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= GSC Game World =

GSC Game World is a Ukrainian video game developer based in Kyiv. Founded in 1995 by Sergiy Grygorovych, it is best known for the Cossacks and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series of games. The company's name "GSC" is a Sergiy Grygorovych abbreviation. The first in Ukraine who has started localization PC games to Russian language. In 2002 it also became a publishing house – GSC World Publishing.

Getting started
The company was founded in 1995 by Sergiy Grygorovych (Сергій Костянтинович Григорович), who became its owner and chief executive officer (CEO). He came up with the company name and emblem while still at school, in 1990, at the age of 12. The company name consists of the founder surname and initials abbreviation – GSC: "Grygorovych Sergiy Constantinovich" (according to the official transliteration rules "Костянтинович" must be spelt as "Kostiantynovych" ). Later Sergiy explained this decision:

By 1996, at which point Grygorovych was sixteen years old, the company employed 15 people in a two-room apartment. Early employees included Grygorovych's younger brother, Evgeniy, and Andrew Prokhorov. The company was the first in Ukraine who started localization PC games to the Russian language and creating multimedia CD-ROM encyclopedias.

Game development
In 1997 the company started developing its first own game in the quest genre. But during the development process, the studio faced a lack of specific experience that led to some difficulties. Due to this, the development was abandoned soon.

In 1998, after the economic crisis in Russia, the GSC company reoriented to the Western market and real-time strategy games development. GSC tried to get a contract for the Warcraft 3 development with Blizzard Entertainment but failed. According to the GSC Game World CEO, refusal was due to the lack of trust to the East European studio and the company owner's youth. By the end of 1998, the company finished its debut commercial game, WarCraft 2000: Nuclear Epidemic. It was powered by its own engine, which later became the basis for Cossacks: European Wars development. The project sharply differed from other strategy games by the increased units limit on the map at once. At the beginning of 1999, the company released WarCraft 2000 for free download on the Internet. The development of Cossacks has begun, with simultaneous work on graphic and model assets for the DoomCraft project, which was closed six months later.

Company debut
In 2001, GSC Game World released the real-time strategy for Windows Cossacks: European Wars. It was the first game that brought financial success to the company and fame around the world. Later this year, the tactical first-person shooter Codename: Outbreak and addition to Cossacks named Cossacks: The Art of War. In the same year, GSC began developing a story-driven shooter based on the Stargate series concept and Aztec architecture. It was powered by a custom X-Ray Engine, which rendered high-quality images and supported almost all modern technologies of that day. The project name appeared, the Oblivion Lost.

In 2002, the company released combat hovercraft arcade racing game Hover Ace: Combat Racing Zone and another addition to the Cossacks series called Cossacks: Back to War. At the end of this year, a new real-time strategy game named American Conquest was released. Also, in March 2002, after the GSC Game World company trip to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, the Oblivion Lost concept was wholly revised and took the Chernobyl disaster as a foundation. The game was called Stalker: Oblivion Lost, but soon the name changed to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Oblivion Lost, due to copyright complications on the "Stalker" word used in the name of their game. The graphic part of the engine was reworked. The game was scheduled to release at the end of 2003.

In 2003, the company released the addition American Conquest: Fight Back and the first-person shooter FireStarter. Also, the development of the first-person shooter S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Oblivion Lost continues, and the THQ company becomes its publisher. By their recommendation, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl has become the official name of the further game that got the first accurate release date – the middle of 2004.

In 2004, GSC opened GSC World Publishing, a division that would publish GSC's games in countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States and in Europe. Together with Ubisoft on 20 November 2004, it published its own developed RTS game Alexander, the official game based on Oliver Stone's movie Alexander. The release of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl was postponed by THQ to 2005 due to the transition to a new render. In 2005, a sequel of the Cossacks strategy, Cossacks II: Napoleonic Wars, was released. Also in February 2005 release date of Shadow of Chernobyl was changed indefinitely. In 2006, the company released an addition Cossacks II: Battle for Europe for the Cossacks series and a new real-time strategy role-playing game, Heroes of Annihilated Empires. The company is making a statement that Shadow of Chernobyl should be released in the first quarter of 2007. At the beginning of the year, some GSC employees have left the company and founded 4A Games studio.

On 20 March 2007, the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl was officially released. On 24 March 2007, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. held the eighth position in the sales charts for various platforms and the first position among PC games according to the rating of British organization ELSPA. On 12 February 2008, the 950 thousand copies in the CIS and 700 thousand copies among the world were sold, which made S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl the most successful project of GSC Game World by the time.

The worldwide success of Shadow of Chernobyl pushed the company to develop the next project in the franchise. On 5 December 2007 was released cell phone game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Mobile, created by Qplaze in conjunction with GSC. On 22 August 2008 was released the stand-alone expansion S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, which became an original game prequel. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat was released on 2 October 2009 and became the second stand-alone expansion to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series and the original game sequel.

