S.T.A.L.Okay.E.R. 2: Coronary heart of Chornobyl, the fantastically grotty sci-fi shooter sequel from Ukrainian studio GSC Sport World, has been delayed as soon as once more. It’s a comparatively good-spirited delay, although: first off, it’s not that lengthy, with the beforehand deliberate September fifth launch pushed again only a few weeks to November twentieth. There’s additionally intelligent little in-universe announcement video (one which provides the fourth wall a research kick on its manner out), and an accompanying promise of a meaty “developer deep dive video”, set to disclose rather more of the sport’s radioactive hellscape on August twelfth.
“We all know you is perhaps bored with ready, and we really respect your persistence”, reads the English-language announcement submit on Xitter. “These two extra months will give us the prospect to repair extra “surprising anomalies” (or just “bugs”, as you name them)”.
To sate our appetites for schlepping by an overgrown Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and firing rusty AKs at psychic beasts, the deep dive video will embrace “unique interviews, a lot of new footage, and a full video walkthrough of one of many recreation quests”. Neat! When August twelfth comes it’ll launch on “Xbox media channels”, which I assume means, like, YouTube, and never some type of terrestrial TV channel I’ve not heard of the place Grasp Chief presents the 6 ‘o’ clock information.
In all seriousness, I’ve been properly up for extra S.T.A.L.Okay.E.R. 2 for ages. I like the environment of the older S.T.A.L.Okay.E.R.s, however have all the time bounced off their hardcore Eurojank, so the notion of getting the identical world constructed with up to date manufacturing values is a intensely compelling one. You may’t argue with taking extra time to shine, both – even when it does imply that “Final Release Date” trailer didn’t age significantly properly, naming-wise.
GSC have additionally been pressured to cope with far worse than a handful of software program bugs. Employees from the Kyiv-based studio had been relocated to Prague within the wake of Russia’s 2022 invasion, and early S.T.A.L.Okay.E.R. 2 growth supplies have been stolen and launched by obvious Russian hacking teams. Additionally in 2022, designer Volodymyr Yezhov, who had beforehand labored on the unique S.T.A.L.Okay.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, S.T.A.L.Okay.E.R.: Clear Sky, and S.T.A.L.Okay.E.R.: Name of Pripyat, was killed while defending the city of Bakhmut as a volunteer soldier.