S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart Of Chornobyl

This will be the next chapter of the mega-popular game players expect from us." The development of the game was ambitious; it was stated that the game would feature an all-new multiplatform engine, made from scratch to fit S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2. Numerous layoffs and overall attrition during the development of the game had shrunk GSC's employee count by 75%. However, the cancellation of this build of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 had been formally announced in April 2012 on the company's Facebook page, officially stated to have resulted from dispute between investors, staff, and the original IP rights owner. West Games, a studio founded by former GSC lead developer Eugene Kim, had launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign for a spiritual successor to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. franchise in June 2014, under the title "Areal". After the cancellation though , they announced another crowdfunding campaign on the Wfunder platform in December 2014, setting a much larger goal of $600,000 to produce a new game called S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Four years later, on said game's Facebook page, development of a new S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was announced, linking to www.stalker2.com, the game's website. Grygorovych later stated on a podcast that the intent of the project's announcement in 2018 was largely to generate hype, in order to strike a publishing deal at E3 2018. Little information was given regarding the project until E3 2021, where a full gameplay trailer was shown at the Microsoft/Bethesda press conference. This was also followed by a Twitter post which linked to an account to donate to the Ukrainian military and stated "through pain, death, war, fear, and inhuman cruelty, Ukraine will persevere. On March 14, 2022, the game's subtitle was changed to "Heart of Chornobyl", reflecting the native Ukrainian romanisation rather than the Russian form. On June 14, 2022, GSC stated in a development diary that the development continues despite some of the team fleeing their homes or joining the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Due to the war, GSC decided to move development of the game to Prague, Czech Republic. In March 2023, GSC said they have been enduring constant cyberattacks for more than a year and anticipated that there could be leaks in the future. In June 2023, GSC announced that hackers have leaked an internal test build to the public. The full title of the game is "S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl".