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Олег ОнопрієнкоGameDev Eng
27 March 2026, 09:01
2026-03-27
Return to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the war between Dog and Volya, new secrets. Detailed analysis of the trailer for the new addition to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Cost of Hope
At the Xbox Partner Preview presentation, Ukrainian studio GSC showed the first major story expansion for STALKER 2 called "The Price of Hope." The developers promise dozens of hours of gameplay in new locations, including events that will also take place on the territory of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. We analyze the trailer in detail and tell you what awaits players in the Exclusion Zone this summer.
At the Xbox Partner Preview presentation, Ukrainian studio GSC showed the first major story expansion for STALKER 2 called "The Price of Hope." The developers promise dozens of hours of gameplay in new locations, including events that will also take place on the territory of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. We analyze the trailer in detail and tell you what awaits players in the Exclusion Zone this summer.
The article contains potential spoilers for the main game and possible speculation about the new expansion.
The newly announced new expansion for STALKER 2 turned out to be even more ambitious than fans of the series expected. And achieving this was not easy, because expectations for the expansion, which was announced a year and a half after the game's release, were more than simply high.
The trailer for the expansion begins with a room with a hermetic door, familiar to fans of the series. We have seen this door a good dozen times in previous trailers, but now the room is covered in greenery and plants. Graffiti with the symbols of the key factions for the games in the series - Will and Duty - immediately catches the eye. It seems that they will become even more key in the expansion.
The next shot is a bar near the Arena in Rostock.
In the original trilogy, Rostock was ruled by Dolg, but after arriving in the Guard Zone and concluding a non-aggression pact with D4, Rostock passed to new owners - the Volya group.
As is often the case in the Zone, random stalkers tell each other stories over a drink. Today's topic is how Duty and Will beat the pots.
Coincidentally, the sequel's main character, the stalker Skif, is sitting at the next table. Who else but him really knows what happened that rainy night?
Of the interesting moments, it is worth noting that on the bar counter near Ganja - the traditional bartender of Volya - there is a transparent glass. This is the second time this item has been demonstrated. Nothing special, but avid fans know that in the current version of the game the glasses are blue-green and matte. The transparent glasses hint at the long-awaited migration of the game engine from version UE 5.1 to version UE 5.5.4.
Another interesting detail is that the Scythian is wearing a specific version of the Zorya suit. The suit itself is probably the most popular in the Zone, but its rubberized version is extremely rare (for example, from the merchant on Terikon - Drabadan). The black version of such armor is the first time it has been seen in the game.
Dolga now (again) has his own helicopter.
That night, Duty and Will “face each other” for the first time in a long time. In this scene, Duty represents two familiar characters at once. However, both are also somewhat of a surprise.
Let's start with Voronin, the leader of the group. For reasons unknown to us, his appearance has changed significantly. Now he unmistakably resembles the famous Ukrainian actor Oleksiy Gorbunov. It seems that he played a key role in creating this character in the add-on. Since the trailer is voiced in English, it is not yet known whether the actor also contributed to the voice acting for this role.
The second character is the stocky, kind-hearted Zulus, known to us from Call of Pripyat. He was not personally present in the base version of Heart of Chernobyl, but he was repeatedly mentioned by other debtors. Skif could also hear his audio message through the PDA in a certain game situation.
Volya is represented in this scene by a character who is still unknown to us and has no name. This is clearly not Miklukha, who led Volya in the sequel, but we have a feeling that we will find out who he is very soon. Perhaps even before the release of the new expansion.
The following shots are of the Chernobyl NPP, forgotten and abandoned by everyone.
“You can’t get there,” a stalker named Richter previously mentioned. It looks like that could change very soon.
The next frame shows us two new features at once:
A new location, the Iron Forest, south of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, as well as a new type of weapon — the H&K G3, or more precisely, its shortened version for German paratroopers. How it got into the Zone — apparently, even the IUCN does not know.
NDICHAZ after the Signal.
Although NDIICHAZ is not a new location for the main version of the game - its tattered version was closed to exploration by players after certain plot events.
Here we also see a new type of weapon - the H&K 433.
While the irritated representatives of the warring factions are sorting out the relationship in the audio track, we see another new location on the screen, which is currently inaccessible.
Most likely, this is the famous Artifact Farm - the place where the director of the research institute, Dr. Dmitry Dalin, planned to synthesize Alpha - an artifact that is the key to everything in the Zone.
Of interest, you can notice a new bracket for attaching sights to the already known SVU-MK S-3.
The next shot left no true fan of the original trilogy indifferent - the legendary X16 laboratory on Amber once again opens its doors to players.
We remind you that this laboratory is unavailable in the basic version of the game, as in all other games in the series, except for the original Shadow of Chernobyl.
The next important step for fan service was a shot of a tunnel to Lymansk, a bizarre city that only appears in Clear Sky, the prequel to the original game.
The bracket for mounting sights on an AK also seems to be a novelty to us.
