clear Sky should have spent another few months in the studio so they could play test and work out all these problems before hand. They should rather have released it next year when it was properly done; this is more what I’d expect from a beta version. 

If they have any sense they will fix it up quick and proper! And if there’s any hope of a third game in the series it, they had better learn from the mistakes they’ve made, and spend more time on it, too. Clear Sky is more of a shoddy expansion than a true ‘prequel’."

So, what I expect from Stalker: Call of Pripyat then, is the reverse. Something that has actually been finished before being released and doesn't require you to download patch after patch after patch. Clear Sky is all ready up to version 1.5.09, and those patches are over 50 MB each- a waste of data in my opinion, although the last two are mainly for multiplayer.

On S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

It turns out that S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat, touted as the second add-on for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, might actually not be “just” an expansion after all.

Bluesnews has settled for “third stand-alone game”, because it might not be a sequel either (please, not another identity crisis!). In any case, they say it will be here sometime in Q3 2009. The game is using the X-Ray v 1.6 engine, and looking at the scans I’ve seen, it looks a bit better than Clear Sky- not to say that Clear Sky looked bad.

One wonders then if S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat possibly IS S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 after all? In an interview with one of the guys from GSC Game World, Sergey, it was mentioned that there would be S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat and probably a sequel as well: “This (Call of Pripyat) is the name of the second add-on for Stalker and will release this year, in Autumn. I can say that Stalker 2 we will develop unambiguously.”

http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewstory&threadid=97940

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/58426

Welcome to the Zone

This is my new, second blog, Anomalous Artefact, and it's meant to be all about S.T.A.L.K.E.R., the games, the atmosphere, Chernobyl, Pripyat, and anything and everything to do with the Zone of Exclusion.

So far, there's the Stalker Store on the sidebar where you can get S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, as well as official guides and other things. You'll also find posts here about the next game in the series, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat.

Stay tuned as I'll be working on the blog and adding new things soon.