Those who’ve been waiting patiently for the release of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, the long-in-development sequel to GSC Game World’s 2007 cult hit S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl (and its two follow-ups), may finally have cause to be excited with a release date for the game potentially revealed a little early – and it could still be coming out this year.
First spotted by Wccftech, the official PLAION store in Germany has the game listed with a December 1st, 2023 release date. While the natural assumption would be to call this a placeholder date, it’s been noted that this particular store uses a December 31st placeholder for all of its other games pending release dates, and that the German PLAION store has leaked release dates like this in the past. It also acts as the distributor for physical versions of this game, so it’s not a random retailer taking a stab at a date but the game’s own distributor.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is also set to be playable at the Xbox booth at Gamescom this month, which is its first publicly playable showing and should imply that it’s definitely coming along. The game was originally slated to launch in December last year (after originally being slated to launch multiple times since 2010) before it was delayed and development relocated due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is currently pegged for a release on PC and Xbox Series X|S exclusively, and will be available through Xbox Game Pass from launch. It’s believed that the Xbox console exclusivity period is set to be a minimum of three months.
Amazon has the Standard, Limited and Collector’s Editions available for pre-order now:
