r/stalker • u/OkAnalysis1682 Loner • 2d ago
TheZoneArt The unique Zone from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 concept arts
The Zone is full of dangers and wonders beyond our understanding, and the concept artists from Heart of Chornobyl illustrated this brilliantly in their work. Awe and dread fuse together in a single place to show the true nature of the unknown.
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u/AnotherSmartNickname Loner 1d ago
It did always occur strange to me that the region Malachite is called that but has nothing to do with crystals of any kind. This artwork explains the name and the idea behind it, too bad the concept was scrapped.
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u/GoProOnAYoYo 1d ago
I really do wish they weren't afraid to lean in to the weird of Stalker. S2 was nice, a fun game, but very "normal" if that makes sense. Even the anomalies in the game seem pretty tame, like they are very cool don't get me wrong, but more weird please. LET'S GET WEIRD
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u/aoxo Ecologist 1d ago
I've played a lot of S2, but there are times where it feels like I'm just walking around Chernobyl, it's like "The Zone" is something NPCs talk about, but we don't really get to see it. There was something about SoC that created an other-worldly sense, but S2 doesn't really have it.
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u/yeahnahyeahidkhey 1d ago
Shoc was dark and gloomy and had an ever present oppressive background track. You also spent way more time alone and never had characters with you on missions
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u/ThePortalGeek 1d ago
I’m missing those shimmer anomalies particularly from CS. That concept art brought me back to when I first had to navigate one of those
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u/susnaususplayer 1d ago
Call it whining but STALKER 2 potential wasnt even scratched. Devs shouldhave put some work past launch into adding new content to the game in form of new anomalies and similar
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u/Unyxxxis Freedom 1d ago
If you look at any decent game's concept art then compare it to the finished product you'll almost certainly feel similar. Games like Prey, New Vegas, Oblivion, hell, even the original Stalker games, all had crazy cool concept are that was not able or chosen to be added to the final game for whatever reason.
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u/Zalpha Ecologist 1d ago
Same with character art for any game. Tons of possible designs art works for each character that then only one version gets chosen, often the final character is a mix and match of the various design possibilities the artists came up with. A lot of art work goes discarded that we will never know of but were important for the final results. It has been a trend for a few studios to offer a behind the scenes look at the design process (Usually DLC extras) but not all do and basically every studio has that type of content done in the design phase of production.
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u/Unyxxxis Freedom 1d ago
Also, it is generally easier to come up with a bunch of fun creative ideas on paper through art vs actually implementing it in-game. OP posted multiple images that are explicitly included in S2, but obviously not to the detail or degree of the respective art.
Making games is hard, making games that look as sick as your hundreds of creative pieces of art is impossible. Things have to be cut or filtered. The level of detail in modern games is absolutely mind-boggling compared to when I was younger. Maybe the future will bring us closer to realizing game concepts as they're imagined.
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u/Starlight-Iisa 1d ago
Not really whining. They could still change the Zone by adding more unique stuff there when there are so many empty areas without anything special in them so at least having unique sights would be wonderful.
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u/Justhe3guy Loner 1d ago
Yeah you can tell they almost went very fantastical like the books and film but toned it back more in line with the trilogy, though it definitely steps up from them
People should leave feedback for next DLC/Next game on their feedback form
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u/wPatriot 1d ago
I think even making the existing anomalies feel less static would've helped a great deal. As much as the Zone is supposed to be 'ever changing', especially with regard to emissions, everything is always in the same place.
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u/bedazzledBungle Wish granter 1d ago
Hello, I've catalogued a ton of the leaked art in my discord server.
1 is concrete forest arch anomaly, 2 is Malachite arch anomaly , 3 is Iron forest arch anomaly (all 3 were cut), 4 Ive been told by an artist who worked all the way up to cost of hope that this was originally witches circle, but then was repurposed for the claw anomaly so that witches circle could shine in its own right.
5 is the same as 3, 6 is one of the common visual anomalies , 7 is either Kopachi or Prypiat, i don't remember, 8 was just a concept art, I don't remember any anomaly like this other than the portal forest but I'm pretty sure it wasn't in the red forest.
9 is the cut thunder field, which was an arch anomaly behind the concrete forest, back when the body of water there was land and had a village but was cut for time.
10 is called "Kalorifer" and we know nothing about it, 11 is one of Yaroslav's common visual anomalies, 12 is this really cool arch anomaly in zaton known as "scum" I might make a video on it, it was basically a giant barnacle from half life that had pretty flowers under it and would convince you with whispers to get closer, you'd go there for a Sultan quest.
13 is "gravity diesel" which did make it into the final game, but as water. 14 visual anomaly, 15 North Prypiat concept art of a location in the middle of it, 16 Korogod church, 17 Witches circle,
18 This was a cut electro anomaly variant, like how there is the maze electro anomalies in iron forest. 19 this is Doctor's house, back when it was in Korogod. 20 cut anomaly but I think it's the clicker/flashbang anomaly
A lot of these are from the AAASTALKER, which I don't recommend looking for, and the only available downloads online are injected with viruses, so don't risk it.
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u/OkAnalysis1682 Loner 1d ago
I loved your videos covering Korogod and Cold Island material.
We are lucky most of the concept arts are available for the public now, with the majority of them being used in the artbooks or published by their authors.
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u/bedazzledBungle Wish granter 1d ago
Lol funnily enough my Korogod video was extremely inaccurate, and now we're interviewing the dev that worked on the region, all for a future video redoing and correcting it.
Along with another planned one.
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u/EnsioPistooli 1d ago
Somw of these pics give me the same feeling I had when reading about anomalies in Roadside Picnic!
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u/Objective_Job_8822 1d ago
For me, those Anomaly Zones (like bubble, fire tornado and stuff like this) are THE BEST part of the Stalker. This is so goddamn beautiful, I want more of this in the game
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u/Tall_Irish_Guy 1d ago
As a long time series fan since 2007, I waited 2 years for a new laptop to play S2. I am absolutely blown away at how perfect this sequel is. It is everything I ever hoped for and they nailed it. I'm so happy and proud of the dev team.
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u/Thought-Form1999 1d ago
Anyone else get a feeling the Fallout series was really missing out on some artistic contortion and body horror by stopping nuclear disasters at just physical mutations? I mean, the Metro series uses post-nuclear anomalies, too.
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u/Tough-Hand-6566 1d ago
GSC would be perfect to make a game based on the annihilation books / film.
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u/EatingMannyPakwan 1d ago
I think ive seen similar on Pic no 4
Was it the Claw? or The thing from Stalker Anomaly?
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u/Thunderpants98 Freedom 1d ago
Creaming my pants looking at any Stalker 2 concept art. Stalker 2 is great, don't get me wrong... but we could have had some insane visuals
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u/Zoomerhun 1d ago
I wish they could capture the mood of these concepts more in S2. The game is nice and all, but these pictures are on another level