It was recently discovered that the Plaion storefront in Germany has listed S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl with a release date of December 1st, 2023. For a while, the ‘placeholder’ or assumed release date has been the 31st of December, so it’s not a far-flung suggestion, and reportedly, the storefront has leaked launch dates for titles in the past.
Further to that, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl will be playable at Gamescom, which runs from the 23rd to the 27th of August, which suggests it’s in a strong place, development-wise. It has been a beleaguered project of late, but we could be about to cross the finish line.
Are You Ready To Enter The Zone?
Shadow of Chornobyl is the very long-awaited official follow-up to 2009’s Call of Pripyat. It has been the longest time since new material was released in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. franchise, but there’s still a solid fanbase ready and waiting to receive fresh content – and what we’ve seen so far looks absolutely fantastic.
In recent months, GSC Game World, the series’ developer, has been plagued by Russian hackers, uprooted by the war in Ukraine, and has been forced to delay S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 over and over again. It’s a highly anticipated project, but for a while, it seemed as though it would never materialise.
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With a playable demo being present at Gamescom and the listing on the Plaion website being updated to read December 1st, it may not be all that long until we’re once again heading into the Exclusion Zone to tackle mutants and anomalies.
Thanks to Andrew Marmo on Twitter for first noticing the Plaion update.
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