Bethesda Softworks - S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game in in development?

Dhruin

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Multiple sites (Blues and RPS, for example) are running the rumour that Bethesda is developing a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game. This comes from the blog of Sergey Galyonkin, who purportedly works for 1C, and who has been the source of all the GSC / S.T.A.L.K.E.R. tidbits over the last year or so.
According to this claim, Bethesda has not purchased the brand but has the rights to create a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game using their own technology. An "experienced" studio is apparently already at work - Obsidian is suggested as one possibility.
All rumour and although Sergey seems to have good mail on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. in general, I can't help wondering why Bethesda would want to put Obsidian on a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game they don't own, when they could put them to work on another Fallout title with near guaranteed results.
More information.
 
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I can't help wondering why Bethesda would want to put Obsidian on a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game they don't own, when they could put them to work on another Fallout title with near guaranteed results.
+1
Find me a person on this forum who thinks otherwise. I can't. :)

On the matter... If Bethesda is really developing stalker2... Well... Good luck to them, I'm not buying it. :)
 
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couldn't this mean they could higher one of the many russian/ukranian teams that have worked on the stalker franchise and just publish it. personally i wouldn't want to see it made by any non-russian/ukranian team. better yet since the work on metro last light is nearly finish, get them to work on it as a number of them worked on the original stalker. a fusion of those to franchises would be much better i think than a fusion of stalker-fallout
 
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NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Stalker needs realism and they just do not know how to do that in a game.Why Bethesda:( WHY!!!!
 
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Isn't this the same unlikely rumor from April, simply recycled in different blogs? Is this person perhaps trying to stir up publicity in the hopes of scaring up some investors?

As far as I understand, Bethesda's internal studios are already quite busy with other projects. Arkane is working on Dishonored, id on DOOM4, Tango on Shinji Mikami's horror project and MachineGames has been working on some project using the idTech5 engine for quite some time. Obviously BGS would be tied up with Skyrim DLC and Fallout 4 for the next few years and ZOS is an MMO developer.

So who would do the work? When Galyonkin mentions Obsidian, it sounds like he is pulling names out of his ass. I imagine they will be busy with the Stick of Truth for the better part of 2013. At any rate, they are primarily an RPG developer, and the previous STALKER games were not exactly RPGs (although I understand there is a PnP game based on Roadside Picnic).
 
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Isn't this the same unlikely rumor from April, simply recycled in different blogs? Is this person perhaps trying to stir up publicity in the hopes of scaring up some investors?

As far as I understand, Bethesda's internal studios are already quite busy with other projects. Arkane is working on Dishonored, id on DOOM4, Tango on Shinji Mikami's horror project and MachineGames has been working on some project using the idTech5 engine for quite some time. Obviously BGS would be tied up with Skyrim DLC and Fallout 4 for the next few years and ZOS is an MMO developer.

So who would do the work? When Galyonkin mentions Obsidian, it sounds like he is pulling names out of his ass. I imagine they will be busy with the Stick of Truth for the better part of 2013. At any rate, they are primarily an RPG developer, and the previous STALKER games were not exactly RPGs (although I understand there is a PnP game based on Roadside Picnic).

Yes it probably is just like the rumor from April but one thing about rumors is they sometimes come true. Hell I said there never would be another fallout or wasteland game I was proven wrong.

I don't think it will affect Bethesda to hire another development team or even hire another studio. There rich enough.

As for Obsidian making it or another fallout game bring it. They make better rpg games than Bethesda.
 
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The same source has been right about other STALKER related things, might be true. i wouldnt want anyone else but Bethesda to have the license, same as with Fallout…

..and just because they bought the license doesnt mean they will start doing a game right away, that could be years away.
 
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Bethesda takes over another (previously) great franchise.

Ugh.
 
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Huh, well, as far as I know the upcoming game "Nuclear union" is being developed by the people who made the original stalker, and is going to be the game that continues in the same style of theme and atmosphere as stalker, albeit in a different universe and with a different story. www.nuclearunion.com

So not sure what to make of this rumor, but I suppose more games with this kind of setting are welcome.
 
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This should be interesting, as we sure are getting quite a few post-apocalyptic rpg's lately! I'm looking forward to Wasteland 2 the most though :). I'm kind of hoping that Bethesda skips to The Elder Scrolls VI, and lets Obsidian do Fallout 4.
 
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Why? When has Bethesda ever made a game like Stalker? I'd rather it went to a developer with more experience in first-person shooters.

Which open-world RPG/shooter developer would that be? I think it fits them perfectly. The similarities between STALKER and for example Fallout or Morrowind are many, both games are heavy on the exploration and world immersion ("a living, breathing world" as devs loves to put it ;) ). They arent exactly "deep" roleplaying games, they rely more on lore, atmosphere and killing stuff. Bethesda owns ID Software too, so i wouldnt say they "lack experience"..
 
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I don't think Galyonkin was suggesting Obsidian as a particularly likely team, he just mentioned a couple off the top of his head that were experienced with Bethesda's tech (though uh, if they're using id5, which is also Bethesda tech now, I guess it could be id Software). Honestly speaking, I really doubt they would hire Obsidian for STALKER.. or for another game for that matter, Pete Hines seemed to be pretty pissed about the bad PR they caused them for the Metacritic debacle and revealing the inner workings of their Gamebryo iteration.
 
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Which open-world RPG/shooter developer would that be? I think it fits them perfectly. The similarities between STALKER and for example Fallout or Morrowind are many, both games are heavy on the exploration and world immersion ("a living, breathing world" as devs loves to put it ;) ). They arent exactly "deep" roleplaying games, they rely more on lore, atmosphere and killing stuff. Bethesda owns ID Software too, so i wouldnt say they "lack experience"..

I didn't see any mention of id software, but based on what they've done recently, I wouldn't feel confident about them handling Stalker either.

Just being an open-world game doesn't mean Bethesda has the ability to make a Stalker title that would feel like a worthy sequel. Stalker's strongest aspect was its atmosphere, and it wasn't remotely similar to anything Bethesda has done.
 
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...
Just being an open-world game doesn't mean Bethesda has the ability to make a Stalker title that would feel like a worthy sequel. Stalker's strongest aspect was its atmosphere, and it wasn't remotely similar to anything Bethesda has done.

+1

Nothing I have seen from Bethesda implies that they could create the same atmosphere, but I wouldn't mind to be proven wrong.

C
 
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I didn't see any mention of id software, but based on what they've done recently, I wouldn't feel confident about them handling Stalker either.

Just being an open-world game doesn't mean Bethesda has the ability to make a Stalker title that would feel like a worthy sequel. Stalker's strongest aspect was its atmosphere, and it wasn't remotely similar to anything Bethesda has done.

You didn't answer my question? Who would do a "worthy sequel" then? And i disagree completely that it's not similar to Bethesda's Fallout or Morrowind, one of the reasons i love the STALKER games is because it reminds me of their games in some ways.
 
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You didn't answer my question? Who would do a "worthy sequel" then? And i disagree completely that it's not similar to Bethesda's Fallout or Morrowind, one of the reasons i love the STALKER games is because it reminds me of their games in some ways.


To answer your question.. I don't have a particular developer in mind, but I wouldn't trust any American studio to make a Stalker game that retains the same feel and atmosphere of the titles developed by GSC Game World.

Feel free to disagree all you like.
 
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Well, if they're to do justice to the game, they need to use another engine - or do something very serious to "Creation" (I think it's called now?).

Fallout 3 was a great game once you applied mods - but it was a pretty weak shooter. Well, I think it was a decent shooter/RPG - but as a pure shooter, it wouldn't have worked.

That said, I'm a MUCH MUCH bigger fan of RPGs and exploration than shooters - and I'd much rather have those elements expanded in STALKER - and then I could probably live with a weaker shooter. But that's kinda selfish - and I think many shooter fans like the shooter bits more.

So, I don't know - but I wouldn't underestimate Bethesda. Not after Skyrim, anyway.
 
STALKER has atmosphere, alright. It's the game's strongest point, but I'm a role player not a shooter. I can't play more than 10 minutes on a row. Few dialogues have voice acting (and what a strange voice acting that is, some characters speak english with a strong accent, others do not). The worst thing for me - and I am not criticizing, just pointing the game isn't for me - is that the god damned thing is extremely difficult, even when I choose the easy option. Do I believe Bethesda could do it? I guess it could. It couldn't be a Bioware game, for example, there are more similarities with the Bethesda's games - open world, first-person view. But there's also the russian/ ukranian feel of it. Of course Bethesda can develop Fallout games, and I can't, for the live of me, understand the people who hate F3 or FONV because they lack the spirit of the original ones. Spirit, what spirit? They must have played it in their dreams a lot, because Fallout has it's place in history - a great place it is, indeed -, but that's just that. The graphics make me cry, turn based combat makes me cringe and I can't see much difference between a car or a mutant ox in that isometric view. Anyway, Fallout is based in that bizarre and lovable nostalgic Americana universe. STALKER is another creature, though it's clearly inspired by previous post-apocalyptic games, Fallout above them all. Maybe if they adapted STALKER it turned into something. I certainly would like to play a horror survival role playing game (which is a real playing game, not just a game with an item list, open world and a couple of dialogues).
 
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