GSC Game World announced after a decade of development issues that STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl has finally gone gold. This means that the latest entry in the franchise is ready for release.
The game is set to officially launch on Nov. 20, 2024, following various development issues, including real-life turmoil with Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The news was announced in a social media post by the official X account for the STALKER franchise.
STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl Goes Gold
A YouTube trailer was also released in order to commemorate the special and joyous occasion for the series. Both of the posts have the same tagline, "See you in the Zone, stalkers."
They were both extremely well-received by fans of the franchise. Many people praised the development team's efforts in bringing the game to life. STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl was originally revealed in 2010 and was planned to come out in 2012.
Developer GSC Game World revealed that the franchise as a whole has already sold more than 4 million units. This meant that a sequel to the latest game in the series was not something that they really had to talk about, according to The Gamer.
But since it was announced, STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl had its original studio dissolved but later brought back to life. When the game was re-announced, it got a new 2021 target release window.
The game then suffered a problematic development cycle and was then affected by Russia's sudden invasion of Ukraine, which is where the developers were based. This put the game, and the staff working on it, in a dire situation.
A Decade of Troubled Development
With GSC Game World's announcement that STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl has gone gold, a master copy has already been sent for mass production. The game will soon arrive as physical copies for Xbox consoles but will also be available digitally, WCCFTech said.
The latest also means that hopefully, there will be no more delays to the game, which is something that was seen with CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077. The latter was confirmed to have gone gold on Oct. 5, 2020, but was later announced to be delayed.
GSC Game World is planning to use STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl to showcase a much larger "The Zone" area.
It also made the region much better than before by adding 20 areas that each encourage players to conduct thorough investigations to find everything that has been hidden, according to Windows Central.
