Despite being one of the biggest Unreal Engine 5 games ever, Stalker 2's locations are almost entirely hand-crafted: 'It took a lot of time, took a lot of effort, but we're happy with the result'
I think it was partially to make the statement more sensational, because 60 sq km is ~23 sq miles, so it barely makes the top 30 biggest games by map size (as of some 2023 articles)