THQ signs S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

We swear this was common knowledge already, but THQ has signed the worldwide publishing rights to GSC’s Game World’s swanky first person survival horror title (their choice of genre phrasing, not ours) S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Oblivion Lost.

In what is turning out to be a vintage period for PC gamers, it’s the first game to use the Ukranian developers’ X-Ray engine that will have your graphics cards begging for mercy. The engine purports to allow for “massive indoor/outdoor environments, real-time physics and the capability to push more than one million polygons per frame at 60 frames per second. Ahem, if you have the kit, that is. But it’s not going to be out until 2004, so don’t panic – the GeForce FX [if they ever release it -Tom] will hopefully be pretty cheap by then.

The game blends elements of survival horror and role-playing in the frankly chilling environment of the Chernobyl nuclear facility. According to the accompanying blurb, “the player earns a living exploring the underground laboratories, abandoned military bases and radioactive forests of the Chernobyl Zone in search of artifacts and anomalous formations to sell to underground dealers and scientists in research camps on the border.”

As you go through the game, you’ll “explore new areas, procure items and weapons and interact with a number of strange characters as they come to discover what truly lies at the heart of the Chernobyl disaster.” Sounds good, and certainly looked very impressive when we saw a demo of it at last year’s GeForce FX launch.

Why not visit www.stalker-game.com and find out why we’re so excited?