We also really want to interpret the following shot as a presentation of the Abandoned Hospital location from Clear Sky, but we will be skeptical and assume that we do not yet have enough information to draw such radical conclusions.
Meanwhile, the dispute between the commanders of Duty and Will continues. Neither Zulus nor Scyth intervenes tactically.
The main leitmotif of the conflict is the D4 non-aggression pact, which was signed in 2013. It seems that some of them have reason to believe that this agreement will not last long.
Meanwhile, the Skif is seen descending into the destroyed fourth power unit of the Chernobyl NPP in the video.
Here we also see the reactor hall of one of the surviving power units, where the main character shoots at two mutants - poltergeists.
Next is every stalker's favorite pastime - shooting at snorks with a shotgun. We were unable to identify the location of the action, but we can thoughtfully imagine that this is part of the overpass from Jupiter to Pripyat - the road that Major Degtyarev and his team once took in "The Call of Pripyat."
The following shots may be somewhat unexpected. Zulus, an ideological debtor to the core, is literally fighting to the death with his immediate commander, General Voronin.
Time will tell whether Scyth will be able to choose a side in this conflict.
We then see Skiff and Zulus working together to fend off a mutant attack on a working monorail car. Up until this point, the monorail has only appeared a few times in the game, but never in a dynamic way.
The next shot is the so-called golden corridor of the Chernobyl NPP, a section near BShU1. This is a corridor known in certain circles, stretching through almost the entire station for a distance of over 1 kilometer.
A few seconds of teaser trailer was released on the eve of the presentation, showing the Chernobyl corridor, and a month before that, GSC released a music video showing the control room of reactor 4. The developers openly hinted that the first addition would allow exploring the nuclear power plant.
The next frame takes us back to the advanced institute of humanity - NDICHAZ. However, again in its destroyed form. The player explores the technical room, where until recently the mechanisms that protected the territory of the institute from dangerous manifestations of anomalous energy emissions and anomalies were working.
Now it is just ruins and another object for research.
An interesting fact is that in the hands of Skif is the Svarog detector - a unique prototype of the detector from "Call of Pripyat", which, in addition to gameplay features, could detect spatial anomalies-teleports in the previous game in the series.
We may have to use this feature again, but within the expanded plot of "Hearts of Chernobyl."
The next shot is a cutscene in which Skif shoots a mercenary in an unknown location. We know about the mercenaries' role in finding a mysterious radio transmission from the free Untold Stories expansion, so perhaps these things are somehow connected here.
Next, we see a Debtor in an exoskeleton holding Skif above the ground. Let's assume that this Debtor is the guide Jaeger from the Cement Plant. And although we have no evidence for this theory, the unusual weapon in the hands of the experienced stalker gives him away as a vintage enthusiast.
After all, the attacker is armed, with a high probability, with a rare and currently rare weapon - the Soviet Tokarev sniper rifle - SVT 40.
But what's even more disturbing is the next cut to an unknown person or mutant attacking Skiff with hydraulic arms. This entity looks pretty scary, but what immediately catches our eye is its strange helmet, which we've seen in two places before.
The first time we saw such a helmet was during the Untold Stories story expansion on a table in Doug's location. The second time we saw this helmet was in the trailer for the new music tracks, World Radio Day Beats.
Perhaps this is a new type of mutant called a cadaver. Notes about it could be read in the official English-language artbook of the game, and in one of the patches an anecdote was added about it.
"The result of experiments aimed at a single goal: creating the perfect soldier. The scientists behind Project X clearly had a hand in creating these monsters. Despite being a recent addition to the Zone's bestiary, they have already become the subject of many a horror story told around the campfire," the mutant's description reads.
If this is indeed a cadaver, then its appearance has changed significantly from the original art.
The next and final step in the expansion trailer is the continuation of the thread of dialogue that we hear throughout the trailer. Namely, the rupture of the D4 treaty between Will and Duty. And thus, the state of war between the factions returns.
The final shot is the final art.
Zulus, an opposition character in the Dolg faction, and Mavka, an opposition character in the Volya faction.
It appears they will cooperate to broker a new peace agreement between Dolgo and Volya, against the decisions of their direct command. Whose side will Scyth take? Who will he choose in this story and what price will everyone be willing to pay? The question is entirely up to you.
But that's not all. Even after the final part of the trailer, GSC managed to surprise players.
Brain in a Jar is a direct reference to the already mentioned X16.
But the child's voice and the living "embryo" are the culmination of the whole story. The zone, as always, is multifaceted. On the one hand, politics and human relations, and on the other, the supernatural and mystical. Something that gives goosebumps.
We'll find out what the role of the embryos in the flasks is and what they're capable of this summer. The add-on's pages are already active on digital platforms, the price is still unknown, but owners of the Ultimate edition will receive it for free.
And if you want to replay the original game before the release of "Price of Hope", we recommend that you check out dev.ua's article on how STALKER 2 has changed since its release .
