As we can read on Wikipedia STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, previously known as Stalker: Oblivion Lost, is a PC FPS by Ukrainian developer GSC Game World, published in 2007. The game was first announced in November 2001 and had its release date, originally in 2003, pushed back several times. Due to the delays some considered Stalker to be vaporware.
While the game was really released in the end, the final version was somewhat different from the original Oblivion Lost prototype: in late December 2003, a pre-alpha build (vr 1096) of STALKER was already leaked to peer-to-peer file sharing networks, and fans of the game were then able to compare it to the final build and find some of those differences.
Last week another Alpha (vr 1935) of STAKER was made available to download and this time, it came from its own developers: on the 25 February, GSC Game World released the STALKER “‘xrCore’ build 1935, Oct 18 2004″ on their official forum! You can find links and mirros for the download in that topic.
Gamers are now able to try this early version of the game and all the changes that were made on the final project can be found and preserved. Huge props to GSC! More studios should follow their example and share interesting informations from their gaming development. It’s sad when important pieces of gaming history like these are lost forever because no one cares to preserve them somehow.
As we can read on Rock Paper Shotgun: “S:OL was also a dramatically larger game than S:SOC. While plenty of locations are familiar, there’s a distinct lack of those cocking indestructible barbed wire fences that so hobbled free-form adventuring in S:SOC. To make this huge world navigable, build 1935 includes driveable vehicles”
Thanks to Robert Seddon for the contribution!
Videos:
