Stalker 2 Fans Just Got Incredibly Bad News
Stalker 2 fans are not going to be happy.
This article is more than 2 years old
STALKER 2, a sequel to the massively popular 2007 first-person shooter survival horror game STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, has been delayed by approximately seven months from its original release date. GSC Game World, the game’s developer, has decided to postpone the release and invest the additional seven months of development to bring the game to a satisfying level of quality.
GSC Game World made their decision public on the STALKER official Twitter page, notifying the fandom that STALKER 2’s new release date has been shifted towards the year’s end. According to GamesRadar+, the news about the delay actually follows a rumor from a YouTuber named Oldboi, who recently claimed that Stalker 2 would be delayed until Autumn 2022. And while Oldboi’s rumor suggested a release window of August-October, GSC World Game added another two months, scheduling the game for December. You can see the Tweet below:
Unfortunately, STALKER 2’s developer hasn’t offered, or at least outlined any other cause for the delay, beyond the need for more internal testing and polishing of the gaming title. There is no surprise there, considering that many high-profile games have been pushed back over the last two years due to disruptions and lockdowns caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. And while the news about the delay came as a disappointment to many fans of the original STALKER, released some 15 years ago, many wholeheartedly support GSC Game World’s decision to take their time, test, and polish the game to the highest possible quality.
The gaming audience has seen its fair share of poorly optimized gaming titles released to satisfy rushed deadlines and shady money-mongering practices used by greedy game publishing companies. Well, more than its fair share; and while we won’t point any fingers to specific companies (Electronic Arts, Rockstar Games, Ubisoft, etc.), it would be a shame for the sequel of the esteemed STALKER to release to the same level of quality as Battlefield 2042 and GTA: The Trilogy did. Admittedly, Electronic Arts already made plans to fix the game public, and Rockstar Games apologized for failing to deliver a working product. But the bitter aftertaste of lousy first impressions has already corrupted the sweet tooth fans had for the aforementioned titles, and no amount of apologies or patching could wash the bitterness away.
For those that are unfamiliar with the gaming series, STALKER 2 will be the fourth game in the STALKER series and the first game to be released on consoles, considering that it’s set to launch on PC and Xbox Series X/S. It’s also the very first STALKER game since the release of STALKER: Call of Pripyat, a stand-alone “expansion” for the original STALKER video game. It was initially announced in 2010, following the release of Call of Pripyat, and scheduled for a 2012 release. However, GSC Game World suffered major layoffs, shrinking its employee count by 75%, following the cessation of all active developments within the studio, and the studio was officially dissolved in December 2011. Luckily, gaming titles as big and popular as the STALKER don’t stay dead for long. GSC Game World officially reformed in December 2014 and began working on the STALKER 2 in 2018, targeting an April 2022 release date that has now been postponed to December.
