Stalker 2 delayed again, now arriving on Xbox in November

GSC Game World has announced that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl has been delayed, but we'll get our first deep dive into the game next month.

Tom West

Published 25 Jul 2024

We'll not be collecting the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 achievements in September as originally planned, as GSC Game World has announced that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 has been delayed again. The long-awaited open-world Xbox game will now launch on Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Xbox Game Pass on November 20.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 has been delayed out of September

As announced via a statement on the official S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 X account, the post-apocalyptic game will now launch later this year, so GSC Game World has time to fix the final bugs plaguing the game.

"S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl will now be launching on November 20, 2024, moving from the previously planned date of September 5, 2024," GSC Game World says. "We know you might be tired of waiting, and we truly appreciate your patience. These two additional months will give us the chance to fix more 'unexpected anomalies' (or simply 'bugs.' as you call them)."

Announced in 2020, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 later got a release date of April 28, 2022. Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, GSC Game World has had to delay its upcoming game on multiple occasions. Its previous delay was back in January, which moved S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 out of an "early 2024" window with a September release date so the team could work on the feedback it received from a demo.

We will get a much closer look at the game beforehand, however, as the team says, the first S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 developer deep dive will drop on Xbox's media channels in August. We can expect to see "never-before-seen content, including interviews and behind-the-scenes looks into the development process, new footage showing a world overview, various locations, and of course, gameplay, as well as a full video walkthrough of one of the story quests," so it's certainly something to look forward to.

Following this delay, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 will now leave our list of upcoming Game Pass games on November 20.

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Written by Tom West

Tom has been playing video games since he was old enough to hold a controller, experimenting with a number of systems until he eventually fell in love with Xbox. With a passion for the platform, he decided to make a career out of it, and now happily spends his days writing about that which he loves. If he’s not hunting for Xbox achievements, you’ll likely find him somewhere in The Elder Scrolls Online or fighting for survival in Battlefield.