STALKER 2 Director Discusses AI Mechanics and Wartime Development

“Deadly anomalies, dangerous mutants, anarchists and bandits…” Based on what creative director and producer Slava Lukyanenka says, not even that could stop STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl from coming out.

Lukyanenka gave a lengthy interview to FEED4GAMERS that touches on the hardships of developing a major release during a war, new mechanics, and how the story of STALKER 2 ties in with the previous games.

War and Peace

STALKER 2 had gone through dev hell before 2022, but none of the previous hardships compare to what hit the team after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began.

Lukyanenka highlighted the difficult mix of moving to a displaced team, split primarily between Prague and Kyiv, and the human factors involved.

The EU group has to deal with immigration challenges like adaptation and bureaucracy; the Ukraine situation meant dealing with the constant danger of missile and drone attacks.

Management had to adapt over the years, with the original team of 20 people eventually growing to 430.

According to Lukyanenka, developing STALKER 2 is “a coping strategy” and a place to insert wartime experiences amidst the turmoil.

Shadow of STALKER

Heart of Chornobyl takes place 15 years after the events of Call of Pripyat. Lukyanenka emphasized how STALKER 2 shows the passage of time in the Exclusion Zone, with surviving structures maintained (and by definition altered) by local factions. Chornobyl of Theseus, if you will.

STALKER 2 mainly focuses on new characters, but Zone veterans like Monolith renegade Strider and Clear Sky protagonist Scar will also play a major role.

The occupants of the Zone in STALKER 2 are no longer the carefree adventurers or the idealistic defenders introduced in Shadow of Chernobyl. Rolling in radioactive mud for over a decade has changed them, even if the Zone looks the same on the surface.

Closed Zone, Open World

According to Lukyanenka, the team experimented with different open-world mechanics before returning to the ones that made the original STALKER trilogy unique.

Stories will play out independently for the player to stumble upon, which builds on the system debuted in Call of Pripyat. In the third installment of the STALKER series, Major Degatyarev could talk to wandering stalkers and temporarily join them across the northern end of the Zone.

Key to this dynamic storytelling is the A-Life system. The 2024 version of the STALKER AI game master is a major evolution of the Shadow of Chernobyl.

An example Lukyanenka gives is the player diving into a dangerous anomalous field in search of loot and coming across mutants and other stalkers.

The player can cooperate with the stalkers, fight them, or use them as mutant bait. Cooperation results in sharing the spoils but higher survivability, which a greedier player might feel is not worth it.

These interactions are more reminiscent of a DayZ encounter between players than a brush between you and the AI, but STALKER 2 wants to give the feeling that yours is just another life playing out in the Zone.

STALKER Tomorrow

After pushing out STALKER 2, Lukyanenka says the plan is to release a mix of free and paid DLCs that expand the experience in the Zone. At least two of the paid add-ons will be story expansions.

STALKER 2’s November release date is in a market full of games heavily inspired by its prequels, such as Metro: Exodus and Escape From Tarkov. The anticipation has players buzzing louder than an electro anomaly in Pripyat.