Stalker 2’s landing on PC last month probably went about as expected. The game has been through more than a decade of development hell, exacerbated by the all-too real hell of war in its home country. Combine that with the Stalker series’ track record of brilliant yet bug-filled games, and Stalker 2 wound up, in the words of our reviewer Josh, filled with performance issues and bugs that “don’t stop Stalker’s mad, wonderful heart from shining through”.
So it had a rough start, but it’s already received several significant patches. GSC Game World owner Maxim Krippa is already looking to the future, though, revealing in an interview with Forbes Ukraine (via Polygon) that Stalker 2 may be getting a Netflix show.
Krippa told Forbes: “I would like us to get the series on Netflix. Some negotiations are underway, but the issue has not yet been resolved.” Given TV’s enduring love-in with stark post-apocalyptic fiction, not to mention the success of the brilliant HBO show Chernobyl, Stalker 2 seems like a marriage of themes bound to get the attention of streaming services. According to ITC.ua, which translated the Forbes interview, Krippa is inspired by the promotion strategy of CD Projekt RED and the immense success it had with The Witcher, so it seems that Krippa has ambitions of making Stalker ‘The Witcher of Ukraine’.
Krippa also reiterated that Stalker 2 would be getting multiplayer and two expansions (which are already listed on Game Pass as part of the Stalker 2 Season Pass, which you get with the Ultimate Edition of the game). The multiplayer had also been announced earlier, and in PC Gamer magazine (Issue 365) we revealed that this will entail classic PvP modes such as deathmatch and team deathmatch. Sadly, it looks like you won’t be able to explore The Zone with a buddy in co-op mode, so let’s hope that modders pick up the baton there.
While it’s great to see a unique games like Stalker thriving (even among 83-year-old dudes in Japan), the developers clearly have their work cut out in polishing and patching the base game before moving onto new content. Not that they’re slacking off, because as I write this patch 1.1 has just been released, delivering thousands of bug fixes just in time for Christmas.
