Back to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - May 2023 Update news

Back to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - May 2023 Update

We have finished working on a storyline for the following levels: Cordon, Garbage, Agroprom, Dark Valley, Yantar Lake, Dead City and Old Factory (A part of Dead City).

The storyline itself consists of three different chapters. At this time, from September 2022 to May 2023, we have made about half of the story itself. Such little progress is due to the fact that I am working on the storyline and in-game implementation completely by myself. On the other hand, if take into account the factor of my personal life etc, such progress is quite good.

My goal is to make two-thirds of the storyline by the end of this summer.

Speaking about the storyline, I would like to mention the story in the Dead City level. The player will need to work with the "Freedom" faction to find information about a lost group of scientists. During the walkthrough, we will solve the mystery of the strange disappearances of stalkers and visit new areas in the level.

Beside the main storyline, we've finished filling all maps with spawn elements (in simple words – finished making a-life simulation on maps). Stalkers will walk through different locations, mutants will fight each other over territory etc…

We've finished making North levels of the Zone.

Pripyat City is complete now. We took the 2005 version of the location and used it as a base for the level. The player can go directly to main street and take a look at the beautiful surroundings without any flat-houses at the center of the map.

Bar "Rostok" will appear as a non-separated map, as it was in early 2004 builds. There are a lot of differences from the original 2004 map though. In general, we can say that the map is the symbiosis of all of GSC’s versions of the Rostok Bar design. Here is a list of the changes:

• Added Duty’s outpost at the entrance of the map’s territory.
• Added the Arena
• Added Duty’s Bunker Base.
• Added some of Rostok’s props (destroyed helicopter, burned and rubble-filled tunnels).
• Restored some of the old decoration elements (mutant corpses etc.)

For the Radar (aka the Red Forest) level we took a 2005 version of the level. This version doesn’t have big piles of garbage or a winding road. Instead it contains an Anomaly Forest.

We've also added several new places to the map. For example, a destroyed military vehicle convoy.

Bar "Stalker" was merged with an old version of Rostok Factory map from build 1865. The map itself was made pretty big and interesting to explore.

Agroprom was changed a little as well. We "damaged" some of the main buildings. The factory area was filled with small organic anomalies. If the Player stands close to them, he will damaged.

The Dead City has gotten some new areas too. First of all, we "opened" all of the basement entrances in the town houses. In one of the basements there will be a room that you'll need to visit for one of the secondary tasks.

The main city street is a base of the "Freedom" faction. We've extended the main building by adding some new rooms: Trader's area, storage room and a locked jail cell. You can help the prisoner escape during one of the secondary tasks.

In future, we will merge the Dead City map with the Factory Area from the mod "Voice - Episode 2".

We've added the new cascaded shadows algorithm from Call of Pripyat. The algorithm itself has replaced the old buggy one, because SoC’s shadows system is just terrible.

We also added the "Soft Water" and the "Soft Particles" system.

With the help of our programmer, we added a new saving system to the Engine. Instead of having only one quicksave active at a time the player can quicksave up to 5 times before they overwrite one another.

Simply put, if you press f5 (or whatever your quicksave key is bound to) - you will get save 1. Press it again, and you will get save 2. And so on...

We are introducing to you the updated HUD. The new and updated HUD comes with better looking textures and a new icon system! As we said before, the player can choose between 3 styles of HUD.

In addition to the interface itself, our programmer wrote a new system of HUD icons.

Besides the HUD, we've updated the PDA UI. At first, we have planned to just make it widescreen for 16:9 monitors, without editing the look of it.

But after some time, we decided to re-make it, using the old PDA style from the 2021 leaks of the game concepts.

We've also added border-frames at the top and bottom of the PDA, a digital-mask to the map screen and even some new text just for flavor.

Additionally, we restored the gradient background screen on the PDA instead of a simple one-color background.

Finally, we added the most aesthetic build-style feature – the encyclopedia. The encyclopedia itself was extended and updated; articles were expanded and pictures were updated. We also added borders for the encyclopedia’s images. When using it, we inadvertently feel the bewitching atmosphere of Old Good Stalker.

As always, we say big «Thank You» words to Charlie Carious – The main developer of the upcoming Legend Returns 1.0 mod, master of puppets GUI elements and professional programmer. Without his hard work, the entire interface of the project would have remained unattractive and ugly.

We added some of the new weapons.

RGM-40 "Kastet" - a small single-shot grenade launcher that fires VOG-25 grenades. The main advantage of the weapon is its light weight (relative to other grenade launchers) and compactness.

RPD – the old Soviet machine gun chambered in 7.62x39 is a strong weapon in any situation. Its powerful cartridge and ammo capacity provide the user with significant firepower. Many thanks to comrade AsuraH for his help in creating animations for this weapon.

GM-94 - pump-action grenade launcher. It is a very rare weapon in the Zone. You can often find military Stalkers using this weapon in some of their operations.

RGO – a grenade which explodes on contact with static geometry, We added a new explode-system just for this weapon.

Unfortunately, we are still in need of new animators. If you animate well and are ready to help the project - you can write to me in private messages.

• First of all, we've fixed some of the original bugs in SoC. NPCs no longer remain hostile to dead enemies. If the dead enemy was alone stalkers will immediately return to calm mode.

• Second of all, we have improved the NPC’s reaction speed. Now they are more vigilant.

• Lastly, we made some changes to the shooting itself. Now they shoot more often at the place where the Player was last seen. It looks especially cool from the outside. Stalkers often work in pairs. One can suppress the player with fire, preventing him from leaning out, while the other attempts to flank.

Aditionally, NPCs can now hunt for artefacts.

We added a new feature to gameplay - locked doors. Some doors in different locations will be locked.

To open them, you have to get a specific key (either by buying it or receiving it as a reward). Behind these doors will be rare/special loot.

We added new Repair Kit system to the project.

The potential of the repair kits is quite large. Most likely, the project will feature different kits for different types of weapons (for example, repair kits only for machine guns, pistols, assault rifles, etc.). Despite this, some repair kits may be usable on all firearms. You can repair both weapons and armor.

Many thanks to "Advanced X-Ray" devs for allowing us to use the code for repair kits.

The eponymous anomaly from Legend Returns 1.0. In Back to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. it is presented in the same form as planned for LR 1.0. Orange Mist is the result of a long mutation of anomalous plants, which eventually begin to release harmful chemicals. Upon contact with the anomaly, the Player begins to choke and see phantoms that actively attack him.

Small, ring-like electric anomaly that has a small chance to create a rare artefact.

The Frying Pan (or Skovoroda) anomaly, is similar to the "Fruit Punch". Usually, the Frying Pan appears in scorched houses. You can detect it by a strong hiss and small wisps of smoke coming from the ground.

More news will be waiting for you in the future. Around the beginning of summer, we plan to release a video of the current state of project.