STALKER NEWS - September 16th, 2021

10 new screenshots from the 'OP-2.2' mod. In other news, OP authors decided to stop publishing large news and reports about the new 2.2 update until release. (Source)

'Strelok's Group' developers announced their use of motion capture technology for animation making. A video showing some test animations is linked down below. (Source)

Two gameplay clips from the new part of the First Days of the Zone modification have been released.

According to the author, there will be four different factions available in the mod: Stalkers, Bandits, Military and Scientists. Each of them will have their own side quests and main storyline. The name of the main character will be randomly generated. Trading is disabled and traders are removed from the game, instead bartering, orders for artefacts, lootboxes and weapon crafting are added.

At this point, 10 game levels have been connected together. Random generation of all creatures in the Zone, stashes, anomalies and dynamic objects and crates is done.

With each new start - everything will be generated anew, in a random combination. Of course, an extended A-Life simulation system is planned.

The mod's first part can be found here. (Source)

A fresh selection of screenshots from the in-development Labyrinth story mod have surfaced!

According to the authors, six locations (Cordon, X-9, Teleportation Room, Collector, Ghost Town, Dark Valley) are now fully completed. However, it is not certain that the player will get to each of these levels, as the mod plans for variability of travel, which affects the further course of the story.
Narrative and side quests on these locations are also fully developed. At the moment they are working on X-18.
Many new stalker models have been added, but the iconic and familiar characters will remain unchanged. Work has been done on other areas as well. (Source)

The creators of the Another Reality modification have unveiled a new gameplay video, which captures an excerpt from the story. Players decided to show one of the nine days of General Tachenko inside the space bubble. Players know very well how his story ended in Call of Pripyat, and now we will be invited to find out more details.

Trying to get out of the anomaly, Tachenko assembles a receiver to send signals for help, which we heard at the Cooling Tower in the original game. Not getting any results, he contacts the Black Stalker, agreeing to his terms. The general's path lies in the underground, where the most interesting things are likely to happen. It is worth noting that the quests are accompanied by cut-scenes and the characters' own voiceover. An important feature of the mod is that GUNSLINGER has been added. (Source)

Version 1.4 has been released now! Go check out the trailer!

Changelog:
- New player models
- New HUD
- New arsenal completely renovated
- New impact sounds on surfaces
- New particles
- New maps: Pool (Modified) and Oil Platform
- New menu interface
- Singleplayer mode was disabled
- Body disappearance time reduced
- New arm models (Credits to Sushi)
- Medkits were re-enabled
- Fixed the hotkey to use the MP medkits
- Restructured multiplayer code (Download)

The author of The New Unexplored Path project published a new video on his YouTube channel showing the Pripyat location in his project. Reminder - the project is a remake of the NLC 7 mod with build locations and the Shadows Addon mod as its base. (Source) (I would include the video, but it has been taken down)

Today we have finished the English translation of an old Japanese mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. This is a machine translation made by Rammaken and lelop.

Dead City: Special Edition announced!

The main story will remain from Dead City: Breakthrough, which was released back in 2019. But beyond that, additional story branches will be added to the mod, which won't overlap with the central story, but will go a long way towards exploring the world. The gameplay will still remain non-linear, with the player deciding when and in what order to complete tasks.

The map, consisting of 27 areas, will be completely redesigned, and there will be one new level. All locations are used in the story. The world is promised to be filled with stashes and settlements. It is being developed on the Call of Pripyat engine. Exit project will take place no sooner than the moment when the Labyrinth modification, in which the author simultaneously takes part, will be released.

It should be noted that a mod with the same name was already in development before 2011, but then, due to a number of reasons, the development was closed. (Source)

The authors of the S.C.O.P.E. mod (currently under development) have given an answer to the question: what happens if the player attacks the military checkpoint in the Cordon? Find out in this video: (Source)

LADCE: Gunslinger Addon developers say project is actively being worked on, and presented a screenshot of the new weapon attachments system! (Source)

A new screenshot from the True Stalker mod. Soon the creators promise to release an interesting announcement, so be on the lookout for that! (Source)

The Story of John - a new mod by a rookie modmaker - has been announced recently. The main storyline will revolve around a rookie stalker who had just arrived to the Cordon. Main quests and side quests will take place in the Cordon and Agroprom Underground. The project is around 60% complete and is expected to be released this fall. (Source)

OP-2.2 development news - Part 12

- During the “Chess Player” questline Vitamin will be at brown boots with yellow soles (as it should be according to the plot).
- Doctor will return to the Central Pripyat after the showdown in the Eastern Pripyat within the “Bloody Endgame” questline.
- The Brother of the Monolith Shadow at CNPP-2 has got personal bodyguards organized.
- The way of getting the safe in the Labyrinth has been changed; a new quest has been added at a previously unused location.
- New models have been added for Prapor at the Dump, Fistful and Chemist at the Forgotten Forest and Blend at the Dark Valley.
- Fistful’s logic in the Forgotten Forest has been corrected slightly.
- All the guns using shrapnel now have the same (yellow) sleeve.
- The HUD of Chess Player's dictaphones has been transferred to the hands model borrowed from the “S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky”.
- During the “Chess Player” questline, we’ll now kill the real Shadow of the Monolith, not his fake doppelganger from the embryo or the Brother of the Shadow of the Monolith; the quest has been redone, to cut it short, you will see it in the game.
- The caliber 20x76 has been introduced for the shotguns; so far only TOZ-106 and Ithaca-37 use them.
(Source)

A very large collection of new screenshots from Dead Air 1.0!

