Survarium Isn't STALKER 2 But Sure Looks Like It

The free-to-play, post-apocalyptic MMOFPS Survarium has been in alpha for the past three months. If you've missed out, Vostok Games has released a set of screenshots to let you live vicariously through the alpha testers.

Survarium takes place after mysterious catastrophe. This event has completely up-ended life as we know it.

"Impassable woods advance onto cities from every side, maddened animals and birds attack industrial complexes, military structures, warehouses and power plants," says the game's website. "Towns are cut off from each other, there are no water supplies, no electricity, gas, communication is lost. Countries collapse, anarchy spreads throughout the world. Now force dictates who to survive. In the meantime, new species of greenery and animals purposely destroy human civilization. Strange plants and mushrooms grow through concrete and steel. Scientists all over the world haplessly try to cope with the anomaly sprawling across the Earth with terrifying speed."

Vostok Games was founded by former members of GSC Game World, the studio responsible for the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series. The team founded Vostok after S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was cancelled last year. Survarium's world shares some similarities with that S.T.A.L.K.E.R., including mutants, warring factions, artifacts and anomalies. However, Vostok is adamant that this isn't a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game.

"There will not be a Stalker 2," Vostok said on Facebook. "Please [sic] sop asking us. We do no deal with GSC anymore. Please direct your questions to the Official S.T.A.L.K.E.R. page."

Survarium does differ from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. in one key way: it's a multiplayer title rather than single-player. The game has story-based missions but they're designed for co-op instead of solo play. Players can also compete with each other in team-based modes. Free-play mode seems the closes to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. but is still very different. Players will wander an open-world filled with anomalies, mutants and other players. They must navigate the randomly generated world and reach the exit while fighting off A.I. and human opponents.

I'm sure Vostok Games is sick of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. comparisons at this point but, well, can you blame us guys? Survarium could be the closest we get to another game in that series. Plus, if you really didn't want us to compare Survarium to S.T.A.L.K.E.R., you probably shouldn't have made the former an open-world, post-apocalyptic game.