author: Michael Zegar
Work on STALKER 2 Suspended
Ukrainian studio GSC announced today that it has stopped work on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl. It also released a special video, which gives hope that the project will be continued after the fighting is over.
- Work on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl has been indefinitely suspended;
- Developers from Kiev are set to continue the development after the war in Ukraine ends;
- They released a short video that shows behind-the-scenes work on the game and how the situation in their country is looking.
Stalkers, I have good news and bad news. We'll start with the latter. I think we are all aware of what is happening in Ukraine at the moment. That's where - in Kiev to be exact - the HQ of GSC Game World, the studio responsible for the highly anticipated S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl, is located.
- The title was scheduled to debut on December 8, 2022 on PC and Xbox Series X/S consoles.
On the 24th of February the developers issued an official position regarding the situation in their country. They also posted an account number to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces - it can be found on the team's profile on Facebook.
The Future of Heart of Chernobyl
Let's now move on to the latest news from the studio.
- Today, the official youtube channel of GSC posted this video:
The clip opens with, apart from the horror movie music, fragments from a mo-cap session for Heart of Chernobyl.
The developers report that a week ago they were putting together a behind-the-scenes video dedicated to this aspect of the game to give players a glimpse how the cutscenes were supposed to look. That's right... they were supposed to.
The transcript of the footage reads:
"Game development has been sidetracked. (...) Now our goal is to help the developers and their families survive."
- In short: the release of Heart of Chernobyl will not take place in December. Whether it will take place at all is unknown.
"How are you doing?"
From around the 0:30 mark, the video changes its tone and shows what is now taking place in Ukraine. The material is a kind of answer to the fan question "How are you doing?" addressed to the developers from GSC. In today's message from the studio, posted on Discord, we read:
"'When is the gameplay show?' is no longer the most popular question. Now we hear 'how are you guys doing?' more often and more frequently."
- Although the tone of the message is rather frigid, fans are sure to understand, as only such message can illuminate how the team's situation currently stands.
A phoenix from the ashes
Not all hope is lost though - it's time for some good news. After the announcement about the change of priority of the project the following words are said:
"But we will definitely continue. After we win. Glory to Ukraine."
- As you can see, the developers are eager to resume work on Heart of Chernobyl after the fighting is over.
- When this will happen, however, remains a great unknown.
The thing with GSC employees is that they don't like to give up. In the end S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was originally announced in August 2010. Sixteen months later the world heard the news that the studio had been shut down and the sequel was canceled.
However, the company returned after four years. In 2018, work on the continuation of Shadow of Chernobyl was resumed. Last June, in turn, it was shown how more or less the gameplay will look like. So do not put nuts back on the shelf just yet - there are many indications that one day we'll get the coveted S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2. In one form or another.
