PR-manager of GSC Game World Zakhar Bocharov shared good news for STALKER fans in his microblog: one of the developers of the first part has joined the sequel team.

We are talking about Dmitry Yasenev, whom Bocharov called “one of the key” programmers of STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl and two independent additions to it – Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat.

In GSC Game World, Yasenev took the position of lead programmer, but his responsibilities are not specified. In the case of the first part, the developer is credited with creating the A-Life “life simulation” system.

Yaniv worked at GSC Game World for over nine years – from 2002 (artificial intelligence programmer) to 2011 (lead programmer), after which he moved to Vostok Games.

The programmer was listed in the Survarium development studio until October 2018. Since then, and before returning to GSC Game World, Yasenev managed to collaborate with Aurora Technologies, Dragon`s Lake Entertainment, and MemSQL.

As for STALKER 2, its developers had to switch to remote mode due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this, production is progressing even faster than planned.

STALKER 2 is confirmed only for PC and so far has only an approximate release date – according to Bocharov, the game will definitely go on sale “before the end of the century. ” In March 2020, the authors shared their debut screenshot.