S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl dev gives in-depth interview

Patience, patience, patience.

That has been the mantra of players eagerly waiting for  S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl’s release. We’ve all seen the screenshots and read the interviews. What’s taking so long? GSC Game World has toiled long and hard for this, and they aren’t worried about disappointing the players. Now, Gamesplanet managed to get an interview with Anton Bolshakov, Project Lead of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl and he discussed the game in-depth.

The game runs on the X-ray engine, and according to Mr. Bolshakov, it would be impressive on a high-end PC but it would be able to adapt to lower-end PCs. Here are some of the game features:

• Possibly one of the best in the world implementations of Defferred Shading, allowing to draw a vast amount of dynamic light sources, with correct materials and light “response”, while not limiting ourselves to Deferred Lighting, but truly using the deferred shading.
• A very effective collision model allowing to make a lot of requests and crossings per second on complex geometry (for example, with our complex geometry – in resolution of 320*200 we can refrain from drawing the picture by videocard, but retrace it fully in real-time)
• Dynamic shadows and lighting
• True per-pixel dynamic lighting
• Powerful physics engine, i.e controlling vehicles, detailing objects, bullet ballistics, skeleton animation, etc.
• Parallax/normal bump
• Planning AI

More on this after the jump.

Patience, patience, patience.

That has been the mantra of players eagerly waiting for  S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl’s release. We’ve all seen the screenshots and read the interviews. What’s taking so long? GSC Game World has toiled long and hard for this, and they aren’t worried about disappointing the players. Now, Gamesplanet managed to get an interview with Anton Bolshakov, Project Lead of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl and he discussed the game in-depth.

The game runs on the X-ray engine, and according to Mr. Bolshakov, it would be impressive on a high-end PC but it would be able to adapt to lower-end PCs. Here are some of the game features:

• Possibly one of the best in the world implementations of Defferred Shading, allowing to draw a vast amount of dynamic light sources, with correct materials and light “response”, while not limiting ourselves to Deferred Lighting, but truly using the deferred shading.
• A very effective collision model allowing to make a lot of requests and crossings per second on complex geometry (for example, with our complex geometry – in resolution of 320*200 we can refrain from drawing the picture by videocard, but retrace it fully in real-time)
• Dynamic shadows and lighting
• True per-pixel dynamic lighting
• Powerful physics engine, i.e controlling vehicles, detailing objects, bullet ballistics, skeleton animation, etc.
• Parallax/normal bump
• Planning AI

The players would play the role of a STALKER and choose between being a good player or a bad player (read: blasting everyone to kingdom come). STALKERs have factions that the player can join, but players can also choose to go solo. NPCs and the environment are very interactive. NPCs would behave accordingly to the player’s reputation and actions.

The world of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl is interactive in general. Realism (Physics, day-night switching, weather effects, etc.) is one of the things that the devs paid close attention to. There’s the weight limit – players can’t carry too many weapons. If you go over the weight limit, your character would be stuck to walking. Weapons have a wear-out feature, meaning they can conk out on you if you aren’t careful.

Artefacts are objects filled with anomalous energy. As a STALKER, players would be able to tap into them as well. Different artefacts have different effects and varying side effects too. Be careful of weird-looking objects and just like they say, Read the Manual.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl promises to give us a whole new gaming experience with it’s A-life, which was said to be one of the delaying factors in the game’s release. It had to be fine tuned and combined with the storyline. Players need not worry about loading times since the game loads in its total. You can freely roam all the 18 zones without pesky loading screens.

After the long wait is over, will S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl live up to the hype? Let’s hope so.