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 for Windows and Xbox Series X/S on 8 December 2022, but due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, development for the game was put on hold.
Following multiple delays, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl was released on 20 November 2024. It received mixed reviews from critics and sold one million copies within two days of release.
Gameplay
This section is empty. You can help by adding to it. (November 2024)
The player character is Skif, a veteran of the Ukrainian Marine Corps who has returned from a 3-year deployment in an unspecified conflict. In the opening, he awakens to find his apartment has been destroyed by an anomaly that has mysteriously appeared outside of the Zone, leaving an unknown artifact in its wake. Looking to earn money for a new home, he is smuggled into the Zone by a scientist, Professor Hermann, along with a piece of technology called the 'Scanner' that creates local anomalies and can apparently "recharge" depleted artifacts. Venturing into the Zone, he finds his initial team he was to make contact with have been killed and sets out alone to use the Scanner in special coordinates where it works. On the third and successful attempt, he is interrupted by an investigation from soldiers of the faction called 'Ward', dedicated to controlling the Zone and stopping its expansion. The soldiers themselves are killed by an unknown third party, who steal Skif's belongings and knock him unconscious.
He awakens and sets out to recover the Scanner and artifact, aided by a friendly loner named Richter. He finds himself on the trail of Solder, who sold him and the scientists the coordinates of where to place the Scanner, collaborating with either the local Stalkers or the Ward in the process. Following the trail, he is led to Scar, the protagonist of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, who leads an anarchistic faction called Spark that opposes the Ward and believes the Zone can be transformed into a utopian 'Shining Zone', as well as the Noontide faction, consisting of the formerly-brainwashed soldiers of the Monolith from previous games, who seek to make their own lives, having no memory of their pre-zone life or enslavement to the Monolith. They are divided between Strider, who aims to make the Zone a safer place, and Faust, who still preaches the original mindset of the Monolith.
He is led to SIRCAA, a scientific base and benefactors of the Ward, who are now in control of the Wishgranter, or Monolith itself, a powerful psychic anomaly that brainwashed the Monolith soldiers, which SIRCAA aims to use to reshape the Zone in their image. Regardless of whether Skif collaborates with or conspires against SIRCAA, the Wishgranter is ultimately reactivated and all members of Noontide return to their brainwashed state.
Skif manages to reclaim his original Scanner, in the process meeting Doc, a member of Strelok's crew from the original Shadow of Chernobyl, who confesses to being a member of the scientists that formed the C-Consciousness and the Zone itself, having backed out of entering the pod to join the hivemind years ago. Strelok himself has become a conservative fanatic of the Zone, believing it needs to be protected and preserved from the rest of the world.
Skif goes to war against the reformed Monolith, confronting Faust amongst the Duga radar. Faust displays powerful psychic abilities, and seemingly shows Skif the world in 'subtle matter', a pure psychic form through which dead human beings still live as consciousness. Faust apparently accepts defeat and dies.
Skif is led towards the heart of the Zone and the final remaining pod of the C-Consciousness, which will allow the Zone to be reshaped once more in the image of the one who enters it. Depending on his choices of allegiance, there are four endings.
If Skif sides with the Ward, the loyal Colonel Korshunov enters the pod, and the Zone ceases expansion with SIRCAA gaining control of its energy and potential. Skif rejects their offer of a high-ranking military position and simply takes a replacement home, apathetic to the motivations and power of SIRCAA. This is the only ending where Skif leaves the Zone.
Siding with Spark, the eccentric Scar enters the pod and Skif finds himself among grass and flowers in sunlight, sitting at a fire and reuniting with friends alive and dead, sharing in the joy at finding the utopian Shining Zone, but it is revealed that this is yet another psychic illusion, and the Stalkers have simply become catatonic and entranced in an unchanged Zone in reality, ignored by the mutants passing by.
Siding with Strelok, he enters the pod and takes control of the Monolith, ordering them to stand down and letting Skif leave the area peacefully. The Zone's expansion seems to stop, but a barrier has been created, preventing anyone from entering or leaving the Zone, damning Skif and all other Stalkers to isolation and potential death.
If Skif follows the advice of Doc, Skif enters the pod on his own, apparently free of corrupt motives. The Zone is 'set free', and anomalies spread across the entirety of the planet, the Zone now encompassing Earth. Doc himself appears to transform into Faust, who walks away into the Zone, having accomplished his mission.
