GSC Game World has confirmed that Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl will not be part of this year’s Xbox Games Showcase.
Replying to a fan on their Steam community for the game, a moderator for GSC stated this:
“We usually do not announce or deny our participation in shows, but this one time we’ll make an exception. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 will miss the June online conferences preferring to make important announcements in the upcoming months.
Our plan is to give progressive updates on what we’re planning.”
So unfortunately for fans who were hoping to see more Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl, that just won’t be the case for the rest of this month. At least GSC Game World is up front about their intent when it comes to the game’s marketing and promotion.
Of course, it may be asking way too much from GSC to produce marketing right now. The studio had recently seen their project’s assets get leaked too early. The Ukrainian studio has gone on record that they believe Russian hackers were responsible for the leak.
But whether that’s true or not, the outcome is the same for GSC Game World. They have to continue working on the game, which has already seen so many setbacks that go back decades, and get it polished up so much that it will catch up to player expectations.
This is a particularly crucial time in the project’s development. GSC Game World is so close to the finish line, but they’re now looking at too many distractions to get in the way. The last thing they need is to get so many things in the way that they miss the life cycle of the current generation of consoles.
In the unlikely but unhappy event that that comes to pass, they will essentially have to start over on this project. And that’s something the studio can ill afford after all this time.
So, it would be understandable if GSC Game World make the decision to limit their marketing for the time being. There has been way too much speculation on the state of Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl’s development, and the only thing that would silence that is if GSC finishes the game and releases it. Hopefully, they can get it all worked out and finished before this year ends.
Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl has been announced for release sometime in 2023, for Xbox Series X|S and Windows via Steam, Epic Games Store, and even GOG, DRM-free. You can watch the trailer below.
