Here are the first screenshots out of Survarium's newly opened alpha

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

The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series (and its excessive period use) has remained regretfully dead, despite whatever internet voodoo tricks its fans have tried in attempting to revive the series. Meanwhile, the developers' new project, Survarium, has become something more and more myth-like over the months, with its initial news fading into obscurity. But no more! Survarium's finally burst out of the fog with details on its alpha phase, which has just begun, and there are a couple of sweet screenshots to match.

The alpha's features have been listed on the Survarium forumby Ruslan Didenko, project lead. Two factions are playable, as are 11 different weapons. At the moment, only PvP combat mode's been implemented, and even that is still "primitive"; Vostok's priority is making sure that the key gameplay components such as movement and shooting work properly.

Coming to future versions will be close combat mechanisms, faction tasks, perks, and—what I'm personally looking forward to most—co-op and freeplay game modes.

The first wave of invites has already been sent out, but Didenko says more are on the way. "Our goal at the early Alpha test stage is to achieve no less than 200 players on servers throughout the day and night," he says. "We will continue sending out the invites until we've reached the desired number of players. As the testing progresses we will increase the number of concurrent players on server and invite new participants."

You can find the details for alpha sign-ups onfrom earlier this year. In the meantime, check out the two alpha screenshots released on the Facebook page. Survarium's already looking even prettier than its predecessors, and best of all, it looks like they're keeping that gritty, abandoned aesthetic excellently intact.