For those of you who've played the PC exclusive S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, you might be pleased to know that the crew at GSC Game World is considering a console version release for the game after its initial success.

Knowing the FPS nature, as well as the dark, post apocalyptic theme, the game would definitely look pretty sleek if it were transferred onto a next-gen console. GSC project manager Anton Bolshakov stated that they wanted to expand their market with their plans to move to the console. He had this to say on the matter:

PC game development is very traditional for ex-USSR and over 90 percent of gamers here play on PCs. However, we are pretty aware of the tendencies in the markets internationally and have been considering console development for a while.

 
While they have no definite plans just yet, they have been considering this option for some time already. Whether or not this will push through for the recent game or its sequel is still unknown, it's also unsure what platform exactly we'll be seeing their debut on.

Until they have any more news on the matter though, we'll just have to hang tight and see what GSC has under its sleeves regarding the matter.

 

Earlier last month, GSC Game World announced that it was going to unveil several new titles based on the phenomenally dark world of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. at the ESA's E3 Media & Business Summit this July. Beyond all doubt, it was a given that GSC Game World were targeting these new titles for the PC, where the franchise first debuted.

But a report by CVG identified GSC Game World's Anton Bolshakov, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s project lead, revealing a hint of "next iterations," despite very little clues as to whether the successors will come to any other platform except the PC. CVG believes it's definitely not impossible, even though GSC Game World's portfolio of games brands itself as a PC developer.

We can't really tell for sure, but if GSC Game World wants to develop for consoles, there's nothing much to stop them, except another huge budget to save up for. But we guess with creative-hub publisher THQ at the reins, GSC Game World might just give it a try.

Gamespot was recently able to score an interview with GSC Game World's Anton Bolshakov to talk about their upcoming FPS for the PC, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl. The interview actually tackles tons of game aspects so let's not dilly dally any longer, let's just get to the gist of the whole thing, shall we?

Game development: Bolshakov says that their current dev status is "close to the finish line" and are just fixing bugs, fine-tuning the balancing, optimizing the game for different configurations -- basically just polishing up the game.

Single player combat: There will be 30 weapon types, most of which will be upgradeable with silencers, grenade launchers, etc. The game also boasts of true bullet ballistics, making the weapons, bullet speed, and grenade explosions highly realistic.

Multiplayer modes, etc.: There will be three multiplayer modes: Deathmatch, team Deathmatch, and the artifact hunt. You guys know already how the first two modes work, but as for the Artifact hunt, it's a mode where the players are split into two teams and compete to get the most artifacts that appear randomly on the map. And of course, the team with more artifacts wins.

When asked about the other features that users can look forward to in the multiplayer feature, here's what Bolshakov said:

...other features of the multiplayer are dynamic day/night cycles, a ranking system, upgradeable weapons, and different types of cartridges for every weapon type. We specially designed maps for multiplayer. We used professional cyber-sportsmen in designing and balancing maps. Multiplayer supports up to 32 players over LAN or Internet. We'll have the multiplayer beta open soon.

The interview goes on to discuss in detail the combat system, battlefield approaches, and how the environment will affect your gameplay, so if you wanna check out the interview and find out more, hit the Read link below and you're all set.

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.

GamePro's editor was recently able to score an interview with the lead designer of one of the most highly anticipated PC games today, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl.

The interview with Anton Bolshakov tackles pretty basic stuff actually, but nonetheless really useful and important ones, like how Direct-X 9 will be supported by the game, system requirements, characters, release date, multiplayer modes, and tons more. So to make it easy on your eyes, we'll just run down the basic stuff you need to know about Shadow of Chernobyl:

• The game makes use of the X-Ray engine which makes it possible to display up to one million polygons, have dynamic lighting and shadows, and extremely detailed graphics.
• Contrary to earlier reports, the game will now make use of DirectX 9, not 10. Lead designer Anton Bolshakov says that using DirectX 9 made more sense and it also works quite well.
• System requirements: 2 GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM. GeForce 6800 is also recommended.
• On the repeated development delays: these were caused by the time and efforts they put into creating the life simulation system because they didn't want to settle with creating a linear game like other FPS games.
• Role-playing elements in the game: Player can choose the type of Stalker they want to be, they can either be a good Stalker, or a slayer who just goes around killing everyone. There are also 7 different endings in the game, 5 of which are false.
• Multiplayer modes: team deathmatch, deathmatch, and artifact collecting. Weapons and armor in multiplayer matches can be upgraded, and Bolshakov also reveals that they're planning on making a level creator where players would be able to use their custom levels online. However, Bolshakov says that this would be possible only after the game's.
  

As for porting the game to consoles, Bolshakov says that they do have plans of porting S.T.A.L.K.E.R. to game consoles but as of now, no decision or agreement has been reached between GSC Game World and THQ. S.T.A.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl is expected to hit the shelves first quarter of 2007.

"The time when development here was cheap is now gone, so our budgets for development are now comparable to European or American budgets," says GSC Game World's Anton Bolshakov, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl project lead when asked by GamesIndustry.biz on what it's like to be an Eastern European dev playing a big boy's game. Which is why they appreciated the attention THQ Entertainment gave to the project two years ago.

All developers are dreamers by default. So having a publisher look into things helps a lot to speed things up, to move properly along a development schedule: it's very important to have this cooperation. Especially for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

So much for Orson Scott Card's vision of a publisher-less dev world, I guess.

The hard part was that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was an ambitious title designed to push itself hard, just like the PS3. With advanced AI, and the sharpest graphics ever seen when it was first revealed, it really attracted a lot of attention. And just like the PS3, all that hard-pushing inevitably meant cost and production concerns.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was originally meant to be released in 2004. But the advanced "A-Life" concept took so much experimentation - and time - that it resulted in the inevitable delay. Now, two years past 2004, its graphics look quite dated compared to recent releases. GSC is banking on the game's other draws - A-Life included - to attract the attention of gamers.

At least it attracted THQ. "For any developer it's important to have a big, well-established partner like THQ to work with. Including us." Look at it this way. At least it's no Duke Nukem Forever.

One of the few interesting bits of the rather acronymic S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl game is that it takes place in post-Chernobyl Chernobyl. Not so ironic that the devs, GSC Game World, recently showed off the game in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, home to Chernobyl. The other interesting bit about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is that the nuclear desolation hasn't killed off all the native life, but rather created a new ecosystem altogether that the player has to survive.

Project leader Anton Bolshakov showed off the engine that runs this ecosystem, the "A-life" system (A for Atomic, Anton?), to Eurogamer during the Kiev outing. "A-Life" is meant to provide a randomized, totally unscripted ecosystem for S.T.A.L.K.E.R., governing the activities of the creatures and NPC characters that reside in the environment.

Aside from creating a dynamic game world, A-life also partners with the Random Task System that apparently provides game missions based on the creatures or NPCs that reside in a given area at the time.

If you think having to deal with a totally random, constantly changing ecosystem is a load on one's back, try what the devs have in mind for the story. You have sixty hours to solve the mystery of the Zone, the 30km-exclusion zone around the ill-fated Chernobyl reactors. On top of that there are five false endings and two true endings. Talk about replay value - or replay commitments, for that matter!

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl is expected to hit stores first quarter next year, a shorter period of time than the half-life of the uranium in nuclear reactor fuel (heehee, we made a Half-Life pun).