Project Areal - the little S.T.A.L.K.E.R successor that could, and then couldn’t, and then possibly could, and then who knows? - has finally received its very first piece of in-game footage.
While it’s not going to set the world on fire this does at least look like something approaching a proof of concept. President Putin will be pleased!
A brief rundown for the uninitiated - West Games revealed its plans for a Kickstarter-funded ”spiritual successor” to the popular wasteland survival game S.T.A.L.K.E.R last month, claiming it had several ”key members” of the original game’s development team on staff. Vostok Games, developer behind the free-to-play shooter Survarium and itself founded by former S.T.A.L.K.E.R devs, took issue with that claim (alongside mod team Misery) and the use of S.T.A.L.K.E.R artwork on the project’s Kickstarter page.
What followed was a succession of veiled threats, odd videos, alleged letters from Vladimir Putin (seriously) and back-and-forth mudslinging. For a thorough rundown I point you to Erik Kain’s stellar coverage over at Forbes.
Anyway, here at last we have some actual footage from the Areal project. A project which has now been successfully funded, despite the whole thing sending up so many red flags it looks like a North Korean rally.
[url=https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1577656602/areal/posts]
In a post[/url] on the game’s Kickstarter page the team criticise several games websites for their coverage of the ongoing drama, and, bizzarely, list a ”bunch of trolls” that have allegedly been trying to derail their project.
So now West Games has its crowd-funded money. The ball’s firmly in their court, time to prove they’ve got the goods to do what they’ve promised and create a real successor to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. The internet watches with interest/astonishment.
