Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl delayed to November 2024

Yes, again

Marco Wutz | Jul 25, 2024

GSC Game World

It’s another delay for Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl – the shooter from Ukrainian developer GSC Game World is now set to be released on November 20, 2024. That’s around two months after the previously targeted date of September 5, 2024.

“We know you might be tired of waiting, and we truly appreciate your patience,” said Yevhen Grygorovych, game director at GSC Game World. “These two additional months will give us the chance to fix more ‘unexpected anomalies’ (or simply ‘bugs’, as you call them). We are always grateful for your ongoing support and understanding – it means the world to us. We’re just as eager as you are to finally release the game and for you to experience it for yourself.”

It’s already been quite the odyssey for the title: Initially planned for a launch in 2012, the sequel was canceled before it could come out and only resurfaced as a project in 2018 with the target being a late 2022 release. However, the Russian invasion of Ukraine disrupted those plans and slowed down development with early 2024 eventually emerging as the next launch window the team was targeting. This became September 2024 shortly after the year began – and now we are here with another, albeit shorter delay.

With some developers fighting on the frontlines and others fleeing the country, GSC moved its main operations to Prague, the Czech Republic’s capital. Cyberattacks originating from Russia have been a drain on the team’s resources as well, even leading to the theft of an in-progress test build of the game.

At least the developers are taking the repeated delays with a good portion of humor, as their announcement trailer for the news, titled “Really, Again?”, shows:

Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl is being developed for PC and Xbox Series X|S and will be a Day 1 title available on Xbox Game Pass.

Fans of the game should mark August 12, 2024, on their calendars, however, as GSC and Xbox will then release a deep dive video into development, showing brand-new gameplay.

Published Jul 25, 2024

MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg