Summary
STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobylcrossed more than 100K concurrent players on Steam, mere hours after launch. The highly-anticipated sequel to 2009’sSTALKER: Call of Pripyat,STALKER 2is the first game in the series in 15 years.
Unlike most games,STALKER 2has had a particularly tortuous road to launch. First announced way back in 2010, the survival horror game was disappointingly canceled in the year of its expected release, 2012, amid developer GSC Game World’s financial troubles. In 2018, the Ukrainian studio surprisingly announcedSTALKER 2’s revival, with a 2021 release date, which was eventually pushed back to 2022. After experiencing a few more delays, the shooter game finally hit the shelves on Jul 01, 2025, on PC and Xbox Series X/S, ending aprolonged wait forSTALKERfans.
Having just been released,STALKER 2is doing fairly well so far, with an average critic score of 77 on OpenCritic. The signs have been more promising on Steam, where the shooter game has a “Very Positive” rating based on over 10K player reviews. As announced by its official Twitter account,STALKER 2also attracted tons of player engagement on its launch day, reaching a peak concurrent player count of 113,587 within six hours of rolling out. Moreover, at the time of writing, it also sits at the top of Steam’s Top Sellers list, ahead ofpopular AAA titles likeCall of Duty: Black Ops 6and more.
STALKER 2 Debuts Well but Technical Issues Still Linger
AlthoughSTALKER 2has been met with a positive response, players are also reporting underlying problems, particularly in the PC version of the game. OnSTALKER’s Twitter, players revealed technical issues that have been hampering their gaming experience. A user noted triggering repeated crashes at a specific point in the game, whereas another reported facing issues while using a controller to play. Going back to developer GSC Game World’s letter to fans ahead of launch, theGame Pass Day One titlehaving some technical hiccups clearly seems like something the devs saw coming. They mentioned the likelihood of some “rough edges” still existing inSTALKER 2given the game’s sheer scale, the kind that is admittedly new for the studio.
Fortunately, while the devs expected there to be shortcomings inSTALKER 2, they also committed to delivering hot fixes “frequently and “precisely” in the first few days after launch, eventually moving on to shipping larger updates. GSC Game World’s letter also stated that a roadmap for some free in-game content will be shared in December, as the devs execute their “big plans” for theSTALKERuniverse. Suffice to say, it will be interesting to see how thePhil Spencer-backed gametakes shape in the coming months.
STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl
Chornobyl Exclusion Zone has changed dramatically after the second massive explosion in year 2006. Violent mutants, deadly anomalies, warring factions have made the Zone a very tough place to survive. Nevertheless, artifacts of unbelievable value attracted many people called S.T.A.L.K.E.R.s, who entered the Zone for their own risk striving to make a fortune out of it or even to find the Truth concealed in the Heart of Chornobyl.EPIC NONLINEAR STORY IN SEAMLESS OPEN WORLDTake over a role of the lone stalker and explore photorealistic seamless open world in a 64-km² radioactive zone with a variety of environments that reveal post-apocalyptic atmosphere from different angles. Make your way through the Zone to define your destiny as you choose your paths within highly branching epic story.VARIETY OF ENEMIES AND HUNDREDS OF WEAPON COMBINATIONSMeet members of different factions deciding who of them worth your friendship and who deserve a bullet. Engage intense gunfights with a variety of enemies that follow different tactics trying to outsmart you. Choose your preferable firearms from 30+ types of weapons with numerous modifications that allow creating hundreds of distinctive lethal combinations.
