S.T.A.L.K.E.R. developer cleared of texture theft

The Inquirer today reported news that STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl has had its name cleared in the eyes of the community, under suspicions of stealing textures from Half-Life 2 and Doom 3.

Bit-tech originally picked up the story a few days ago and the forums have been ablaze with speculation ever since.

Now though, news has arisen that the textures in question were instead purchased from a third party, Marlin Studios, who create all manner of textures and models for use in commercial computer games.

It seems that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. developer GSC Game World made use of these textures legally, as did Valve in the making of Half-Life 2. Sources have also confirmed that the light textures thought to have been pinched from Doom 3 are in fact just standard Impact Light Textures, thus explaining the previously suspicious filename; Imp_Light.

This comes as good news to many fans of the game, who were afraid that GSC may be sued into oblivion for the suspected theft.

If you were one of those who assumed guilt before all the evidence was heard then you may want to apologise. Our forums would be a good place to start. For those who don't know how to grovel in Ukrainian, try this: ВИБАЧТЕ. ЦЕ БУЛО НЕПОРОЗУМІННЯ. НЕ СЕРДИТЕСЯ НА МЕНЕ.