Stalker 2: Heart of Chernobyl’s developers, GSC Game World, have denied reports of a new delay in the release of their game.
The rumors emerged this week after it was reported that Microsoft was giving refunds to users who had pre-ordered the game, with a message that the game had been delayed to “an unconfirmed future date” while also disabling the pre-order option in the store.
However, a spokesperson has now denied a further delay, informing PC Gamer that:
“We had to postpone the game to 2023 with no exact release date at this time. This was announced at Microsoft’s Extended Show at E3, along with the release of the development diary and introduction. Microsoft is making returns for games that do not have an exact date. When we announce the exact date at a later date, pre-orders will be available again on Xbox. PC pre-orders (Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG) are not affected by this.”
Why Stalker 2 has no date at present – it was originally scheduled for April 2022 – is that GSC Game World is a studio based in Ukraine, and has obviously been severely affected by the war following the Russian invasion.
After the outbreak of the war, the studio announced that development was placed on hold – with the welfare of employees and their families being a priority – with the game being delayed until the first half of 2023.
