S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 has had a long road to release. The upcoming shooter from Ukrainian developer GSC Game World was announced way back in 2010, but the studio has gone through layoffs, a brand revival, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, among other difficulties. With that in mind, it’s never been too surprising when GSC announced delays for the project. Despite all that, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl was finally scheduled to launch on September 5th. However, the team announced today that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 has officially been delayed once again, this time to November 20th.
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That’s a relatively short delay in the grand scheme of things. GSC said the team needed more time to squash “unexpected anomalies,” which translates to some pesky bugs that would harm the day-one experience if not fixed. It’s still disappointing news for fans who have been waiting to play S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 for years now, but giving the developer the team it needs to iron out those bugs is almost always the smart choice in the long run. Plus, it’s not all bad news for fans.
Alongside the delay announcement, GSC Game World revealed that it is bringing a new “Developer Deep Dive” video that is launching on August 12th. The video will show off “Lots of new footage, including world overview, various locations, gameplay, and cutscenes,” while also giving fans “a full video walkthrough of one of the story quests.” There will also be new behind-the-scenes footage, showing off some of the hard work the developers have been doing in the run-up to release. Knowing GSC is showing off so much new content with this deep dive should give fans confidence that the game will meet its November 20th release date, even with the game’s troubled development cycle.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is set to launch on November 20th for Xbox Series X/S and PC. It’s been 12 years since Call of Pripyat, the original game, launched, so it might be worth giving yourself a story refresher before the fourth game in the franchise drops. That said, with such a long delay between games, GSC probably isn’t expecting players to come in with complete knowledge of what happened previously.
