GSC Game World has revealed plans to make a new, after five years since the release of their last game, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat. They have also revealed their connections with West Games and Vostok Games.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat was released throughout 2009 and 2010. While they intended to make a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, the game went through a series of cancellation, revival, and re-cancellation.
Valentine Yeltyshev, a GSC Game World veteran, says he was there when the studio essentially closed in 2011. He attests that the core team assigned to the game went on to found Vostok Games, and work on upcoming game Survarium.
Valentine also attests that West Games, erstwhile developers for Areal, and now, STALKER: Apocalypse, was not part of that core team. He revealed that GSC considered making a Flash web based version of S.T.A.L.K.E.R., before 2011. This would have also been open world, and it would have been isometric.
As an aside, Valentine does not mention 4A Games, who happen to have gone on to make a name for themselves with the Metro 2033 franchise, or Alex Sytianov, now working on a new IP of his own called Sketch Tales.
Of course, that project never went through fruition, and Valentine states that West Games does not have what it takes to make a spiritual successor to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. He also warned that they will not hesitate to take legal action against West Games.
Today, GSC is reformed, with founder Sergei Grigorovich acting as CEO, and his brother Evgeniy now taking on the role of producer, and handling day to day management of the company.
Valentine states that they are eager to reveal their next project, but are waiting for the right time to do so. It’s hard to believe that this could be anything other than the next S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game, but do you agree? Could GSC be working on something completely different and new? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.
