Stalker dev refutes claims

By Tom Bramwell Published 31 January, 2006

Nearly beta, lay-offs misreported.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. developer GSC Game World's responded to a Russian games mag's report that the repeatedly delayed FPS is in yet more trouble.

GSC denies claims of mass lay-offs, conflict with publisher THQ and problems completing the game within 2006.

GSC says the game is "on the stage of beta approval" and rumours of mass lay-offs are incorrect. "The team has undergone certain reductions, particularly in the art section, due to all the graphics-related works being almost complete (out of 40 people 5 were dismissed)," the developer said in a statement. "None of the leads, programmers and moreover, testers may not be reduced at any time."

Which doesn't sound entirely rosy, anyway, but isn't quite "mass" lay-offs.

GSC also said that its relationship with THQ was fine, and commented on the technology leak, which saw some of its code get out onto the internet. Although, er, we thought that happened years ago.

"Regarding the technology leak, none of the designers gone has the rights to the game's engine (all the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. technologies, including the X-Ray engine and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.-2 engine belong to the company). Even if the current or next-generation engine would appear on the net, their legal use is impossible. GSC does not intend to sell its technologies in the nearest time, so as does not intend to postpone the release of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl due to rumours of that kind," the statement read.

All a bit odd, frankly. Doesn't sound terminal, but then repeated delays and peculiar press statements don't usually bode well. We'll let you know if we hear anything else.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (18) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Talha #1 6 years ago

    You know what good will come out of it all? When STALKER will finally get released in April 2009, it will look spectacular AND run well on every machine ranging from a lowly Pentium 4 3.6 GHz to a quad-core 6GB L2 Cache Athlon monster.

    What is the harm with a little wishful thinking?

    And yes, FIRST

  • neuroniky #2 6 years ago

    Not another Daikatana...

    Edit: Nor another Bloodlines, please...
    Edited by 1 at 31/01/06 @ 10:07

  • Tyronne #3 6 years ago

    This will no doubt come out on the same weekend as Duke Nukem.

  • neon #4 6 years ago

    Hilarious stuff. Having experienced Thq first hand, their attitude is very much one of, get it done, get it done quick and make all the changes we suggest , even if the changes we suggest make zero sense. Having met people from the Russian neck of the woods, their attitude is, we know best, we like to do things our way no matter how long it takes, as time is not an issue for us. The American way of Thq partnered with the mentality of the Russians is a match made in hell.
    Edited by 1 at 31/01/06 @ 10:38

  • matrim83 #5 6 years ago

    Oh come on you guys how about a little optimism. I know this has been in development for some time but its still not at the DNF level. What I've seen and heard of this game sounds fantastic and I hope like hell this report is true and we do see this game released this year.

    Honestly the cynicism around here at times astounds me.

  • Stickman #6 6 years ago

    Pfft! Yeah, we'll see about that...

  • Talha #7 6 years ago

    Aw, come on - I have been optimistic - for reference see my golden words: " When STALKER will finally get released in April 2009..."

  • thehat #8 6 years ago

    "None of the leads, programmers and moreover, testers may not be reduced at any time."

    Erm...

  • asphaltcowboy #9 6 years ago

    I'm staying optimistic... really hopeful for this game - if they deliever what they've promised, I'll be a happy chappy!

  • smoison #10 6 years ago

    This game has been coming along pretty well. It should not become another DNF.

    This should definetly show its head soon, and make HL 2 look a little dated (lets HOPE cause the source engine SUCKS (especially for Nvidia cards))
    Edited by 1 at 31/01/06 @ 11:51

  • Eldritch #11 6 years ago

    @neon: Yup, that's exactly my experience, too.

    Imagine some THQ suit travelling all the way behind the former Iron Curtain, arriving at the developers' last know address and finding a hole in the ground with some tumbleweed. He'd probably say: "Dude, like, totally Half-Life 2. Awesome."

    It could happen this very minute.
    Edited by 1 at 31/01/06 @ 11:54

  • Ryuken #12 6 years ago

    It's quite pathetic to see how games get judged, before they are released even, just by looking at the time it takes to make them. Daikatana wasn't great, that doesn't change even if it would have been made in one year and even without the 'Romero will make you his bitch'-ad. Hey, World of WarCraft took 4 years to make, does that suddenly suck too now?

    S.T.A.L.K.E.R. still looks great, and I expect a lot from it but I will make a judgement when it comes out and then make a comparison with what else is on the market. And yeah, I am still looking forward to DNF too. Anyone who has ever even catched a glimpse of that 2001 E3 trailer knows that 3D Realms still has some great vibes. They even restarted from scratch after that, talk about being self-demanding.

  • ralphwolfenstein #13 6 years ago

    the mind boggles at what kind of 'experience' the pair of you might have had with THQ...

  • Empedocles #14 6 years ago

    If they are anything like mine it will be a knife in the back. Still good to see that the sweeping changes they made in Europ PD have had such a fine effect - still nobody knows when or if STALKER will ship. Still the boys in Kiev are a fine bunch and the Vodka and Ferrero Rocha most excellent........................

  • justsomeone #15 6 years ago

    when games finally come out and are reviewed, i often look back at all the "first impressions", interviews and commentary that went on often for years beforehand. it's amazing just how much optimism and hyperbole is to be found, only for the review to be very impressively bad.

    in the case of stalker, i think the main problem has always been that the original idea of a massive, dynamic environment and fully non-linear gameplay just proved impossible to pull off. i seem to remember a few articles about a year ago wherein the devs admitted that they were "having problems" implementing their grand idea - which effectively means "completely stuck".

    i suspect the reason this game hasn't already been gutted and released as a linear plotted game along the lines of HL2/FEAR is the laudable and sheer bloody minded determination of the devs to get it done right. that's to their credit, but my prediction is that this game will either never appear, or eventually THQ will pull the plug, gut it and release it as an HL clone. ok, third possibility is that it will be released anyway, but be buggy-as-boiling-point.

  • Drakron #16 6 years ago

    S.T.A.L.K.E.R., europe's Duke Nuken Forever ...

  • Whizzo #17 6 years ago

    People have at least played STALKER, either the leaked alpha or when it's been shown at events.

  • Roamer #18 6 years ago

    Not another Daikatana...

    Edit: Nor another Bloodlines, please...

    And what was wrong with Bloodlines? Except being one of the top ten RPGs of all time, of course. But why would you even fault it for that? You'd have to be crazy. You're crazy, Neuroniky. Crazy like a pig who does not like vampires.

  • Genji #19 6 years ago

    I loved Bloodlines right up until Chinatown. It's a good 2/3 of a game.