Blowout alert - it is about to happen. Xbox stream schedule says the showcase will be ~45 mins of enormous content to enjoy. Should the timing be right, stream will last 7pm throughout 7:45pm, be ready for the atmospheric bomb.
Join in official stream or ItsTommyLove stream where we will brainstorm like nuts, have a chat, claim the game is downgraded, praise Anomaly, hate on Demosfen, confess your failed Holy Run. Whatever.
UPDATE 1 - STREAM:
6:55 PM: Pre-event madness takes over.
6:58 PM: 2 minutes left!
6:59 PM: 1 minute left!
7:00 PM: Event starts!
7:01 PM: Scenes from so far released trailers are on the screen, Mariia Grygorovych (Creative Director) & Evgeniy Gryvorovych (Game Director) interview.
7:02 PM: Dzmitry Anoshka (Level Art Team Lead) interview, Scenes from Garbage, near the Duga Array, city of Pripyat
7:03 PM: Ingwar Dovgoteles (Cinematic Lead) interview. Anoshka continues, Mariia talks the vastness of the Zone, scenes of residential building in Pripyat roll on, Evgeniy continues saying there are no barriers in the game and player can go anywhere, SVU scene kicks in from one of the teasers, shifting into a walk across rail tracks, carrying a MP5 submachine gun
7:04 PM: Anosha says the map divided in 20 regions, Truck Cemetery scene, Pripyat at night scene, Kart playground scene, Scale of buildings in Pripyat for comparison, Beautiful mosaic building, Beautiful forested area with a flesh passing by, Rostok building, CNPP, A look at the CNPP covered in the fog in the distance, Quick look at the interior of the residential buildings in Pripyat, Famous car park in Cordon where the first SoC quest happens to be, Perhaps the back side of the CNPP, Lovely Rookie village, baby, Mariia explains what makes Stalker... Stalker...
7:05-31 PM: Quest walkthrough starts.
7:05 PM: We are in the Swamps holding an AR, Time to see where we are going on the PDA device, Woah, lovely map of the region, The Church shines on the horizon, Going around we find a bag on the truck seat we pick a Non-Stop drink from, Switch to our pistol, Shoot a dog ahead, Take out the pump-action shotty, Weapon selection wheel comes for a sec, Shoot couple dogs with the shotty to deal with the nasty doggos, Pull out the pistol to finish em off, Use a health regen syringe, Apply a bandage once to stop bleeding, We go through Burners to obtain Mama's Beads at one point, Pick up couple items and loot two Vodka bottles from a bag left nearby, Some ammo left over we also pick, Deactivate a Psi-beacon, Picking up a recording for a quest "Recordings from Kalancha", Proceeding further by clearing our way with the bolts, get caught by Psi-Pseudodogs, Shoot an explosivfe barrel, Moving on, we pull up the PDA again and listen to audio recording of Clear Sky telling they had emergency situation and had to leave the base - spoilers ahead, Now we are closing near the Church, Wonderful crows above us, It gets dark, We drink a lil Vodka, Open our inventory to manage items, We spot a hole in the ground looking to be the Church wine cellar, We go around the hole, find the entrance and throw a nade, clear our way through then enter, Wipe couple tushkanos, Reach a door, locked though, Time to look up the key, Peek through a hole in the wall, Clumb up an object, shoot at the lock, Peeking thru, nobody inside, More items to loot, GP37 ammo, grenades, stuff, We reach a wire trap, remove it so we can pass and in front of us we see the huge Church, Switching to GP37, Is that a Bayun howl... yes it is, Taking it to to the top of the Holy Building, Mutants down below, Keep clearing them off, We take the items of a deceased somebody turned into skeleton, Now we back on the floor looking for something, Oh we back on the roof to turn the beacons Clear Sky installed, continuing the Kalancha quest, Another audio recording plays. Jumping out from one of the windows of the Bell floor, Mariia explains details, Its almost night time, we find a watch tower and climb to the top, On our way to the top, we break couple crates used as stairs, Disarm another wire trap. On top, lie couple crates and items on them, gather everything, Evgeniy continues explaining, SVU couple Zombified shits from above, Switch to GP37, Burners around, Time to bolt at them, And we back to the center of the Swamps with the water tanks, A controller in sights, Further, he coming at us, Shooting at to eliminate him, he dies, Bandits get in the fight, Mariya continues, Bandits screaming in anger, More bandit takedowns using the AR I still fail to remember the name of, Seems we now have animation of taking weapons