The development of STALKER 2 has seemingly resumed after the relocation of the Ukrainian development team GSC Game Worlds. The game’s development had been halted in March after the despicable invasion of Ukraine by Russia, and with no end in sight for the conflict, with the team moving from their Kyiv home to Prague.
As spotted by Polish site GRYOnline, one of the company developers responded to a request for information from a fan on the official Discord server, simply saying that “It continues”.
Even though development is back underway, it feels extremely unlikely that things will be smooth sailing form here. GSC Game Worlds previously expected to release STALKER 2 in December 2022 – this already a delay from the original early 2022 target – but has now lost nearly three months of development. That’s before you factor in the possibility of some developers choosing to join the Ukraine military to defend their homeland, or the simple difficulties of those that have relocated in settling down and getting back into a happy rhythm for development.
STALKER 2 almost certainly won’t release until 2023, and likely not until the second half of 2023 because of this. Naturally the priority for the company should still be focussing on the wellbeing of all its employees, and we’re sure that many eager fans will be patient given what their homeland is enduring right now.
There;’s still plenty of fascination surrounding STALKER 2, given the cult following that the first game drew when it launched around 15 years ago. A grimly immersive first person shooter set within the remnants of Chernobyl’s Exclusion Zone, STALKER wowed with its bleak yet brilliant visuals and light RPG influences.
Quickly followed up by two expansions, developer GSC fell apart while working on its hotly-anticipated sequel. After years of rumour and speculation, the studio would return from the dead and for a time it looked like we would be playing STALKER in early 2022 – well, Xbox and PC players would be, since it’s a timed console exclusive.
TSBonyman
I wonder if the game narrative has changed due to the invasion, possibly it was already quite close to the bone.