STALKER 2 has existed mainly in the form of hints and rumours on the edge of our collective peripheral vision for the past couple years, but now it has an actual teaser trailer. The STALKER 2 reveal trailer debuted at the Xbox Games Showcase, and it has all the creepy STALKER atmosphere you could hope for, all in sharp-looking Unreal Engine visuals.
The trailer opens on a rusty metal door bearing a GSC Gameworlds logo, and the shot switches to a gloomy view of the famous Ferris wheel at Pripyat, the city near the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. Leaves and other detritus hangs eerily in the air, and we cut to a subterranean tunnel, presumably in some kind of bunker complex, lit only by a revolving red warning light.
The trailer cuts to shots of various anomalies, one causing strange gravitational effects, and another centred on a glowing orange artifact – which you’ll remember as a valuable item from the original STALKER.
Here’s the trailer:
Another shot shows us some kind of misshapen fetal creature held in a glass incubation tube, in an underground chamber housing what appears to be dozens of them. Gross.
Finally, we see the titular stalker walking through the forest toward the iconic old Duga radar array near Pripyat. The figure turns toward the camera, face obscured by a gas mask, before the trailer cuts to black.
On the official Xbox site, STALKER 2 is described as “one of the biggest open-worlds to date,” which is a pretty massive claim to be making with all the gigantic open world games out there now.
“All the choices across the way not only define your own epic story, but influence the future itself. Be mindful about what you see, do and plan, as you will have to find your way through the Zone or be forever lost to it,” the description reads.
The only other information in the trailer is that STALKER 2 will be appearing on Xbox Series X and Windows PC, and will be available on Game Pass. We’ll have to wait a bit longer to find out when the STALKER 2 release date is.
Be sure to check out the rest of our Xbox Games Showcase coverage.