For all its rapidly respawning NPCs, despawning monsters, broken quests, and general bugginess that remind us what we mean when we talk about ‘eurojank,’ Stalker 2 is an ambitious, at times brilliant, game that definitely has its audience. An audience willing to overlook, or even embrace, brokenness when it’s in service to an atmospheric survival sandbox. Naturally Stalker 2 is popular in its home country, and the series has always had a strong following in eastern Europe. One demographic I didn’t expect Stalker 2 to cover, however, is Japanese octogenarians who happen to be presidents of erotic game studios.
Granted, that demographic is made up of just one person as far as I’m aware, but it’s still testament to how unexpectedly games can transcend age and culture.
Meet Japanese Stalker 2 fan, Seiji Nakamura:
日本最高齢エロゲメーカー社長・hal氏こと中村清治御大（83）のPC新調をお手伝いし、『S.T.A.L.K.E.R.2』のプレイ開始を見届けてきた。前作から15年ぶりの続編発売に喜びつつも、「80過ぎたじじいの目には字が小さすぎます！」とUI &字幕極大化MODを熱望されていました。 pic.twitter.com/gqZwoyyMAJDecember 8, 2024
Everything about this man’s vibe speaks to me; from the undersized monitor to the biggest mouse cursor I’ve ever seen, from the ciggy in the mouth to the orange Intellimouse that just screams ‘if it ain’t broke…’ Nakamura-san is living his best life.
According to the tweet, Nakamura’s delighted with his new rig that’s capable of playing the eye-wateringly demanding Stalker 2, but is hoping for mods to increase the UI and subtitle size. “The text is too small for an old man over 80!” he’s quoted as saying (via machine translation).
Digging a little deeper, it looks like Nakamura’s built a bit of a reputation for himself in Japan. He was interviewed by IGN Japan back in 2020, where he told the site that he played the original Stalker games with around 200 to 300 mods. The interview sheds some light on how Nakamura fell in love with the series, and also how he got into making “beautiful girl games.”
Nakamura talks about being a fan of the novel Roadside Picnic and Andrei Tarkovsky’s movie Stalker, both of which inspired the games, and observes similarities between the reactor at Pripyat and the reactor at Fukushima. “The joy of playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. isn’t just the fun of a shooter,” he told IGN Japan. “It’s also emotionally compelling to the overall atmosphere, from the eerie depiction of a ruined underground lab to the beauty of the sunset over a Ukrainian forested area.”
Even if Google Translate bodged the translation a bit, I get the sentiment. Here’s hoping someone out there creates the mods that Mr. Nakamura needs to enjoy Stalker 2. Or better still, someone buy this man a bigger gaming monitor!