and other items out of out backpack, Ingwar explains about the Controller, Hopping on top of the tower at the base, Evgeniy pitches in, We open the PDA, play another audio recording - of Faust explaining, you-know-what, Monolith business, Onto the swamp fields again, Usain Bolting through the open ground, Anoshka continues, Evgeniy takes over, Switching between AR and shotgun, Comes the part where we see animal skulls on the ground, maybe mutant lair, And look at that, the almost fallen watch tower from E3 trailer unveils in the front of us, Whirligig is next to it, Up the ladder we go, another beacon to be deactivated, Item looting, cant leave good stuff behind, Atmospheric music goes hard, Its full of Whirligigs around the place, holy shit, No, is that... its a Flesh, falls into one of the Whirlies, explodes to bits, Another one enters another Whirli, boom, guts flying like shit, Passing around the anomalies trying not to be killed, Strider audio log plays, Running through the Swamp continues, Almost stepping into another anomaly, Evgeniy confirm no leveling system exists in the game, Player proceeds further. We reach a floating house, seems not so abandoned at first, multiple devices and items inside, its irradiated area, Emission kicks in, sky goes dark, GOES HARD I meant to say, Lighting storm starts, Mariya continues, Scene transitions to an underground hideout, rushing to find cover from the Emission, Headlamp flickers, strange voices occur, Suddenly everything goes creepier in a mere second, Monolith cutscene merged with behind-the-scenes mocap scenes, Recording session of Korshunov segment from Come To Me, Dalin recording session, Fighting the strange guy with the pistol from CTM follows, Ingwar goes on the characters and the vision, Here come the part when Enter The Zone trailer mocap was done, Recording sessions for the Not a Paradise trailer with Richter makeup, What, a burning snork encounter comes on the screen, totally unexpected, Topaz deploying for taking measurements - scene from previously released trailer, Doctors segment, couple seconds of fame. Moments of the Striders mocap, As usual, spoilers here and there.
7:32 PM: Evgeniy continues on the importance of the series, Another guy I failed to remember his name speaks, "The only hope is down there in the abyss" - yes, it is, man!
7:33 PM: Evgeniy continues, Ingwar continues.
7:34 PM: More behind the scenes footage from the office, Evgeniy continues.
7:35 PM: Mosaics galore, Duty checkpoint, Zalissya, Rostok checkpoint, Some other place with wicked yuge machines, Technician working his craft, One scene from the teaser, Bar, Jupiter digger, Another scene from the teaser, Burning building, Night walkaround, Scenes from NAP trailer, Evgeniy continues, Mariya continues.
7:36 PM: STALKER 2 logo fades out. Demonstration ends.
Note: since I couldn't keep up with the amount of stuff coming in and out, I missed a lot. Advise you to rewatch the video frame-by-frame to process everything.
UPDATE 2 - POST-STREAM:
Ayyy, at damn last PR machine has kicked into gear, rolling in the first big Meat Chunk of ST2 promo material on our screens. Thing dripping full of content, man.
By that, I don't mean couple seconds, rather... Yeah, hold onto your chairs — HALF AN HOUR — of footage that carries the true STALKER essence, has a bit of everything for every kind of soul, pretty much; exploring areas, killing mutants, entering anomalies, playin with crazy tools, taking down bad guys, investigating bizarre situations, so on, so forth... In-between the gameplay we see interviews with the developers behind the massive undertaking Heart of Chornobyl is.
Oh wait, let me tell you some math. The game, as of now, is actively developed by more than 400 people (information is from months ago), of which approx. 30 are only narrative designers according to Evgeniy Grygorovych, current CEO of GSC Game World, brother of the OG owner, Sergiy Grygorovych.
Take it into account the original team who made the trilogy, albeit I don't have exact number to cite, I think, is fair to say was at least 1/3 of the current production staff.
Shit ton of stuff await you beyond the thumbnail. Much more than your brain can comprehend at once if we're to be correct, even the studio admitted its their biggest asset dump ever.
Therewith, I'll leave it to Anomalous Dugout to do the detailed breakdown, who does them best!
Last but not least, Cardan advises you have a screwdriver to attach your jaw back in place if it falls off, if you haven't seen anythng yet. Don't neglect a technician's friendly tip.