After perhaps the most harrowing game development saga of all time, Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl has finally gone gold ahead of its release on November 20.
Developer GSC Game World announced the news via social media today, with a brief trailer featuring a few clips from the FPS culminating in the message “G.O.N.E. G.O.L.D.” The term “gone gold” dates back to the days when physical media was supreme, and essentially means that the game’s code is final and ready for launch. No doubt there’ll be a day one patch in the works for Stalker 2, but this announcement means the game is officially ready to be released.
It’s been a long saga for Stalker 2. The game was first announced back in 2010 for launch in 2012, but developer GSC Game World was suddenly dissolved in 2011. The company was revived in 2014, and reannounced Stalker 2 in 2018, but it wasn’t until 2021 that it actually revealed the game to the public as part of Xbox’s E3 showcase with a planned April 28, 2022 release date. GSC Game World would end up delaying the game until December 2022.
GSC Game World is a Ukrainian studio, and its employees were among the many affected when Russia invaded the country. Amid updates to fans from the frontlines of the war, Stalker 2 development was put on hold. But the development eventually resumed, with Stalker 2 set to finally launch in late 2023. Then early 2024. And then on September 5. And now, finally, on November 20.
Given the circumstances around Stalker 2’s numerous delays, there are few fans begrudging the time it’s taken to bring this game to market given that the devs had to survive literal war to get here. Soon we’ll finally get to see what all that work has been building up to.
