10 Video Game Franchises You Didn't Realise Were Coming Back
6. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
The original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was one of 2007’s most stylish PC shooters that cut-through the standard affair of American and Japanese development to give us a truly beautiful, dark survival-shooter hybrid from the heart of Europe. The saga that surrounds its sequel is one of confusion, false starts, legal issues and a company dissolution and revival.
Ukrainian developers GCS Game World admitted that their 2014 relaunch reveal for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was extremely early, and that they were merely looking to attract publishers to secure a deal. However, for whatever reason it seems that GCS are handling all ends of the game themselves which may explain why we didn’t see S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl until E3 2021.
Due to the 2022 Russian military invasion of Ukraine, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2’s release was put on indefinite hiatus. A June 2022 development diary explained that, despite many developers fleeing their homes or joining the Ukrainian military, that the game was still being worked on.
With video games “it’s done when it’s done” is always the right approach and in this instance that goes doubly so. Still, as the final few months of development have now shifted to Prague, it’s possible that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 will be here sooner than we anticipated.