GSC Game World has confirmed that they are working on 60FPS for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl on Xbox Series X.
As reported by Tech4Gamers, the company has confirmed in an interview that they are working on quality and performance modes for the Xbox Series X. Since they’re aiming for 60FPS, it is unlikely that it will be running above that, to something like 120 FPS. If it’s ever happening at least it won’t be around for launch.
It’s also unlikely that the Xbox Series S will have a performance mode, but if you own this console, you already know not to expect something like that. Since Microsoft is now publishing this game, it is reasonable to expect that the Xbox Series will be optimized at a level that will impress players who at least have a 720p or 1080p screen.
GSC Game World also revealed that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is currently on beta. They did provide guidance that the game could be releasing as early as Q1 2024, but they were reticent to commit to this, stating that polishing could taken longer than expected.
It does seem to have been long enough that fans may have already forgotten how hard GSC Game World fight for this game. But the studio announced S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl as far back as 2010. Much of the period in between had been under the shadow of money issues, which stopped production, and did make it seem like the company itself had given up the ghost.
GSC reemerged in December 2014 to make Cossacks 3, and that was when real faith had come back that they could make the game again. But before that, there was a brief controversy over a former staffer who tried to launch two spiritual successors, a Kickstarter for a game called Areal, and then a smaller crowdfund for a game to be called S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Apocalypse. Of course, neither of these crowdfunds were successful.
But the real and unexpected roadblock was the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which happens to be the country that GSC Game World comes from. GSC’s Ukrainian developers ran across multiple unexpected setbacks, including dark operations from Russian programmers. It got so far that many of the developers had to leave their own homes, and after that, they dealt with cyberattacks going after their build code.
For a while, it did seem really unlikely that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl would release at all. Microsoft’s backing is a strong protection for the company, and hopefully we won’t be waiting that long before this gets released after all.