Sources (more images can be found in these links): 1, 2, 3, 4

Build 3.8 has been released! The update contains new quests, five new weapons and new models, changed gameplay and balance, as well as some minor changes to the main storyline. Izloms can now be found roaming around the Zone. In addition to that, many general errors and bugs have been fixed. The full change log is available at this link (rus.) (Source)

A new video from the Project 2 mod. The purpose of this video is to show the working monitors inside the lab. (Source)

New mod called "Forgotten Squad" has been announced!

The project is being developed on Call of Pripyat with the "GUNSLINGER" mod. The author of the mod is the creator of "Another Story", which was released in the spring of this year.

The plot promises to tell the story of a hunter nicknamed Serpent, who sets out to find his missing comrade and his group. He has a long way to go, doing whatever it takes to get any information at all.

Among the locations announced are the nearby former Research Institute (the real name of the level is "Path to the Zone" by Stalker_Grez), Abandoned Land, Underground Collector and Laboratory R-2. Development of the mod has only recently started, so no word yet on the release date. (Source)

The development team of the "Shards of the Past" story mod shared with the community their plans for further development of the project. As a reminder, the mod is currently available in open beta.

The new version will continue to work on the story. It will be expanded, new non-linear quests will be added, and voice actors for the characters are being selected. Those wishing to get involved can write in the comments to this news.
(See link below!)

The Cordon location continues to be redesigned, with several new locations. Bugs and flaws are also being fixed.
The authors assure that the release version of the mod will be different from this current version. Release dates have not yet been announced. (Source)

"D.E.V.I.L.R.Y." short story mod has been released!

The mod was developed on Call of Pripyat by a novice modder.

The action in the mod takes place after the events of Call of Pripyat. The protagonist's name is "Keitel" and he has an arduous journey ahead of him. On an assignment from Sidorovich, he goes to the centre of the Zone; Zaton, to pass on important information to the bartender named Beard. But not everything is easy, in this area of the zone inexplicable things happen, like mass disappearances of individuals and groups of stalkers. But the main goal of our hero is to find Fox... (from the author).

The mod will last approximately 3 hours. Additionally, the graphics have been changed, new factions added and new characters added. (Source) (Download)

The creator of the "Bad Company 2: Mason" modification, which is expected to be released during 2021, has shared new information with players:

As for the graphical components in the mod, I am quite conservative with them. The mod won't have any compulsory addons built in, but leaving the player without anything would be wrong, so I've personally adapted two mods that will be installed separately, namely: Absolute Nature 4 with the Autumn preset and Weapons Remake 1.0, which only improves the look and sound of the vanilla weapons.

At the same time, I would like to note that I have not edited the engine in any way or tried to make personal changes to the graphics, which will allow modders to adapt any addons they like with almost no effort - from the developer. (Source)

New information about the development process!

A big bundle of news has come from the developers of The Edge of the Emerald Dawn. A great deal of work was done over the summer; the story was and still is being worked on. About half of the main quests have now been completed. Work has also finally begun on the final location of the mod.

The game engine was reworked, with which the author was assisted by the developers of the "Contract for a Good Life" modification. Such work, which will continue, has helped to make the mod significantly more technologically advanced than it was before.

Of course, the existing content was polished: scripts and bugs were fixed, and locations were repopulated. A number of flaws were tracked down thanks to the players who evaluated the beta version of the mod. The creator closely followed the players' reactions, watched the beta players - and made appropriate conclusions. Realising that the game takes too long to get going at the start and has too much exposition, the developer decided to add a prologue to the mod, which would help to increase the overall pacing of the mod and not let it get boring. In fact, all of July was spent working on this location.

In parallel with the development of this mod, the modmaker is helping with "Lost World" and "Forward Frontier" projects a bit on the level design side. But no need to worry about that - "The Edge of the Emerald Dawn" remains a top priority, and this will not affect its development.

In addition to this news, several new screenshots have been shown. They show the locations, the upgraded weapon pack, the snow-covered areas, and an excerpt from a scene where the cameraman is filming a journalist. That's certainly something we haven't seen before. (Source)

"Combat Training 3" has been released!

