When Ukrainian developer GSC Game World released the apocalyptic adventure Stalker in 2007, it was considered a bleakly improbable piece of speculative fiction. Heavily inspired by cult novel Roadside Picnic, it imagined an alternative timeline in which a scientific experiment in 2006 caused a second Chornobyl disaster and a vast irradiated zone filled with powerful space-time anomalies, in which the only inhabitants were mutants and the titular stalkers: men who wandered the wastelands looking for valuable artefacts.
The sequel, however, arrives in a very different world, its lengthy development period having been affected by both the Covid pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Now the Stalker vision is a lot less improbable and its speculation has a much greater sense of urgency and authenticity.