In 2009, GSC began work on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2. On 13 August 2010, GSC Game World officially announced the beginning of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 development on a new cross-platform engine. The release was scheduled for 2012. During the game's development, the company shrink from 200 employees to 50. It had previously been the largest video game developer in Eastern Europe. Financial services company Ernst & Young named Grygorovych "entrepreneur of the year" in February 2011. On 9 December 2011, the Ukrainian News Agency, published a message with a statement of GSC Game World CEO, Sergiy Grygorovych about its dissolution. Development of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 game has been discontinued as well. Grygorovych, stated that he did so for personal reasons. Studio spokesperson Valentine Yeltyshev said that the studio's financial situation played a minor role in the dissolution.

Revival
At the end of 2014, GSC Game World re-opened and announced that it was working on a new game. The company founder's brother Evgeniy Grygorovych (Євген Григорович) has become its new CEO. In May 2015, company announced Cossacks 3, a remake of the first Cossacks game, including "all its original gameplay". The game was released on 20 September 2016 on Steam, after which, the game was finalized and updated.

On 15 May 2018, GSC re-announced S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl. The game is scheduled to be released on 28 April 2022, for Microsoft Windows and the Xbox Series X/S.

Game engines
Vital Engine is a game engine created for Codename: Outbreak and later used for the Xenus games series (Boiling Point: Road to Hell and White Gold: War in Paradise) and The Precursors game by the Ukrainian developer Deep Shadows.

X-Ray Engine is a game engine created for the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games series. X-Ray uses the free physics engine Open Dynamics Engine elements.

Legacy
Studios formed by teams and members from the GSC studio:
 * Deep Shadows was founded 30 August 2001 in Kyiv by Sergiy Zabaryansky and Roman Lut. Deep Shadows games use the Vital Engine, developed by the company's founders while still in GSC Game World for Codename: Outbreak.
 * 4A Games was founded 2 March 2006, by S.T.A.L.K.E.R. a concept-art team member. The company's employees immediately started creating their debut project, Metro 2033: The Last Refuge. 4A Games has since developed the Metro game series.
 * Vostok Games was founded in 2012, after the studio was temporarily closed. The organization is currently developing and supporting the original post-apocalyptic online game Survarium. Also developed Fear the Wolves, a battle royale game released in 2019.
 * West-Games was founded in 2012, originally under the name Union Studio, by chief executive officer Eugene Kim, who had formerly been GSC's team lead and software developer. Kim had worked on GSC's canceled browser-based S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Online massively multiplayer online game, while five other employees had worked on prior S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games. In 2013, Union Studio reorganized as West-Games, and in June 2014, the studio launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter for a supposed spiritual successor to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. called Areal. The campaign was highly criticized because of the game's trailer, which almost exclusively used footage from previous S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games. When asked to provide images from the game, representatives of West-Games presented screenshots of a landscape that was a minorly modified version of a pre-designed asset available for purchase on the "Asset Store" for the Unity game engine. Several parties, including the "MISERY" mod developer, stated that the project was a scam.  Of the initially sought US $50,000, Areal raised almost $65,000, however, in July 2014, two days before its campaign closed, the project was suspended from Kickstarter, with Kickstarter citing guideline violations. West-Games initially claimed to have switched to private funding, though announced another crowdfunding campaign, this time on Wefunder, in December 2014, seeking $600,000 to produce a game called S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Apocalypse. When GSC reformed, the studio stated that West-Games was legally not allowed to develop a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game, as GSC held all rights to the franchise.
 * Flying Cafe for Semianimals was founded in 2015 by the creative director Ilya Tolmachev, who was previously engaged in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat. The company's debut game was Cradle.

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=S.T.A.L.K.E.R.=

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a games series, developed by GSC Game World, Ukraine. Created in the first-person shooter genre with RPG and action-adventure elements. Game events take place in the alternative world`s Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, Ukraine, our time. According to games, an unexpected anomalous (The Emission) affected the Zone in 2006. As a result, the physical, chemical, and biological processes on this territory changed. A lot of anomalies, artifacts, and mutants appeared. The influence of the Roadside Picnic novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky and the Stalker film, by Andrei Tarkovsky, based on it, is noticeable. “STALKER” is an acronym for Scavengers, Trespassers, Adventurers, Loners, Killers, Explorers and Robbers.

Setting
The franchise's actions take place in the Zone, an alternative Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ) version. Due to the activity of several classified laboratories that have been conducting experiments with psionic abilities, the new catastrophe had unleashed in 2006. It caused physical and meteorological phenomena all over the Zone and the flora and fauna mutation. The Zone is rich in anomalies — inexplicable phenomena that don't obey the laws of physics and common sense (like pillars of fire, lightning scatter, whirlwinds that tear everything that falls into them, etc).

Anomalies are creating the Artifacts, which are items with unique and extraordinary properties such as anti-gravity or radioactivity absorption. People, known as “stalkers”, are exploring the Zone to search for artifacts for personal enrichment. Many of them are working on their own, but there also are a bunch of factions. The «Duty» faction believes in the great danger of the Zone for humankind and wants to destroy it at any price. On the other hand, «Freedom» fraction members believe in the free Zone, which is accessible for everyone.

