Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl, the 2024 first person survival horror shooter is about to receive it’s first major story expansion titled Cost of Hope which will come out for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S this summer with “dozens of hours of gameplay” including massive new Zones, a faction war between two biggest organizations in the world of Stalker and many more. And recently, at the BAFTA Games Awards a few days ago, two of the devs from GSC Game World have opened up on the narrative ambitions of the upcoming post-release content for Stalker 2 which sounds really unique in more ways than one.
Ievgen Grygorovych, the CEO and Game Director of the studio said that the Cost of Hope expansion is largely shaped by the ongoing war in Ukraine, which makes it way more than just entertainment:
“In our part of the world, this game is closely connected to our war.
We, as a team, are also part of everything that’s going on.
For us, this project is one million times beyond entertainment. It’s a really important way to send a message to the world.”
Maria Grygorovych, the Creative Director of Stalker 2, then went on to say how much of the upcoming content is connected with the culture of Ukraine:
“We already won our goal, because one of the most important goals was to give to the player an opportunity to love Ukrainian culture.
We truly believe that Ukrainian culture deserves to be loved. When we saw that people around the world, around the globe are listening to Ukrainian music or starting to get interested in Ukrainian language, or literature, or the philosophy behind the game, it already proves that we did something important, at least for us and for our internal goals to make art.”
There will also be several new gears and weapons including the legendary SKS carbine (which is seen in the trailer as well) and many more. Plus, similar to the main game, there will be a branched narrative with ramifications that are touted to exceed those from the base game in terms of how they affect the overall state of The Zone.
