In my head, a cold war has been raging between the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series and the Metro series for over a decade now. Both wage post-apocalyptic warfare across the Chernobyl disaster, and both are based on sci-fi novels. But between the two, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. always won the argument. I guess I always felt the Metro series was overly busy. Like I was on a Disney ride for Russian nuclear meltdown more than in an open world that would let me choke on the dangers of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
And just so you don't think I'm being a complete jerk, yes, there's a period between each and every letter of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. because it's an old acronym—"old" in the sense that acronyms were written that way before we gained our senses and, for the sake of sanity, stopped putting dots between acronyms that were more than two letters long. It means Scavengers, Trespassers, Adventurers, Loners, Killers, Explorers, and Robbers. There. Nobody said that spelling out the acronym wouldn't be ridiculous, too.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is the newly re-announced sequel to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat. But in case you aren't sure if this game is still anything more than an idea scrawled on a bar napkin, here's a 12-minute-long weapons beta test the developer was conducting two years ago.
This new trailer itself is ashy and dense with overgrowth. Rust cakes everything, from carnival rides to Soviet Bloc housing developments to the former Soviet Union's infamous subway system. Sorry, Metro, you had a good run, but the true Soviet disaster atmospheric winner is back.
