It started out as a mod, but it had evolved to the point were it was going to be released by GSC Game World, the owner of STALKER, as an official add-on. Dezowave, the developer of Lost Alpha, had been collaborating with GSC for the past couple of years and had access to the STALKER source code.
Now it’s going to be released as a mod. The developers used the term early access to describe the free release. It isn’t what they intended for the final product, but since there’s an earlier build from November making the rounds online, they just going to release what they have since GSC pulled out of the deal.
Sounds like a victim of the old ways of doing business. If they started this now, they’d do the Kickstarter campaign first! If you’re already paid and already plan to do early access, leaks don’t matter as much.
They could probably still try to sell it. Maybe they’re just being cranky. Whatever, I’m looking forward to it. RIP STALKER 2.
We started to develop Lost Alpha in the summer of 2008. The project first started out as a modification to add back the cut levels which all Stalker fans knew of. After a while, it became more than just a modification, it became our dream game, how we saw S.T.A.L.K.E.R. We hope to give you the same feeling when you first played S.T.A.L.K.E.R. A new chapter with familiar elements without which S.T.A.L.K.E.R. would not be the game we all grew to love. Lost Alpha was a labour of love. We are passionate about it and we hope you all will enjoy it as much as we enjoyed creating it!
So what now? It was a hard decision to release the game in such a quick, and unplanned way.
I have to say, I’m very proud to our active team members, because we created something which is beyond our imagination. It looks awesome, it plays just fine, but somehow its still not perfect. However this is subjective to what we call perfect. We learned that if we only polish one part of the game, the rest will never fit. It was hard for us to find the golden way, because this is our first big project, but overall I would say we did a good job. On top of that, we will try to update the game whenever we can to make it even better than it is now. Keep in mind, we made all of this in our free time, and mainly for free to play, we did our best to make it very close to our dream game. We feel we succeeded in that, now the question remains: Is it close to what You have dreamed of? Let’s find it out together in the Zone!
Wow, this game’s still got it. I’m playing Lost Alpha now. I’m five hours in and there is a lot of new content here, like a remix on the original game. It’s a great way to return to the first game if you’ve already completed it once or twice. I almost forgot how much I love fighting the human AI in this series. So long as they’re fully alert – which doesn’t always happen because they’re dumb as bricks – they will flank and suppress in a believeable fashion. It’s so much fun to take out that first military base south of the starting location with a few broken-down weapons. And oh how I love the ragdolls after a clean headshot.
The engine looks great with the graphics updates they’ve done and it runs smoothly on my GTX 970. The trick is to turn the vision distance down almost all the way. It doesn’t seem to affect anything visible like you’d expect; it only takes away a few trees rendered in distant out-of-bounds areas. That boosted my framerate from the 40s to a solid 60 with just about everything else maxed out except for ridiculous things like grass shadows.
I’ve only had one crash in the first 5 hours. Not bad at all. The only downside to getting hooked on Lost Alpha is that I think I’m going to shelve the Misery mod for a couple years. It sounds like a lot of fun but I don’t want to get burned out.
Please write some more as you progress through the game, Tim. I’m really interested in trying this out once I’m done with Alien: Isolation.
On a side note - how is Misery 2.x these days? Last time I checked they’ve had quite a few patches post release. Is the game still so unbalanced when you start out? I remember headshots not doing much when I first tried it out (played a recon spec if that matters).
From reading the FAQ, it looks like some of the new content was inspired by the leaked alpha version and some was created from scratch by the mod team. I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily superior to the original. It reminds me of DLC from a developer B-team. The larger maps are annoying to run across until you get a vehicle – the physics of which are hilarious. The new quests also force you to run around a lot.
So far the best part is how they’ve remixed the original content. It’s keeping me on my toes. You get all the same story beats with slightly altered maps and rebalanced gunfights. They added a lot more vegetation that forces those conflicts to be closer and more tense. And gosh, I’ve shouted at my computer at least four times now. It’s amazing what a scare the AI can give you when they don’t pop out of cover and bark at you like the automatons in most modern-day shooters.
Unfortunately the team went a bit too far in some places. I just finished Lab X18 and I didn’t like the changes at all. They added some amateurish cutscenes and threw a lot of enemies into a location that ought to be filled with quiet dread. I don’t know if that’s from the leaked alpha or something they came up with by themselves. It’ll be interesting to check out the other changes and new locations to judge the quality level.
I had my second crash this morning. They were both walking around at random. It’s a negligible problem since this is one of those games you need to quicksave every 60 seconds.
Hah, normally I’d say don’t worry about it, but I’ve seen the crap you have in your backlog. :) So far this is a great way to spend at least 5+ hours with the original game. If you liked the early quests in Cordon and Agroprom, it’s a fresh coat of paint on all that. I’ll have to see about the rest of it because it looks like a significant time investment to get through all these zones.
Man, I love the look from this engine. It feels so good to be back in this universe.
I found a better car but it’s kind of a pain to get through some of the zones where the roads are blocked, like Garbage. In fact, I got my third crash when I tried to ram through a tree branch. :) There is still too much running around. I forgot it was like that even in the original game and now the maps are bigger. It wasn’t until Call of Pripyat that they solved the problem: three huge hub-style maps you could fast travel between. They made for a nice flow venturing out and then returning to base.
Anyway, I decided to consult a Lost Alpha wiki to find artifacts that provide increased stamina. Now at least I don’t have to rest as much.
The content is about the same as before: some interesting new maps and adventures coupled with goofy voice acting and plot, plus the aforementioned running all over the place. There is a little too much of an emphasis on combat against monsters right now. That always bugged me because you couldn’t scrounge ammo from them.
Most of the changes in Complete improve the game without significantly altering it.
At a minimum, I recommend you enable the repair services. It’s a feature that should have added into the original game, as it was in Clear Sky and CoP.
Quick tip for Lost Alpha: don’t quicksave in the middle of any scripted sequences, like in-game cutscenes or special events with a timer. I’ve had one time where reloading broke the script and I couldn’t proceed, then one time where it crashed the game. I don’t think the engine is equipped to handle this stuff. Make occasional unique saves.
Okay, thanks J Thomas. I set up Complete and didn’t touch any of the scripts.
Stupid dogs! Why did I waste my ammo on you? Nothing on that corpse.
My kingdom for a medkit.
Loner, I hope you remember I made my life much more difficult by helping you out.
One shot to the head is better than 5 to the chest. Thanks for reminding me, bandits.
So, I got stuck at the first bandits fight. I can’t make a dent in these guys with my pistol unless I get a head shot. With them alerted, getting that head shot is extremely challenging. Plus my load times are ridiculously long, so now I’m pretty frustrated.
That’s one of my favorite fights in the game and a big reason why I fell in love with it. That’s where I learned you can flank around enemies if you’re quiet and careful. Try taking a few pot shots, then running around the right side of the facility. When you kill one, try to grab his gun.
Tim’s advice is good. Keep in mind you’re really, really squishy at this point – and armed with a popgun. It gets better/easier, but that first fight does teach the value of caution/maneuver/flanking (as well as superior firepower)
I finished the Lost Alpha storyline. There is a freeplay mode and I have a lot left to explore, but I need to move on for now.
I give it 3 stars on the Tom Chick scale. It’s a really nice way to return to this universe, but it’s too uneven.
The outdoor levels are superb. I love the way they’ve rebalanced old favorites from SoC, brought in maps from Clear Sky, and created their own unique levels based on the alpha content. They’ve hand-placed loot in every out-of-the-way nook to reward exploration. There is so much variety and attention to detail. Anyone looking for a long-term adventure in this universe should consider this mod.
Unfortunately, the rest of the new content can be pretty dreadful. The storyline is poorly written and requires way too much backtracking. The cutscenes are slow and not well edited. The underground labs are terrible and include “goofy” touches like playing solitaire on a scientist’s computer. I got more crashes later in the game where apparently they’ve had less time to polish. The cars are cool but they force a lot of reloads from crashes after a hard impact or getting launched into the air by an anomaly.
Despite that, serious STALKER fans ought to invest a little time into Lost Alpha to see their unique twist on the original content and check out the vehicles. If you want to stay and explore, all the better. I don’t think there’s any rush to dive in because it sounds like they are still working on it. They even plan to do a “Director’s Cut” at some point. I’d love to check back in a couple years to see how everything turned out. It warms my heart to see these mods keeping the series alive.
