Олександр КузьменкоGameDev Eng
3 September 2026, 10:33
2026-09-03
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 developers have no regrets about abandoning their own X-Ray engine despite the difficult transition to the new version of Unreal Engine
Ukrainian studio GSC Game World has released a large-scale update 2.0 for the game STALKER 2, timed to coincide with the release of the Cost of Hope expansion. The main technical change was the upgrade of the game engine from Unreal Engine 5.1 to Unreal Engine 5.5.4, which significantly improved the stability of the game, but required a huge effort from the developers.
Ukrainian studio GSC Game World has released a large-scale update 2.0 for the game STALKER 2, timed to coincide with the release of the Cost of Hope expansion. The main technical change was the upgrade of the game engine from Unreal Engine 5.1 to Unreal Engine 5.5.4, which significantly improved the stability of the game, but required a huge effort from the developers.
The studio’s executives spoke about this in an interview with PC Gamer during the Gamescom exhibition.
According to Maria Grigorovich, COO and Creative Director at GSC Game World, the post-release engine refinement process was extremely challenging. When asked about the adaptation process, she jokingly replied, «Can I cry?»
The difficulty was that the initial version of Unreal Engine 5.1 in the game contained a large amount of custom code created specifically for the project. Working with such a customized base turned out to be much more difficult than with a pure engine.
CEO Yevgeny Grigorovich explained that development began with Unreal Engine 4, with a subsequent transition to an early version of Unreal Engine 5. At that time, Epic Games' standard open-world tools did not meet the scale of STALKER 2, so the team created its own solutions. Later, Epic introduced analogues of these systems in new versions of the engine, which forced the developers to rework the architecture.
Despite the difficulties, the work on the update had a positive effect on previous versions of the game. The developers retroactively transferred the optimization solutions found to patch 1.7, which allowed to increase the performance of the project much earlier than the release of version 2.0.
GSC Game World also emphasized that they do not regret abandoning their own X-Ray engine, on which the original trilogy was based. Using the popular Unreal Engine simplifies the hiring of engineers and opens up better career prospects for the developers themselves.
Фейк про скасування релізу S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 у випадку нападу РФ на Україну підняв хайп в американському Twitter. Що пишуть користувачі
Фейкова новина про те, що через ймовірне вторгнення РФ в Україну продовження гри S. T. A. L. K. E. R. 2, розробленої українською геймстудією GSC Game World, може не вийти, викликала хайп в американському сегменті Twitter.
dev.ua поскролив стрічку мікроблогу і вибрав найцікавіші реакції.
«Ефект Cyberpunk 2077». S. T. A. L. K. E. R. 2, Elden Ring та інші очікувані ігри, реліз яких перенесли
Мало приємного, коли розробники переносять релізи ігор, яких геймери і так дуже довго чекали. Найчастіше відстрочку беруть, щоб «відполірувати» гру й пофіксити баги. Так було і з Cyberpunk 2077, який переносили неодноразово, що дуже дратувало користувачів, і з другою частиною Half-Life, і третім «Відьмаком». Врешті-решт, ці ігри отримали великий успіх.
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