A new trailer for Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl has finally been released, showing off the game’s unique gameplay mechanics and Psychic Powers. The game is set to release sometime in 2023.
The latest trailer for the title was shared on IGN’s official YouTube channel. The new trailer gives players their biggest look at the game, focusing on the characters and the players’ new psychic abilities. The Stalker games take place in the abandoned Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, where the player fights through hordes of irradiated mutates. The radiation did not only create mutates but caused people to develop unnatural powers. Stalker is a backronym that stands for Scavengers, Trespassers, Adventurers, Loners, Killers, Explorers, and Robbers. Stalker 2 takes place immediately after the events of the first game.
The title has had a very tumultuous history. After spending the better part of a decade in development limbo, Stalker 2 was finally announced in 2018. Unfortunately, several major real-world events prevented the development of the game. These events include the ongoing pandemic, which temporarily shut things down across the globe in 2020, and the war between Russia and Ukraine. Stalker 2 is being developed by GSC Game World, a Ukraine-based video game studio that was greatly affected by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In solidarity with the studio’s home country, GSC changed the wording of Chernobyl from its usual English spelling to “Chornobyl,” which is the Ukraine spelling of the infamous location.
There have been multiple attempts to make a new Stalker game since the release of the last game in the series, Stalker: Call of Pripyat, in 2009. Stalker 2 originally aimed to launch in April 2021 but was pushed back to December 2021 and later got postponed again thanks to the war. Stalker 2 is set to release exclusively on the PC and Xbox Series X/S, with it being available on Xbox Game Pass on day one. A version of the game is set to release on the PlayStation 5 later.