Development
This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. The specific problem is: Most of the citations are using social media (Facebook, Twitter/X, YouTube) post over news from GameSpot, Polygon, PCGamesN, among others. Please help improve this section if you can.(December 2024) ( Learn how and when to remove this message )
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.[2] GSC Game World was officially dissolved on December 9, 2011.[3] The official Twitter account posted, "We will do our best to continue. However, at this moment, nothing is certain."[4][unreliable source?] After several months of uncertainty,[5][6] an update was posted that the development would continue after the holidays, although it would require funding.[7] 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,[8] officially stated to have resulted from dispute between investors, staff, and the original IP rights owner.[9][non-primary source needed]
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.[10][bettersourceneeded] It was later revealed that the game would be developed using Unreal Engine 4.[11] 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".[12] 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.[13][bettersourceneeded]
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.[14] In August 2021, the developers revealed that the game was updated to Unreal Engine 5.[15]
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,[16] stating that the outbreak of the war and the need to protect GSC employees has led to the game's development being paused indefinitely.[17] 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".[18][19][20] On March 14, 2022, the game's subtitle was changed to "Heart of Chornobyl", reflecting the native Ukrainian romanisation rather than the Russian form.[21][22] 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.[23] Russian dubbing in the game was also removed during development, leaving only English and Ukrainian.[24]
In March 2023, GSC said they had been enduring constant cyberattacks for more than a year and anticipated that there could be leaks in the future.[25] In June 2023, GSC announced that hackers had leaked an internal test build to the public.[26]
In May 2022, the development team stated on their official Discord server that the development process continued, and the game was scheduled to release in early 2024.[27][28][29] It was delayed again, for further polishing, with a release date of 5 September 2024.[30] It was delayed for the final time in July 2024.[31]
Release
The game was announced to be on Xbox Game Pass from launch.[32] In addition, the game was released as a Microsoft-exclusive release, only releasing on Microsoft Windows and the Xbox Series X/S.[33] 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.[34][35][36]
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl received "mixed or average" reviews from critics, according to review aggregator website Metacritic.[37][38]
The game was subject to numerous technical issues; upon the game's launch, GSC Game World announced in a statement that they were committed to fixing the issues.[52][53]
Sales
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl sold one million copies within 48 hours of its release.[54]
Stalker is a 1979 Soviet science fiction film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky with a screenplay written by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, loosely based on their 1972 novel Roadside Picnic. The film tells the story of an expedition led by a figure known as the "Stalker", who guides his two clients—a melancholic writer and a professor —through a hazardous wasteland to a mysterious restricted site known simply as the "Zone", where there supposedly exists a room which grants a person's innermost desires. The film combines elements of science fiction and fantasy with dramatic philosophical, and psychological themes.
Pripyat, also known as Prypiat, is an abandoned industrial city in Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine, located near the border with Belarus. Named after the nearby river, Pripyat, it was founded on 4 February 1970 as the ninth atomgrad to serve the nearby Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, which is located north of the abandoned city of Chernobyl, after which the power plant is named. Pripyat was officially proclaimed a city in 1979 and had grown to a population of 49,360 by the time it was evacuated on the afternoon of 27 April 1986, one day after the Chernobyl disaster.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl is a first-person shooter survival horror video game developed by GSC Game World and published by THQ in 2007 following a long development. The game is set in an alternative reality, where a second disaster of mysterious origin occurred at the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, causing strange changes in the area around it. The game features a non-linear storyline and includes role-playing gameplay elements such as trading and two-way communication with non-player characters.
Duga was an over-the-horizon radar (OTH) system used in the Soviet Union as part of its early-warning radar network for missile defense. It operated from July 1976 to December 1989. Two operational duga radars were deployed, with one near Chernobyl and Liubech in the Ukrainian SSR, and the other in eastern Siberia.
GSC Game World is a Ukrainian video game developer based in Kyiv with a second temporary office in Prague. Founded in Kyiv in 1995 by Sergiy Grygorovych, it is best known for the Cossacks and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series of games. GSC Game World was the first company in Ukraine to localize PC games to the Russian language. In 2002, it became a publishing house, GSC World Publishing.
The Chernobyl disaster is the world's worst nuclear accident to date.
