Update:
It looks like Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl has been pushed back to Q1 2024.
Original Story…
Fans of the Stalker franchise have been waiting a good while now for Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl. In fact, this game was initially set to launch all the way back in 2012 before it was canceled. Now we’re once again getting ready for the game as in 2018, the developers picked it back up with the game being developed using Unreal Engine 5. However, getting this game through the finish line has been anything but smooth.
We know there was a massive setback for the development team due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, which forced the production to be put on hold. However, things picked back up, and now the scheduled release window has been for this year. Without seeing anything new from the game developers at GSC Game World, the head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, recently spoke about the upcoming game during Gamescom.
Thanks to a report from GamesRadar, we’re discovering that Phil Spencer took to the Xbox Gamescom booth and alerted fans about some of the games that were available within the booth. Included in the batch was Stalker 2, in which Phil said this was a game close to his heart. You’ll find that this game will be playable on the floor, and Phil continues to hype up not only its gameplay but also its visuals and storyline. More importantly, the head of Xbox went on to say that the development team is putting the last touches on the video game.
Again, we don’t have a release date just yet, but seeing how the developers are nearly done, it looks like we could still expect Stalker 2 to land in the marketplace at some point this year. Of course, there should hopefully be quite a bit of fanfare for this game. There was a leak that happened earlier after hackers managed to steal and leak an internal test build of the game to the public.
At any rate, we’re still waiting on Stalker 2 to get its official release date finally. Meanwhile, we know that when this game does release, you’ll find it available on the PC, Xbox Series X/S, along with the Xbox Game Pass subscription service. In the meantime, you can check out a game trailer for Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl in the video we have embedded below.