STALKER 2 gets bombastic new gunplay and combat trailer

While it may seem rather quaint and simplistic compared to modern hardcore tactical shooters like Escape From Tarkov, it’s a matter of fact that STALKER went above and beyond with its guns back in the day. That trend is primed to continue, too, if STALKER 2‘s new combat gameplay trailer is any indication.

In fact, GSC Game World has now taken STALKER‘s handling of weapons to its logical extreme: rails, M-LOKs, and all the other customization goodness now rule supreme. As Smoking Barrels aptly shows, you can safely expect STALKER 2 to cater to the vast majority of your gunplay needs. Need to switch a weapon’s caliber to accommodate less exotic ammunition? For sure. Want to slap a snazzy underbarrel shotgun to a high-grade sniper rifle? Why not! The Zone’s your oyster, from the look of things.

STALKER 2: Smoking Barrel gameplay trailer shows us how guns and attachments work

In the broadest possible sense, we now have a pretty solid idea of how STALKER 2‘s weapons will function:

• Low-grade modifications can be done on the fly (e.g., attaching an optics system or an aiming module).
• Complex modifications are completed at a technician’s table.
• There’s a non-insignificant amount of complexity related to the physics of firing a gun, as it used to be in the old STALKER games.
• Weapons degrade and jam, depending on their state.

Most of these things, granted, we did see coming. It’s still good to see them present and accounted for. In fact, STALKER 2 is seemingly taking things further in the direction of the more hardcore GAMMA and Anomaly mods when it comes to gunplay. Classic, baseline STALKER titles only ever featured a single type of optics per weapon type (SUSATs for NATO arms, PVS-14 for Warsaw pact guns), a universal silencer, and two thematically appropriate underbarrel launchers. Heart of Chornobyl has already shown off a bevy of exotic attachments, on the other hand, and seems to have modernized the upgrading systems across the board.

In a Reddit thread discussing the featured Smoking Barrel trailer, GSC developers have also shared some information on how STALKER 2‘s HUD will work. According to the community manager, the HUD can be fully customized depending on your preference, going so far as to only have an ammo counter and a health/stamina display shown at any given time. Since the old STALKER games of yore had an era-appropriate crusty UI going on, this, too, is excellent news.

I would like to complain a tad about the AI shown off in this trailer, however. In the trailer, none of the enemies appear to pose a serious threat and seemingly walk straight into Skif’s firing lines willy-nilly. Since we know that A-Life plays a big part in STALKER 2, I believe this is just trailer-tier AI being what it is for demonstration purposes. The community manager, of course, claims this is the case, so that’s nice.

With STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl”s November 20 release date drawing ever closer, it genuinely seems like we’ve finally entered GSC’s final marketing push. It’s worth remembering that STALKER 2 suffered a whole slew of various pushbacks over the years, so it shouldn’t be strange if the community is still uncertain whether it’s finally coming out. I myself am still a tad cynical, but I can’t help but feel like the hype is finally on point. Let’s see how this pans out.