STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl was released on November 20, 2024, with numerous bugs and performance issues, but still became a success on Steam. The developers talk about why the survival shooter had to appear this way and further postponement was not an option.
This is the situation: Stalker 2 (spelling: STALKER 2) was released on November 20, 2024 after several postponements. Despite the extra time, the developers at GSC Game World were unable to iron out all the errors before the release.
Our colleagues at GameStar even issued a purchase warning, and Dennis Michel also said in the GamePro test: “Stalker 2 is really not a bad game. However, one that was released too early and with significant flaws in the game design.”
However, real Stalker fans are tough and so, despite all its shortcomings, the survival shooter has an impressive 84% positive rating on Steam with around 50,000 simultaneous players. At its peak there were even over 120,000 (via SteamDB).
The success of the game is probably due not least to the fact that the developers have praised improvements and have already delivered numerous patches. Now CEO Ievgen Grygorovych explains in an interview with Eurogamer why another postponement was not an option despite known defects.
Official launch trailer for STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl
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It’s like you’ve run several marathons
That’s why Stalker 2 had to be released: The boss compares the development of the game, including the postponements, to running several marathons.
It is very difficult to describe the state of being in an intensive work process for many months and doing more, more, more than you are actually capable of. It was a very stressful and overwhelming time, said Grygorovych.
Despite all efforts, the game was never in a state where everything was in order. In view of the end of the year and the associated lucrative sales period, the decision was finally made to release Stalker 2 in the best possible condition.
According to Grygorovych, it wouldn’t have been possible any other way.
You have no energy at all and you decide – should we run another marathon? And you just can’t say, “Yeah, let’s run another marathon,” because you’re already broken.
[…]
You’re so tired that if you said, “Let’s run another marathon,” you’d just die.
A documentary on the creation of Stalker 2 shows why the time was particularly stressful for Grygorovych and his team. Because GSC Game World is a Ukrainian studio and the development history was marked by the corona pandemic and the Russian war of aggression.
You can watch the original documentary with subtitles here:
Grygorovych is now pleased that his game has now been so well received by the players and has attracted media attention: “It’s something so unimportant compared to the size of the country, but they talked about the game.”
The studio boss explains: They are artists, creative people. The game was her way of doing something for her country. “When you finish a project, you release it and show that it is a good game. And not everyone will love it, that’s okay. But we’ve made the people who like it happier.”
What do you think of STALKER 2? Have you already bought it, or would you rather wait until the game has been improved a bit? Please let us know in the comments. If you want to find out more about the adverse conditions under which the survival shooter was created, you can read more here on MeinMMO: Hackers blackmail one of the most wanted games on Steam – Ukrainian developer is said to be nicer to Russian players