Realistic Map?

[King DaMuncha]

After playing the stalker games I did alot of research on Chernobyl CNPP and the Chornobyl disaster and it bugged the hell out of me that the locations in stalker, while looking somewhat similar to some of the locations in real life, the map layout does not look anything like the real map

https://imgur.com/rv4XJK1

So in Stalker 2 GSC is making the entire game open world. Does that mean that the location positions are going to be in the proper place or layed out like the previous games for gameplay sake?

[Kaviy]

Games shouldn't mindlessly go into absolute realism. It's one thing to have a huge city brought into the game. It's quite another when we have a couple of villages and a forest in between.

[fletcher1]

Maybe the outside area. There were rumors that the Ukrainian Secret Service wanted GSC (Game Developer) not to replicate the footprint one to one - for security reasons.

[BlueSpark]

Originally posted by KofeYochek:

Games shouldn't mindlessly go into absolute realism.

I second that. Personally, I don't care how faithful the landscape in the STALKER games is to the real-world equivalent; I just want the map(s) to be interesting and appealing from a gameplay perspective.

[[GSC]Super_PropheT]

Originally posted by BlueSpark:

Originally posted by KofeYochek:

Games shouldn't mindlessly go into absolute realism.

I second that. Personally, I don't care how faithful the landscape in the STALKER games is to the real-world equivalent; I just want the map(s) to be interesting and appealing from a gameplay perspective.

I guess that's what I can guarantee. But what I can't share is more details about the map in general.

[Iamlegend]

Cool topic !

Some iconic places from the first game are already fictionnal, so the second one will probably be faithful only to some extent to the real exclusion zone and that's great.
I don't know if you ever saw the movie Steve Jobs (Danny Boyle's version). They chosed to mess up with historical accuracy to keep the most important elements and to make that fit into a coherent narrative (you know, the 3 acts rule and so on...). This movie works awesomely well, it's underrated, it makes us feel the "true nature" of Steve Jobs instead of making an academic chronological reproduction of his life.

Btw, the swamps are more looking like a southern Ukraine landscape (i mean the steppes), am I right ?

[King DaMuncha]

After I wrote the original post I found a HD version of Stalker on youtube (the movie, with captions) and a couple of the locations in the game are an exact replica of what is in the movie.

https://imgur.com/YTymXhM

[Filk]

Originally posted by King DaMuncha:

After I wrote the original post I found a HD version of Stalker on youtube (the movie, with captions) and a couple of the locations in the game are an exact replica of what is in the movie.

https://imgur.com/YTymXhM

By the way this movie is based on the book "Roadside Picnic" written by the Strugatsky brothers. The story of the book radically differs in the place of action and the origin of the zone. The Stalker game took only the concept of the Zone from it and transferred it to Chernobyl, but the game has nothing more common with the book.
But the book and movie was so pupular in exUSSR countries that the developers added this location to the game as a movie quote for funs of the original book. Try to read it, it really intresting connection betweeen name of story and what is happening in the Zone of the book

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadside_Picnic

[@kiberturist]

2600 square kilometers, locations in reality are extremely remote from each other, even if they correspond to even approximately real scales, the game will turn out to be empty, not saturated ... and comparing the capabilities of the 2005 xray and the new Unreal Engine , this is a completely new game, it seems to me, little to do with the original parts ) I would prefer it as a new product based on a well-known universe and not be tied in place of the players to the original parts

[Iamlegend]

Originally posted by @kiberturist:

2600 square kilometers, locations in reality are extremely remote from each other, even if they correspond to even approximately real scales, the game will turn out to be empty, not saturated ... and comparing the capabilities of the 2005 xray and the new Unreal Engine , this is a completely new game, it seems to me, little to do with the original parts ) I would prefer it as a new product based on a well-known universe and not be tied in place of the players to the original parts

Yes, from what I remember you definitely need a car if you travel in the main highlights of the real life exclusion zone. That would make many roads in Stalker 2...

I can compare with the few games that tried to rebuild Paris.
Assassin's Creed Unity (didn't play) only uses the very center of Paris due to its historical context, Midtown Madness 3 kept the shape of the city but only put the north-western part inside it (the most touristic part), same as The Saboteur and I heard it was a great game, I need to play it one day if I can. More precisely The Saboteur seems to keep only the main locations of Paris.
Many french players would love a GTA in Paris, we've got everything they need to make the game takes place here, but i'm not sure politicians would appreciate the satire :)

[Cuchi]

Originally posted by King DaMuncha:

After playing the stalker games I did alot of research on Chernobyl CNPP and the Chornobyl disaster and it bugged the hell out of me that the locations in stalker, while looking somewhat similar to some of the locations in real life, the map layout does not look anything like the real map

https://imgur.com/rv4XJK1

So in Stalker 2 GSC is making the entire game open world. Does that mean that the location positions are going to be in the proper place or layed out like the previous games for gameplay sake?

I mean, you beat Stalker games and you never get the idea of the game being more sci-fi than realistic post-chernobyl accident?

[cube]

Originally posted by Filk:

The Stalker game took only the concept of the Zone from it and transferred it to Chernobyl, but the game has nothing more common with the book.

Well there is the Wish Granter as well, plus the Brain Scorcher blocking access to the NPP, though that's more vague in the book.

[King DaMuncha]

Those were shut down in the previous games.

[Mr blue]

Originally posted by King DaMuncha:

Well from the leaked images of the game map, it looks like they've done a little of both. They've kept the terrain typography of the real exclusion zone but moved the places of interest that were north of the CNPP from the game onto the RL map. And it seems that the game is going to be far larger than I had ever imagined.

I'm sorta excited about this. They've kept the typography but Im sure for gameplay reasons it will probably be scaled down. still tho, even at 1/4 scale it will still be freakin huge. I wonder if there will be vehicles we can drive in the game.

By comparrison Skyrim is 4km x 4km.... On the leaked Stalker map it says 8,128km2 which is 90km x 90km. Traveling in a CAR at 100km/hour would take almost an hour to drive from one side to the other.... I dont think that's quite right. I think the info added to the map put a comma where a Full Stop should be. Which would make it 8km x 8km = 64km2 which is more reasonable to travel on foot. thats ALOT smaller than 8k2 and not as jaw dropping.

GTAV is about 80km2 which is 9km x 9km and I dont imagine the game zone would be as big as that. Google says the entire Exclusion Zone IRL is only 2,600 km² which is 50km x 50km which is still not as big as the first number.

I matched the game map up with the google maps and asked google to measure from the top to the buttom (from the lake to pripyat and IRL google says thats about 12km, If I measure from the town of Chernobyl I get 16.km to the river north of Pripyat... Maybe the 8,128km measurement realy is that big. 8km x 8km = 64km2

... I just found a post of reddit from 2 years ago that goes over the same thing.

the devs said the map will be 64km2

[elteaser]

considering skyrim map is around 36km^2, i think it's fair to say that the advertised size seems accurate in comparison.

[Sparhawk122]

Real life is boring. I am glad the map is not 1 - 1 for realism.