A new addition to the ranks of story mods based on the "Call of Chernobyl" project! The mod "Combat Training 3" was released, where players are given a chain of new tasks and an expanded set of maps. The main character of the mod, and undercover agent, who was called into the area to work after the Big Blowout. In the first quest players will need to get instructions and go to the task. Part of the quests will be given through the PDA. Playing the story mode is possible when playing for all factions except the Bandits, the Monolith and the Zombified.

This mod is very clearly focused on the shooting aspect, because the developers have added more than 160 weapons, reworked their characteristics and reworked almost everything related to the shooting.
In addition to the standard locations in the game, several new levels have been added, among which are maps from the builds and other mods. The exact number of maps is 57. A more detailed description is waiting for you on the forum. (Source) (Download)

OP-2.2 development news - Part 13

- Two pieces of documents for Voronin on Yantar have been moved into the limits of the location, there will be no more need to go outside the location.
- The models of the dead scientists’ corpses at the CNPP-1 and CNPP-2, related to the "Sniper" questline, have been replaced. Before they used the models of Lanky and Docent.
- The flag (in-game parameter - translator's note) has been changed for Walter (pistol - translator's note) at the northern checkpoint so that the NPCs wouldn’t steal it.
- Cross’ stash at X-16 Lab (hidden by Ariadne) will now spawn randomly in several places, but within the same room (with the Ghost’s corpse).
- RPK-16 has been added to the mod. Can be obtained through Contributions.
- Arkhara now has his own quest within the “Wave of mutants” questline.
- A new quest for Arnie has been added, available after the “Punisher” quest.
- All limited exchanges now have SMS counters.
- The order of dialogues for all NPCs has been standardized: 1 line - taking cyclic quest (blue color), 2 line - finishing cyclic quest (green color), 3 lines - exchanges (red color).
- “bind_convoy” and “bind_target” scripts are combined with “bind_quest_destroy” script.
- A shooting quest has been added to Arnie, available after Hog's shooting quest.
- Some edits of the cyclic quests and their texts. (Source)

The English translation team for Goldsphere is looking for native English speakers who can revise translated text and bring it to an acceptable English standard. This will greatly speed the revision process up and bring it closer... to completion! DM me for more info if you're interested. (This might not be the case anymore, I'm not sure, ask E'ruiq on the C-Con discord I suppose).

(From OnegRiot) I'm happy to announce the release of my latest hand-made translation for one of the highest rated mods on ap-pro: 'Short Story: Intruders'. The mod features a short 2-3 hour story with immersive stealth gameplay, high quality voice acting and scripted events.

I had a lot of fun playing and translating it, and hope you will enjoy it too. Clear up one evening for yourself to enjoy this experience. (Download)

Closed beta testing has begun for the third part of 'Kaidan's Chronicles' series of the mods, says the official community of the project. (Source)

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The Journey' author el_chupacabra published a new article with an FAQ and a short update on the current status of the mod. Full FAQ and other details can be found here.

A second trailer for the upcoming Bad Company 2 modification has been published and is set for release in 2021

In the new video, the developers emphasise that this will be the most varied story in the history of modding. More than 500 voice lines were recorded specially for the mod, about a hundred cinematic cutscenes and new gameplay features were created. If this video seems a little weird to you, don't be alarmed. That was probably the developers' intention. (Source)

NZK MOD 3.1 will add stories/quests from other well-known mods

If you missed the lack of story branches and quests in "Anomaly 1.5.1", you should definitely pay attention to the unofficial addon "NZK MOD 3.1". The developer of the build said that he added the entire NLC 7 storyline, "Variant Omega", quests from Dead Air Revolution and over 500 different side quests to the game! The storylines will run parallel to each other, and are not interconnected in any way. It is promised that completion of the mod with all the quests will take around 200 hours. In addition to all of this in the addon we should expect a ton of other content. Read more about it on the forum (see below).
(Source) (Forum Post)

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S.T.A.L.K.E.R. New Project - details on story and quests

Hard work continues on the story and dialogue in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R New Project modification. Several new bits of info about this part of the project were revealed in the developers' latest announcement:

The main story is not a necessary element of the gameplay, from almost the very beginning of the game you can freely explore the game world, which will consist of 4 or 5 locations. In addition to the main story line, the game will feature a host of secondary quests.

The most interesting quests will be the global legends, which cover one location and most of the characters in it. In quests of this type, the player will be able to visit secret locations, learn about the fates of different characters, and at the end reveal the main intrigue and legend of the location.

Quests narrating events within factions are planned. These type of quests will be called "Stories". The player will find out what is going on inside the stalker groups and participate in solving their problems.

Another type of quest will be quests that reveal details about the life of one or more characters. These will be called "Destinies". Here, the focus will be on certain personalities with their in-depth revealing.

The developers have a special approach to dialogue. When communicating with the characters, you can decide how to respond: with a rude or friendly tone, lie or tell the truth. All of this, one way or another, will affect the further course of events, which we can rarely predict.

Work on the locations is nearing completion, with their readiness close to 80-90%. In many places, the only thing left to do is detail the surroundings, including the soundscape. (Source)