The long-anticipated next-gen follow-up to 2007’s S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl certainly showed some gameplay at Microsoft’s E3 2021 showcase. Heart of Chernobyl is the subtitle, it will be released on April 28, 2022.
Fans of the game series have been waiting for years after many false starts on the development of a true “S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2,” so today’s amazing five-minute video reveal feels like reaching the light at the end of the tunnel.
The gameplay revealed so far looks like exactly what you’d expect of a next-gen follow-up to Shadow of Chernobyl, Clear Sky, and Call of Pripyat. One early part has your character going through a swampy field packed with deadly, mostly invisible anomalies. The character throws bolts to test the ground ahead of them while their handheld meter beeps madly. We see just what threat they’re in when a crab-like mutant creature gets sucked up into a vortex anomaly and ends up totally dismembered.