There are so many ways to die in the Exclusion Zone, and I just saw a whole bunch of them in the new trailer for Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl. The trailer is called "The Time of Opportunities" and I can only surmise the "opportunities" in that title are referring to all the chances I'll have to die from monsters.
Those monsters will look familiar to any Stalker veterans out there, from the mind-altering Controller who launches psychic attacks if you're in their line of sight (I always called them the 'zoom-in monster' because it yoinks your camera toward them so you can't aim or shoot), to the rampaging Pseudogiant seen walloping the player like a ragdoll. A pack of dogs shows up too, which always unnervingly circle before they attack at lightning speed. I'm normally a dog lover, but I hate those irradiated mutts.
There's also a poltergeist sighting, though not really because poltergeists are invisible. And in the new trailer it looks like they can shield themselves by levitating a barrier of rocks? That doesn't seem fair at all! I am so dead when this game comes out.
That's just the monsters, though. Bandits and enemy factions fill the trailer too, and if Stalker 2 is anything like the previous games they'll drop me from a mile away with single well-placed headshot. Or, as seen in the trailer, they'll try to ram a knife in my chest.
And then there are the anomalies, which I feel a little better about because at least I'll get to once again use those beautifully analogue artifact detectors, which are a ton of fun—right until I take a wrong step and get electrocuted, or concussed, or yanked off my feet and thrown around, or one of the other horrible things that happens when you blunder in the wrong direction.
All that death sure looks gorgeous, though. Can't wait to die. Again. Stalker 2 is still on track for a release on September 5.
