S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is an upcoming first-person shooter survival horror video game developed and published by Ukrainian game developer GSC Game World. It will be the fourth game released in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. video game series as well as the first S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game in 15 years since the release of Call of Pripyat in 2009.

Initially announced following the release of Call of Pripyat, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was planned to release in 2012, before it was ultimately cancelled on the year of its intended release. The game resurfaced years later in 2018, with the development restarted and powered by Unreal Engine 5. It was scheduled to release on December 8, 2022, but due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, development for the game was put on hold. However, the development team later stated on their official Discord server that the development process continues, and was scheduled to release for Windows and Xbox Series X/S in early 2024. It was delayed again, for further polishing, with a release date of 5 September 2024.

Early development
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was initially announced in 2010, with a release date set in 2012, by Sergiy Grygorovych, CEO of GSC Game World, stating "After the official sales of the series exceeded 4 million copies worldwide, we had no doubts left to start creating a new big game in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. universe. This will be the next chapter of the mega-popular game players expect from us." The development of the game was ambitious; it was stated that the game would feature an all-new multiplatform engine, made from scratch to fit S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2.

Numerous layoffs and overall attrition during the development of the game had shrunk GSC's employee count by 75%. Two years in, Grygorovych had announced the immediate cessation of all development due to "personal reasons", likely as a result of financial difficulty. GSC Game World was officially dissolved on December 9, 2011. The official Twitter account posted, "We will do our best to continue. However, at this moment, nothing is certain." After several months of uncertainty, an update was posted that the development would continue after the holidays, although it would require funding. However, the cancellation of this build of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 had been formally announced in April 2012 on the company's Facebook page, officially stated to have resulted from dispute between investors, staff, and the original IP rights owner.

Vostok Games scandal
Vostok Games, a studio founded by former GSC lead developer Eugene Kim, had launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign for a spiritual successor to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. franchise in June 2014, under the title "Areal". However, this drew widespread criticism and was described as a scam, with its trailer entirely composed of footage from the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games as well as purported screenshots from its development being revealed as modified assets from the Unity engine's "asset store", which Vostok Games claimed was "media-fabricated". The project drew $65,000 in Kickstarter funds, $15,000 over its original goal of $50,000, however it was permanently suspended by Kickstarter in July, citing guideline violations. After the cancellation though (Vostok Games had at first claimed to have switched to private funding on their website to fund the project), they announced another crowdfunding campaign on the Wfunder platform in December 2014, setting a much larger goal of $600,000 to produce a new game called S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Apocalypse.

Revival
After years of dormancy, GSC Game World was officially reformed in December 2014 to develop Cossacks 3. Four years later, on said game's Facebook page, development of a new S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was announced, linking to www.stalker2.com, the game's website. It was later revealed that the game would be developed using Unreal Engine 4. This build of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was announced exceptionally early into development, with it still being in the "design doc phase". Grygorovych later stated on a podcast that the intent of the project's announcement in 2018 was largely to generate hype, in order to strike a publishing deal at E3 2018.

Little information was given regarding the project until E3 2021, where a full gameplay trailer was shown at the Microsoft/Bethesda press conference. The release date was rescheduled to April 28, 2022. In August 2021, the developers revealed that the game was updated to Unreal Engine 5.

Russian invasion of Ukraine
Near the outbreak of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, GSC, based in Kyiv, released a video on their YouTube account which called for financial aid for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, stating that the outbreak of the war and the need to protect GSC employees has led to the game's development being paused indefinitely. This was also followed by a Twitter post which linked to an account to donate to the Ukrainian military and stated "through pain, death, war, fear, and inhuman cruelty, Ukraine will persevere. As it always does". On March 14, 2022, the game's subtitle was changed to "Heart of Chornobyl", reflecting the native Ukrainian romanisation rather than the Russian form. On June 14, 2022, GSC stated in a development diary that the development continues despite some of the team fleeing their homes or joining the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Due to the war, GSC decided to move development of the game to Prague, Czech Republic.

In March 2023, GSC said they have been enduring constant cyberattacks for more than a year and anticipated that there could be leaks in the future. In June 2023, GSC announced that hackers have leaked an internal test build to the public.

Title
The full title of the game is "S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl". Prior to 2022 subtitle was formerly spelled "Heart of Chernobyl", but in the wake of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, on March 14, 2022, the game's subtitle was changed to "Heart of Chornobyl" by the developers, reflecting the native Ukrainian romanisation rather than the Russian form.

Later on March 6, 2024 developers decided to similarly change the subtitle for the first game in the series from "Shadow of Chernobyl" to "Shadow of Chornobyl", which was announced at the unveiling of the Xbox   and PlayStation     release of the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. trilogy titled as "S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Legends of the Zone Trilogy".

Release
The game is planned to be on Xbox Game Pass at launch. In addition, the game was stated by GSC Game World to be planned as a Microsoft-exclusive release, only releasing on Microsoft Windows and the Xbox Series X/S. This exclusivity, however, is only slated to be for three months following its release, as evidenced from leaked documents as a part of Epic Games v. Apple.