To protect the Zone from intruders, the Cordon was built by the Ukraine Military Forces. Also, military squads carry out operations in the Zone, like elimination missions or strategic points protection. The most dangerous of the Zone dwellers are humans and mutants, some of which possess psionic powers.

All protagonists have their own goals, differing from various factions. But they have to help each other. Typically, every game's primary goal is to reach the center of the Zone, with a lot of adventures, dangers, and risks on the way.

Shadow of Chernobyl (2007)
In the first game of the series, the player takes on the role of an amnesiac stalker referred to as the "Marked One", tasked with killing another stalker named Strelok. During the game, the protagonist uncovers clues to his past and true identity while helping other stalkers and fighting the mutated creatures that inhabit the Zone. Shadow of Chernobyl features seven endings. These endings are dependent on multiple factors, such as money earned during the game, supporting certain factions, or how much of the protagonist's memory was pieced together.

Clear Sky (2008)
Clear Sky, the second game released of the series, is a prequel to Shadow of Chernobyl. The player assumes the role of Scar, a veteran mercenary. The lone survivor following a huge energy emission he was caught in while guiding a group of scientists through the Zone, he is rescued by and works with Clear Sky, a faction dedicated to researching and understanding the nature of the Zone. Throughout the game, the player can choose to have Scar side with or against certain factions in the area to help achieve Clear Sky's goal.

Call of Pripyat (2009)
The third game in the series, Call of Pripyat takes place shortly after the events of Shadow of Chernobyl. Having discovered the open path to the center of the Zone, the government decides to take control of it via "Operation Fairway". Furthermore, they planned to investigate the territory before dispatching the main military force thoroughly. Despite these preparations, the military operation fails, with all helicopters crashing. In order to determine the cause of the crashes, the Security Service of Ukraine sends former stalker Major Alexander Degtyarev into the Zone.

Heart of Chernobyl (2022)
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was announced in August 2010, with an initial release date scheduled for 2012. Sergiy Grygorovych, CEO of GSC Game World, specified that the video game featured a completely new multi-platform engine, written by GSC itself. On 23 December 2011, GSC Game World announced they would be continuing development of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, despite an earlier announcement pointing to its cancellation. However, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was cancelled yet again by GSC Game World through a Twitter post on 25 April 2012.

Development of a new S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was announced on 15 May 2018 with a post on the Cossacks 3 Facebook page. The post links to a site that displays the text "S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 — 2.0.2.1.", implying a planned release year of 2021 powered by the Unreal Engine 4. In May 2018, Sergey Galyonkin, the creator of Steam Spy, tweeted that GSC Game World would create a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, using Unreal Engine 4. Shortly the GSC website mentioned that the company was working on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, and a teaser website appeared mentioning the release date of 2021. It was suggested that the game was still in the design phase, and was announced just before E3 2018 so it could find a publisher.

On 23 March 2020, GSC Game World published a screenshot of the game in development, promising they would share new information about the game in the coming months.

On 23 July 2020, it was announced that the game will be released in 2021 for Microsoft Windows and Xbox Series X/S, which will be the first time the series will be on consoles.

On 30 December 2020, an in-engine teaser of the game was released.

On 13 June 2021, the release date was confirmed for 28 April 2022 through a gameplay trailer at the E3 2021 Microsoft/Bethesda press conference. It also revealed it would be on Xbox Game Pass at launch.

Reception
The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series has positive reviews from popular gaming sites and were well received by critics. On Metacritic, which shows the average game rating as a percentage of 100, the games' calculated ratings are between 75 and 82 points.

By August 2010, the franchise had sold over 4 million copies. In August 2021, GSC and Koch Media is claiming over 15 million total sales for the franchise.

Related games
In 2010 the first game of the Metro game series was released. Metro it’s another series of Ukrainian first-person shooter games based on the Metro 2033 literature series, which was created by some ex-members of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. development team who left to form 4A Games in 2006 before the release of Shadow of Chernobyl.

The former S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 team opened a new studio, Vostok Games, in 2012. In 2015, they released a free-to-play massively multiplayer online first-person shooter game titled Survarium in the spirit of the franchise, using ideas they created for the cancelled sequel. Their new project is a battle royale game set in Chernobyl, titled Fear the Wolves.

In 2014, West-Games, which claimed to be composed of former S.T.A.L.K.E.R. core developers (according to both GSC Game World and Vostok Games, falsely) launched a Kickstarter campaign for a spiritual successor to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. first called Areal and then STALKER Apocalypse. While it managed to reach its goal of $50,000, multiple concerns were raised throughout the campaign about the project being a possible scam, and Kickstarter eventually suspended the campaign two days before its deadline, for undisclosed reasons.

In 2019, Alexey Sityanov, former game designer and story writer of Shadow of Chernobyl, Survarium and Sketch Tales, teamed up with The Farm 51 to work on their Kickstarter project, Chernobylite. The game features similar gameplay and themes to S.T.A.L.K.E.R, and the environment is based on the real Chernobyl exclusion zone, done by utilizing photogrammetry measurements. A stalker is introduced in the game as an antagonist, known as Black Stalker. Chernobylite released the first early access version of the game on October 16, 2019, on Steam.