Something to look forward to: Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl, one of the most anticipated games in years, is in its final development stage and will be released during the first quarter of 2024. In addition to revealing the launch windows, GSC Game World unveiled a new trailer called “Strider” that looks visually very impressive.
Speaking at the PC Gaming Show, GSC Game World CEO Yevhen Grygorovyc confirmed Stalker 2 is in its final stages of development before arriving sometime between the start of January and the end of March.
“This game stands as the biggest and most complex game in our lives. It was ambitious from the beginning but evolved into an ultimate challenge,” Grygorovyc said. “It holds extreme significance and a deeply personal connection for us, crafted amidst the most stressful conditions imaginable.”
To say Stalker 2 has had a difficult development would be an understatement. Russia’s invasion of GSC Game World’s home of Ukraine meant the company had to deal with the threat of artillery fire and other attacks on Kyiv. Development was paused while employees were evacuated and the studio relocated to Prague.
Back in December 2021 when non-fungible tokens were being shoehorned into everything, GSC Game World was forced to drop plans to include anything NFT-related in Stalker 2 following a fan backlash.
In January 2022, the studio said that Stalker 2 needed seven more months of development, but that still wasn’t enough. In March, the company suffered a data breach at the hands of Russian hackers, who threatened to leak the material online if their demands were not met. The most recent incident came in September when a fire at the Prague office destroyed one of three floors the team uses. Thankfully, nobody was hurt or killed.
Stalker 2 won the award for the Most Wanted upcoming game at the PC Gaming Show, as chosen by a collection of 70 industry professionals.
“Stalker 2 was important for us even before the war, but now it stands as a national product aiming to convey Ukraine’s unbreakable spirit to the world. Today we celebrate our victory here, while simultaneously striving for our homeland’s ultimate triumph in the future,” said Grygorovych “I am overwhelmed with the joy to recognize that Stalker 2 enters the final phase of development. Fellow Stalkers will soon reunite in The Zone once again. Thank you all for this award.”
Stalker 2’s recommended system requirements consist of an AMD Ryzen 7 3700X or Intel Core i7-9700K or higher, and an AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT 8GB / Nvidia RTX 2070 SUPER 8GB / Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti 11GB or higher. It also asks for 150 GB of SSD space. In addition to Steam and the Epic Games Store, it will be available on PC Game Pass, which just got another great title in the form of Remnant 2.
