STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl – Everything You Need to Know About The Long-Awaited Sequel

Fifteen years after Call of Pripyat, STALKER fans will finally get the long-awaited sequel, Heart of Chornobyl. The game has had an extremely complex development, which we’ll summarize below.

GSC Game World actually first announced STALKER 2 back in 2010 for a tentative 2012 launch window. However, the Ukrainian studio was faced with financial hardships and had to be dissolved on December 9, 2011, leaving fans extremely worried about the future of the first-person shooter/horror franchise.

The leaders of GSC Game World didn’t give up, though. Around three years later, they resurrected the studio and decided to work on the smaller Cossacks 3 project first. The real-time strategy game launched in September 2016 to mixed reviews from critics, although most user reviews on Steam are fairly positive. After another two years, GSC Game World was ready to get back to making STALKER 2.

Release date, platforms, pricing, editions

The new iteration of the sequel was announced in May 2018, a few weeks ahead of the yearly Electronic Entertainment Expo, with GSC Game World aiming to get a publishing deal out of the global convention. At that time, the Ukrainian developer was targeting a 2021 launch window.

In early 2020, GSC also revealed that it would be developed with Epic’s Unreal Engine 4 technology rather than the proprietary X-Ray Engine used in the previous installments. The studio quickly reassured fans that it didn’t mean STALKER 2 would be an Epic Games Store exclusive.

The development appeared to go relatively smoothly during these first few years. At E3 2021, the studio showcased the first proper trailer, which was stunning, and revealed the first delay to April 28, 2022. Before the end of the year, a small controversy ensued when GSC Game World announced the implementation of blockchain/NFT technology in STALKER 2. However, a massive backlash from the community quickly forced them to reconsider and axe that plan.

Shortly after that, the real troubles began. In January 2022, the game was delayed to December. The following month, Russia invaded Ukraine, forcing GSC and its Ukrainian employees to ‘shift development to the sidelines’. In late March, part of the team relocated from Kiev to Prague to stay safe from the war. Development officially resumed in late May, and at that point, nobody expected the December date to be upheld.

Indeed, we only heard again from GSC in late 2022, when they released another gorgeous gameplay trailer. The troubles hadn’t stopped, though, as Russian hackers targeted GSC in June 2023, and even an office fire complicated things in September. However, STALKER 2 was playable at Gamescom. Here, the updated fact sheet shared with the press mentioned a Q1 2024 launch window.

The final delay was announced in mid-January. STALKER 2 is now officially scheduled for September 9, 2024 on PC and Xbox Series S|X (the game will be an Xbox console exclusive for around three months). It will also be available on the Game Pass subscription service at launch.

Pre-orders are now available on both platforms. All customers who choose to pre-order will receive the following bonuses:

• Extended Campfire Content: more guitar tunes and tales that you can hear in the game around the stalkers’ campfires
• ‘Early bird’ Weapon Skin
• ‘Early bird’ Costume Skin
• ‘Early Bird’ Multiplayer Badge
• Steam Pack: Animated Avatar, Animated Avatar Frame & Animated Profile Background

The PC Standard Edition is priced at $59.99. The Deluxe Edition, priced at $79.99, adds the following:

• Additional Story-Based Side Quest
• Single Player: 1 Costume Skin & 3 Weapon Skins
• Multiplayer: 2 Costume Skins & 3 Weapon Skins
• Digital Artbook
• Digital Soundtrack

The Ultimate Edition costs $109.99 and includes all the above plus the STALKER 2 Season Pass with access to all future DLCs, including two story expansions.

Genre and Setting

Just like the previous games in the series, STALKER 2 is set in a fictional version of the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone. The idea is that the nuclear event (both the historic 1986 one and a fictional one that, according to game lore, happened in 2006) created violent mutants and mysterious anomalies within the Zone. Here, the so-called STALKERs risk their lives to find priceless artifacts to be smuggled out of the Zone.

As for the genre, this is still a first-person shooter game with strong horror overtones and expanded survival elements.

Gameplay

Just like in previous STALKER games, players will have the opportunity to explore the seamless radioactive open world of roughly 64 square kilometers. though they’ll do so in the shoes of a new character called ‘Skif’. They’ll also get to choose their paths within the highly branching story prepared by GSC Game World. For instance, members of different factions may be worth befriending or may deserve a bullet.

Being a first-person shooter, you can expect intense gunfights with various enemies trying to outsmart you. Each mutant may appear in different subtypes, making their behavior less predictable. The greatest danger will be found in regions with lairs where mutants hunt in large groups. To deal with them, STALKER 2 features over 30 types of weapons with numerous modifications, so players can create hundreds of distinctive lethal combinations.

Of course, those extremely dangerous places are also where most of the truly valuable artifacts and secrets are located in the Zone. Moreover, players must be wary of the hazardous anomalies and even more devastating arch anomalies. That’s on top of the basic survival mechanics for hunger, sleeping, bleeding, and radiation.

A dynamic day and night cycle and a weather system make the Zone feel alive. GSC also created the so-called life-simulating system “A-life 2.0” to make the game world appear even more dynamic. The estimated length (including side content) is around a hundred hours of gameplay.

STALKER 2 is supposed to include mod support at launch, at least on PC. The developers confirmed that a multiplayer mode would be coming after launch, but no details have been shared yet.

Technology & Specs

STALKER 2 will run on Unreal Engine 5 after the developer upgraded from UE4. GSC Game World has previously talked about UE5’s Lumen and Nanite being the ‘right bricks’ to deliver the atmosphere they wanted.

We also know that the development team has used NVIDIA’s Audio2Face AI app to create facial animation and lip sync based on voice tracks. Lastly, STALKER 2 was one of the first games to announce the integration of NVIDIA DLSS 3 (Frame Generation).

The official system requirements can be found below. On consoles, the Xbox Series X version will include a 60FPS mode.