When "Stalker 2" was (re)announced in 2018, I was very excited, but also a little doubtful. It was first announced in 2010, but quickly stalled, and the production studio, GSC Game World, also stalled; when GSC made its triumphant return in 2015, it was Cossacks, not Stalker. Last year, however, a "Stalker 2" website appeared and some details leaked from a Russian YouTube channel.

And today, the official Stalker 2 Twitter page revealed that the new game will use the Unreal Engine.

The original Stalker game was made with its own X-Ray engine, which supported great visual effects (getting stuck outside at night was really uncomfortable) but was also jacked as hell. The Unreal Engine, in theory, allows for a smoother technical experience and "makes modding easier and more accessible."

"User modding helps keep the world of the Zone alive while we are busy working on the sequel, and we couldn't be more grateful," GSC Gameworld said in its announcement.

As for whether "Stalker 2" will be available exclusively on the Epic Games Store (Epic also produces the Unreal Engine), the studio said only that "we will talk about this later."

This is actually not the first time Stalker 2 has been associated with the Unreal Engine: Sergey Galyonkin, Epic's director of publishing strategy, was not too subtle about it in 2018 when the project was revived. He dropped a hint. The original tweet has since been deleted, but the Internet remembers.

Stalker 2 was originally expected to be released in 2021, but that date has since been removed from stalker2.com, so it's anyone's guess at this point. In the meantime, the long-awaited Gunslinger mod for Stalker is now available: with weapon overhauls, new animations, and other enhanced features, the long-awaited Gunslinger mod for Call of Pripyat is finally in open beta.