S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Due in September 2006

The long awaited Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl game has been given an official release date, well, two of them actually. GSC Game World the developers of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. have commented on their own site ( www.stalker-game.com ) regarding the rumors arising from the recent Q&A session. Stalker, in it's infancy, has suffered many problems and delays, including a technology leak and termination of some staff members. The latest comments from the team confirm these terminations at only 5 out of 40 people, and that their next generation engine is still entirely their property and is in no danger of being sold out from under them. This is coupled with a reminder that there are no plans to postpone Stalker any further. For those of you that are unfamiliar with the Stalker game, it takes place in "The Zone" which is a fallout area riddled with radiation in radius around a Chernobyl nuclear power plant that has suffered meltdown. The Zone is off limits for obvious reasons, and cannot be studied due to the dangers inherent of rampant radiation and unexplained phenomena. Mysterious creatures, injuries and violent deaths are reported near the edges of the Zone and the Zone is getting bigger. This is presented with the X-Ray engine a brand new next generation engine that combines all the elements of modern gaming engines as well as adding it's own. Features such as dynamic weather, day/night cycles, unique AI, life simulation, weapon upgrades, physics, bullet ballistics, vast environments, incremental loading, and top notch graphical effects. So the first news arises in many months regarding the completion of Stalker. It has entered internal beta and a working demo has been sent to THQ for any final changes. In the event that THQ requests multiple changes the date could be pushed to the 'backup' time of Q1 2007. However the developers are confident that the game is nearing final completion and will hit the mark for September 2006. Our fingers are crossed.