The Red Forest is the ten-square-kilometre (4 sq mi) area surrounding the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant within the Exclusion Zone, located in Polesia. The name "Red Forest" comes from the ginger-brown colour of the pine trees after they died following the absorption of high levels of ionizing radiation as a consequence of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster on 26 April 1986. The site remains one of the most contaminated areas in the world today.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky is a 2008 first-person shooter survival horror video game with role-playing elements. It was developed by GSC Game World and published by Deep Silver as a prequel to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat is a first-person shooter survival horror video game developed by GSC Game World for Microsoft Windows. It is the third main game released in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series of video games, following S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, with the game's narrative and events following the former. It was published in the CIS territories by GSC World Publishing in October 2009, before being released by Deep Silver and bitComposer Games in North America and the PAL region in February 2010.
Metro 2033 is a 2010 first-person shooter survival horror video game developed by 4A Games and published by THQ. The story is based on Dmitry Glukhovsky's novel of the same name, where survivors of a nuclear war have taken refuge in the Metro tunnels of Moscow. Players control Artyom, a man who must save his home station from the dangers lurking within the Metro. In the game, players encounter human and mutant enemies, who can be killed with a variety of firearms. Players must also wear a gas mask to explore areas covered in nuclear radiation, both underground and on the surface.
4A Games Limited is a Ukrainian-Maltese video game developer based in Sliema, Malta. The company was founded in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2006 by three developers who departed from GSC Game World. In 2014, 4A Games moved its headquarters to Sliema, wherein the Kyiv office was retained as a sub-studio. The company is best known for developing the Metro video game series.
The 4A Engine is a graphics middleware engine developed by 4A Games for use in its video games Metro 2033, Metro: Last Light, Metro Exodus, and Arktika.1. It supports Direct3D APIs 9 through 12, OpenGL 3.2, Nvidia PhysX, and Nvidia 3D Vision.
F.E.A.R. is a first-person shooter psychological horror video game series created by Craig Hubbard in 2005. Released on Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360, there are three main games in the series; F.E.A.R. (2005), F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin (2009), and F.E.A.R. 3 (2011). There are also two standalone expansion packs for the first game; F.E.A.R. Extraction Point (2006) and F.E.A.R. Perseus Mandate (2007), but these games are no longer considered canon, as their plots were ignored in Project Origin and F.E.A.R. 3. In 2014, F.E.A.R. Online, a free-to-play game, was released, but the servers were shut down in 2015 with the game still in open beta. Monolith Productions developed the original game and Project Origin; Day 1 Studios developed F.E.A.R. 3; TimeGate Studios developed Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate; Inplay Interactive developed F.E.A.R. Online. Initially, the series' publishing rights were owned by Vivendi Games, who published the original game and the two expansions under the Sierra Entertainment label. In 2008, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment acquired the publishing rights and went on to publish Project Origin and F.E.A.R. 3. Aeria Games published F.E.A.R. Online under license from Warner.
The Elder Scrolls Online, abbreviated ESO, is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by ZeniMax Online Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. The game is a part of the Elder Scrolls series. It was released for Windows and macOS in April 2014, for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in June 2015, and for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in June 2021.
Video gaming in Ukraine began to emerge in the 1990s and is slowly growing. Subsequently, in the 2000s, several major video game series started appearing.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a first-person shooter survival horror video game franchise developed by Ukrainian game developer GSC Game World. The series is set in an alternate version of the present-day Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in Ukraine, where, according to the series' backstory, a mysterious second Chernobyl disaster took place in 2006. As a result, the physical, chemical, and biological processes in the area were altered, spawning numerous nature-defying anomalies, artifacts, and mutants. The player takes the role of a "stalker" - a name given to trespassers and adventurers who have come to explore the exclusion zone and its strange phenomena.
VG Entertainment Ltd is a Ukrainian video game developer based in Kyiv. The company was founded in March 2012 by former employees of GSC Game World, including Oleg Yavorsky, after GSC had been shut down. The company developed the battle royale game Fear the Wolves (2019) and is working on Survarium, a free-to-play shooter game in early access since 2015.
Chernobylite is a 2021 first-person shooter survival horror video game developed by Polish game developer The Farm 51 and published by All in! Games. The game is set in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, where the player's objective is to explore, as Ukrainian physicist Igor Khymynuk, and find his fiancée in the radioactive wasteland. It was released for Windows in July 2021, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in September 2021, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in April 2022, and Nintendo Switch in December 2024. It received generally positive reviews from critics.
Stalking the Atomic City: Life Among the Decadent and the Depraved of Chornobyl is the book of Ukrainian novelist Markiyan Kamysh. It was originally published in Ukrainian in 2014, and the first English translation was published in 2022. The book is about Kamysh's experiences illegally exploring the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
