The developer told how the locations in the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 were created

It's been over 3 weeks since S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl was released. The game was highly praised for its attention to detail in the Zone, its incredible atmosphere, and its preservation of the spirit of the previous parts. The level designers were responsible for recreating familiar locations in the Chernobyl Zone, and they did a difficult but no less interesting job.

This was told by the former Team Lead of GSC Game World level designers Denis Rudy in an interview with Mezha.

How the level designers recreated the map in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2

Denis participated in the development of the game from 2019 to 2023, holding the position of Team Lead in the GSC Game World level designer group. Thus, he was involved in the creation of the game from the very beginning.

Its development process began with the creation of a global map, which was a difficult but ambitious task. He needed to combine a real map of the Chernobyl zone with locations from the original parts of the game in a new story. First, he created a general blockout draft (level design draft) of the entire map, testing and thinking through metrics and routes.

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After several years of working on the game, he had a team of level designers, and the work began to be shared among all team members. Denys was left with Prolog, the Mala Zone region and, according to him, his favorite, the author's NDICHAZ (Research Institute of the Chernobyl Anomalous Zone).

According to Denis, it was very important to understand the real Zone, to see and feel its atmosphere.

“The company organized regular trips there. I've been to the Zone twice with team members and a few more on my own as a stalker”, — says Rudy.

There the team was engaged in collecting references and tried to get to places that could not be found on the Internet. The developer well remembered visiting the Jupiter plant, where he and his team explored its basements.

Exploring locations with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, it remains only to praise the developers of the game for the work they have done all these years. Similarity and attention to detail turned out to be at a very high level.