STALKER 2 announced by GSC, scheduled for 2021 release

DEALS

GSC Game World, the original creator of the STALKER game franchise, has unexpectedly announced a sequel after 8 years since it’s last S.T.A.L.K.E.R game, STALKER: Call of Pripyat in 2010. The new game currently titled “STALKER 2“, the game is scheduled to launch sometime in 2021, according to its website.

The first game released called “STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl” is set in the area around the real world event of the Soviet-era nuclear power plant in chernobyl, which experienced a critical meltdown in 1986 that blanketed parts of Ukraine in nuclear fallout. The game which was released in 2007, the first-person shooter is considered to be one of the defining games of the open-world sandbox genre. Shadow of Chernobyl spawned a few follow-up titles, namely STALKER: Clear Sky in 2008 and STALKER: Call of Pripyat in 2010.

Gameplay from "STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl" - in 2007 — Gameplay from “STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl” – in 2007

In 2011the founder of GSC, Sergiy Grygorovychunexpectedly shut down the company despite it’s successful releases. This stopped the development and progress of the fourth game in the series which was being worked on by the studio, and left many skilled developers in the lurch. Many of the former developers went on to work on other projects such as Metro 2033at a newly founded development company 4A Games.

Gameplay from "Metro 2033" - 2010 — Gameplay from “Metro 2033” – 2010

In 2015, GSC was reformed out of the blue. There was interest in a crowd-funded STALKER 2 revival however this failed and was not endorsed by GSC, however GSC then announced a sequel to their successful Cossacks franchise, Cossacks 3. This was released in 2016 and since then no further announcements for new titles was made by GSC in those two years until now in 2018.

Sergiy Galyonki, an employee of EPIC Games announced S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 over twitterwhich lead to an interesting comment by Sergiy providing an insight to the potential game engine the game would use, speculation indicates that it may be using Epic Games “Unreal Engine 4” game engine that will be used for the FPS game.