GameWatch Update – S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl

One of my most anticipated games from the XBox SGF Showcase, Stalker 2 looks fit to launch on September 5th, 2024. It’ll be a busy release slate that it pops its heads out for, being preceded by the Labor Day weekend release of Ubisoft’s Star Wars: Outlaws. Will it be enough to capture the limelight, or will Massive Entertainment’s game, supported by the breadth, width, and depth of the Star Wars license, still have the gaming market in a chokehold?

I’m not sure. Massive Entertainment is one of my top 5 favorite studios. But the Stalker IP and the history of GSC Game World holds a special place in my heart. I won’t go into that whole history, as I’ve written and podcasted about it multiple times over the past few years. If you need a refresher, one of the best articles written on the topic is Polygon’s bit from 2013 found here. So, with only 61 days left to (fingers crossed) the release date, let’s get caught up.

There have been playable builds of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl both at Gamescom last year and again at Summer Game Fest this year. Reports from those hands-on sessions with the game have been positive. You can catch one of the two trailers released by GSC Game World from last month below:

The game is being built on Unreal Engine 5, which has been the basis for games that have experienced highs and lows in their critical reception. But Digital Foundry thinks that the tech and game industry developers’ handling of it may be starting to hit it’s stride

GSC Game World, despite the adversity it has been experiencing in working throughout the War on Ukraine, also managed to port S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy to both gen 8 and gen 9 XBox and PlayStation consoles this March. The collection, which features S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (the titles are also sold separately) , was released on March 6th, and sells in both stores for $40 currently. It marks the first time those titles have come to console. And it is no small feat that the studio pulled this off while working on the new title.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl has experienced an amazing number of controversies and multiple weird-doms have surrounded GSC Game World itself. This includes the studio in its original incarnation being shuttered by its owner with no notice and no explanation in 2011, the exodus of the studio devs to multiple points of expatriation around the industry, former devs trying to pull a scam on Kickstarter based on the Stalker pedigree, and the aforementioned war itself. The name of the new game (as well as various points of reference in the port of the legacy collection) has been changed to reflect the Ukrainian spelling, vice the Russian. An additional shaking of the fist in that direction and an assertion of ownership over the studio’s identity.

While I would not get my hopes up about the game landing on the PlayStation 5, and not at all about it being on PS4 (it is only coming to gen 9 Xbox consoles), it is something to consider as a possibility.

GSC Game World had about 400 developers as of 5 months ago. But it’s unclear to me if they were all relocated to Prague; 170 of them were still left in Ukraine when the rest evacuated, and some have been killed. It is nothing less than a feat of amazing will, determination, and perseverance that this game will complete its development. It will be enough for me to see it land on XBox and PC. After that, this team deserves a rest.

While multiplayer was announced to come in a post-launch update, that was back in 2021, when the game was still targeting a 2022 release. I have not see any further updates since then, and believe at a minimum it would be much later, if ever. For now, here’s a second trailer that was also released as an update from last month: