Despite being one of the biggest Unreal Engine 5 games ever, Stalker 2's locations are almost entirely hand-crafted: 'It took a lot of time, took a lot of effort, but we're happy with the result'

Stalker 2 is set to be a big game: The official FAQ says the game map is more than 60 square kilometers in size, making it "one of the biggest open worlds in videogames to date." Despite that size, Stalker 2 technical producer Evgeniy Kulik told PC Gamer that the studio is not relying on procedural generation to bring it to life: Every location in the game is made "by hand."

GSC Game World is using Unreal Engine 5 to make Stalker 2, Kulik said, which presents its own unique challenges because as far as he knows, no other game using the engine is as big or geographically varied. Stalker 2 programmers had to make their own tools so level designers and artists could properly build the game.

"We invested quite a lot of ourselves and our talents to create these amazing assets," Kulik said during a chat at Gamescom. "Because all locations you may notice in the game, from the big ones to the smallest villages, are made all by hand. We didn't use, like, almost any procedural generation for this.

"All locations are made by hand by our level designers [and] level artists. It's quite challenging but this helps us to create this unique atmosphere and locations. There are a lot of details."

Developers opted for the handcrafted approach despite Stalker 2's massive size simply "because we set really high standards" for the game, Kulik continued. "Our drive [was] to make the best possible experience, absolutely unique locations, that can be absolutely memorable.

"We tried to do some procedural generation, but came up with the decision that it doesn't quite fit the needs—doesn't meet our expectation about the quality standard of gameplay and visuals as well. So we made the decision to make this happen and make every single [location] unique. It took a lot of time, took a lot of effort, but we're happy with the result."

GSC Game World gave us our first real look at Stalker 2 earlier this month with a 35-minute deep dive video set in the game's Swamps region, a location first seen in Stalker: Clear Sky. The studio said at the time that it wanted to ensure players have an "authentic" Stalker experience in the new game, and while that might be stretching the definition of the term a bit, I am growing increasingly eager to get my hands on this game. Which will finally happen in just three months: Stalker 2 is set to launch on November 20.