STALKER 2 Was Announced Early In Order To Attract A Publisher

Remember when Stalker 2 was announced last month? That was weird, right?

In case you missed it, last month developer GSC Game World confirmed that Stalker 2 was indeed real and indeed coming. The weird part -- there was no trailer, no teaser, no screenshots, no information. The only thing divulged: a release window of 2021.

The Internet quickly went from excited to slightly confused. Why was Stalker 2 being announced so early with nothing to show? Well, apparently it was because GSC Game World wanted to go into E3 with a pitch and proof that people still care about the series so it could find a publisher.

This is at least according to Epic Game's director of publishing Sergey Galyonkin (who you may know as the founder of SteamSpy), who also reveals that the game is still in its design doc phase, hence why there isn't really anything to show. Further, Galyonkin suggests that a 2021 release date may be wishful thinking on the behalf of GSC.

Galyonkin also reveals that while some of the team working on Stalker 2 worked on the original game, it is an entirely different team than the team who developed and released the recent Cossacks 3.

Will we see Stalker 2 in 2021? I don't know, I guess it really depends how its hunt for a publisher goes during E3. As you may know, last time out the Ukrainian developer partnered with THQ, so perhaps this time it will go with THQ Nordic, who seem to enjoy bringing back some of the classic THQ releases.

We will be sure to update you as we learn more, but it's probably a safe bet to assume we won't be hearing much about it anytime soon.

For those that don't know: Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl released back in 2007 via the PC. Upon launch, it was critically well-received and garnered a hardcore following who can still be found talking about the game today.

The series lived on with two more releases in 2009 (Stalker: Clear Sky) and 2010 (Stalker: Call of Pripyat), but has since been dormant. If Stalker 2 does hit in 2021, it will have been 11 years since the series last was on the market.

Thanks, PCGamesN.