Prerelease:S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky

This page details prerelease information and/or media for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky.

To do: screens vids

Sub-Pages

Interviews A whole lot of promises will never be fulfilled.

Development Cycle

Design Documents

The first ideas of the game appeared back in 2006, before the first game even got released. While half of the development team were polishing the existing game, the other half have already started their work in the next title. The earliest date relative to the game is 28.09.19, the creation date of the first design document ever known to the community, STALKER_Synopsis_Final 1.doc, which is a synopsis of the future game. It's written entirely in Russian, uses a lot of SoC screenshots (such as SoC Swamps), and since translation of the whole document is a huge job, I'll just showcase some notable things mentioned in it.

Main Storyline

Great Swamps

• It mentions that Clear Sky is formed of former C-Consciousness members. Even though this is later expanded in Call of Pripyat, the idea is never seen in the final version of Clear Sky.
• The starting cutscene is different - it mentions that Scar leads ISG scientists to the strange place near the center of the Zone.
• After blowout, Scar gets copied and his clone wakes up at Clear Sky base, as the playable character. The other Scar stays near the center of the Zone.
• The player wakes up not in a broken building but rather in a tent with a lot of engineering equipment of various kinds.
• Cold is not mentioned whatsoever. The character immediately receives a task from Lebedev upon waking up.
• Lebedev does not receive an SOS signal from the second outpost, instead, he says that the squad there has not been communicating for quite a long time, and asks Scar to check whether it's just a broken radio or something bad happened.
• Lebedev is the one to give Scar the equipment, not Suslov. Besides, it's just a pistol instead of a full basic set of equipment.

The Zone

• The Hospital is placed near Garbage. According to design documents, you were able to get there through the otherwise blocked tunnel near Depot. The Hospital, instead, leads you to Agroprom Undergrounds.

Early Development

The actual development started five months before SoC's release, in November of 2006.

2007

GSC have released the first screenshots of the game on their official website.

• 

  A very early image, dated August 2007. It's most likely footage from Build 3120 or a build close to it.

• 

  Ditto.

E3 Demo

A demo shown at E3. It looks exactly identical to Build 3120, but since E3 2007 was on 11-13th of July, its build number is ~3070-3088.

36 Minutes Present LQ

Debug

• There's some sort of debug information displayed in red text on top of the screen.
• Hovering the cursor over the squad shows various debug information about it, such as its current target and its internal name. The same kind of debug information can be seen in Build 3436.
• The player ammo counter shows "--" instead of overall ammo count. The same behaviour applies to multiplayer, but is likely used for testing in singleplayer.
• The player is invulnerable to any kind of damage, and this is indicated by a skull icon next to him. This cheat code is available in all prototypes of both Clear Sky and Shadow of Chernobyl and can be used in Build 3120 and Build 3436 by typing g_god on to console.

Sounds

• The Russian VA is totally different from the final, sometimes even using different voice actors. In cases where the voice actors are the same, the intonation and wording differs for almost every phrase.
• The unique faction x faction sound files are used there (the squad getting attacked mentions who exactly attacks them). They are present in the final game's files but not used.

Visuals

• Suslov uses the loner icon from SoC - the same one every single NPC uses in Build 3120.
• The icons for detectors reuse icons for devices from SoC.
• The Gravi still uses its SoC icon.
• The blocked artifact place is highlighted in red and crossed with a cross, not just blocked with a metal bar like in the final.
• A unique animation for falling from high places exists.
• There's a little 'Work in Progress' text, just like the one seen in Build 3120.

Gameplay

• Subtitles for all the dialogues are missing.
• The Russian text is slightly different. Nothing significant, just some more grammar and punctuational mistakes.
• The Gravi can be found in the anomaly field at the east of Cordon. In final game, it's usually just a Jellyfish or some other low-tier artifact.
• The player gets a quest to eliminate the enemy on other locations.
• The PDA has markings for every single point of interest, it also shows which kind of point that is and colours it if it's captured by enemies.
• The player is still shown as part of Clear Sky ranks even on Cordon, but this is probably due to him being teleported to Cordon for demonstration.
• Limansk and Red Forest are empty. When talking about RF, the dev mentions that 'there is, unfortunately, no way to show the way this level is played right now', so it's probably just for demonstration.

25 Minutes of Gameplay

• Unique characters lack their unique icons in subtitles.
• Beanpolev's subtitles starts with "(continuing the conversation)" which is missing in the final game.
• Cold's phrases overlap with his unique dialogue. (In vanilla that happens with other characters but not Cold.)
• Cold is using generic stalker icon in dialogue.
• Cold's bar music is the one that's on Agroprom base in the final game.
• The "We're under attack, help!" by second outpost is played right when you're talking (probably on timer), while in the final game it plays as soon as you exit the dialogue.
• The player seems to have all the detectors (for test) in his inventory by default.
• The icons for detectors still reuse icons for devices from SoC.
• Hunting rifle instead of sawn-off shotgun is being given by Suslov.
• Suslov and Cold have subtitles for their greeting phrases, something not there in the final game.
• After teleporting, Scar automatically takes binoculars instead of AK/rifle he'd took in the final game.
• There is rain while you're going to the second outpost. Clear weather is always set up unless you return to Clear Sky base.
• The Echo detector range is slighty smaller.
• The leather jacket uses a bandit jacket texture. Interestingly enough, the bandit jacket texture is missing in the final game, and it uses the sunrise suit texture instead.
• There are boars at second outpost, they only get there once you get a warning message from outpost guy in the final game.
• The outpost guy plays his Russian and English message at the same time. The interesting part there is the fact that there is a PDA version of this message at all - it's not here in the final game and never plays because you can hear only if you're close, thus eliminating the need of a PDA version of the message.
• Subtitles for Ivan Trodnik's message are missing.
• Leather jacket is the first quest instead of modified PM.
• You get a quest as soon as you pick it. In the final game, there's also 'Are you sure?' dialogue present.
• The distance at which 'Eliminate the enemy' tasks are given is slightly higher, so that you get the one on Pump faction while being at CS base (in the final game it's somewhere about Fishing hamlet).
• There is only counter attack phrase playing if no counter attack is planned. In the final game, it's two out of four.
• The storyline quests (at least 'Talk to Sidorovich') have the unique icon from Build 3120 instead of sharing the same icon for all storyline quests.
• The priority is messed up - at this point you should have the 'Take control over Great Swamps' quest have the higher priority and, therefore, be displayed.
• The current Faction War goals are not centered.
• The icons for Faction War progress are missing.
• Russian message for outpost guy is voiced by a different person and uses slightly different wording.