Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl might be getting a December release

It looks like Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl might still release this year, despite no recent updates on how the game is doing.

Last year, Stalker 2 was very understandably delayed into 2023 due to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. So it's very reasonable that we haven't really heard much about the game in recent months. But as spotted by wccftech, it appears that the upcoming shooter might actually be releasing in 2023 still, based on a listing on the store page for the game's distributor, Plaion. The release date is currently slated as December 1, and as wccftech points out, it might not be a placeholder. Other games listed on the website that do seem to have placeholder dates note that they are released on December 31.

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December 1 is obviously more specific than that, so unless it's just an inconsistent mistake with the rest of placeholder dates, it's possible Stalker 2 will meet its 2023 release window. The game's Steam page does list it as having a December release date still, but that isn't necessarily a confirmation of the game being out by the end of the year.

Whether it does or not, we should really cut developer GSC Game World a whole lot of slack, as due to the invasion the team had to relocate to Prague.

Earlier this year, GSC Game World also suffered from a hack, allegedly carried out by a group of hackers on a Russian social network, leading the team to ask fans to avoid any leaks that were released.

Stalker 2 is a long time in the making, as it first announced the game way back in 2018, originally expected to arrive in 2021. That obviously didn't happen, with the pandemic obviously affecting development even before the invasion first started.

While Stalker 2's release date is still up in the air, whenever it does launch it will be available on Xbox Series X/S and PC.