Just to gauge what lemmys saying. I’ve had my head buried in Stalker 2 forum thread for the past week. Its polarising with one side saying “its a blast” the other “its a fucking dumpster fire”.
Anyway I think stalker 2 will get GoTY. I don’t think Stalker 2 is GoTY tho…
I haven’t played Stalker 2 so I don’t really have a dog in this fight, but it’s very politically charged and has Russian state sponsored disinformation campaigns running against it. I’m not sure that you can get a truly accurate read of it online.
The developers are Ukrainian, and development had to be paused because their office literally turned into a warzone. The fact that the game came out at all is extremely based, and that certainly adds to the mythology around the game. But again, I haven’t played it, and gameplay-wise that doesn’t actually indicate anything about the game.
I want the game to succeed because of the developers’ existential struggle. The people causing that existential struggle want the game to fail. Neither of us have actually played the game, so again, there’s all this bias around it and we haven’t even looked at gameplay yet.
Be skeptical of anything you read online
This is the actual propaganda. Play the victim card for sympathy votes…
Well of course the victim is going to play the victim. That’s just good marketing - and what is marketing if not propaganda?
Your comment reads as though the invading state’s actions aren’t propaganda. This is the whole reason why I came here to warn people to be skeptical of what they read online.
In an ironic twist, here’s an online source about the Russian disinformation campaign telling citizens that if you play Stalker 2 you’ll be drafted to fight in Ukraine against Russia.
Again, you should be skeptical of what you read online. In a vacuum, I’m inclined to believe the victim of invasion. In reality, I know that the situation is more nuanced - although the credibility of the aggressor is extremely suspect.
For what it’s worth, my impression on the game is that it’s yet another over-hyped game that couldn’t possibly live up to its expectations. The developers are financially incentivized to deflect that criticism through any means available to them. But that doesn’t mean I don’t acknowledge that malicious actors are also trying to discredit the game.
I’ll buy the game in a year when most game breaking bugs have been corrected. I’m a fan of GSC and own the three prior games. My favorite is Call of Pripyat, it was so revolutionary that I was able to identify pripyat in film. I love these games. That said, that whole “Russian campaign” to discredit S2 is complete and utter BS. As soon as you start digging there’s literally no credible source for that info. It was a clever marketing ploy, good on them. It still doesn’t make the bugs not exist and the fact they sold their souls to MS and had to release a broken game because Ms likely refused to concede any further extensions is the real news there, but, of course, the marketing machine had to redirect from the fact MS is to blame for the state the game released in. The head of GSC tweeted the could not further delay the game. Anyone can read between the lines. Fuck MS.