STALKER 2 gets a new Strider trailer and confirms Q1 2024 release window

thesixthaxis.com:

GSC Game Worlds has released a new story trailer for STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl, introducing players to Strider and more of the game’s story. STALKER 2 is nowdue to release for Xbox Series X|S and PC in Q1 2024. It will also be available via Xbox Game Pass.

There’s new forces and powers at play within the exclusion zone around Chornobyl, with the strange anomalous energy that has warped and twisted this part of the world rising again and different factions looking to embrace or take advantage of it.

The trailer features Strider, a character who first appeared in STALKER: Call of Pripyat, the third game of the STALKER franchise’s original run, and an ex-Monolith fighter. It certainly feels as though the experiences of life within the zone have sent him a little bit loopy, and there’s plenty of what seem to be snippets of flashbacks to those earlier events, as Strider was released from control by the removal of C-fields.

Alongside the trailer’s release during the latest PC Gaming Show, GSC Game World CEO Yevhen Grygorovych said that that the game is now in its final phase of development. He said, “This game stands as the biggest and most complex game in our lives. It was ambitious from the beginning but evolved into an ultimate challenge. It holds extreme significance and a deeply personal connection for us, crafted amidst the most stressful conditions imaginable.”

STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl’s development has been a monumental struggle for GSC Game Worlds. First it took years and years for the studio to be in a position to actually start development on the game, but the last two years have been unimaginably difficult. The Ukrainian developer has been massively affected by the continuing war in the country, with Russia’s