Over its rich development history, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl was postponed more than once, but in order to solve the numerous problems that the game has been suffering from since its release in November, they did not do this. GSC Game World explained the reason.
Image source: GSC GAME WORLD
CEO of GSC and head of development of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Evgeniy Grigorovich, in an interview with Eurogamer, compared the production of the game to going through several marathons, after which the employees no longer had any strength left.
«You’re so tired you’ll die if you run another marathon. We haven’t had the opportunity to [reschedule the game] yet. We had the opportunity to do as much as possible before this moment – the release date,” says Grigorovich.
According to Grigorovich, even additional time for polishing would not have helped the team fix all the problems. And with the end of the year approaching, the team risked missing the most favorable period for the start of sales of the game.
It was decided to continue to refine S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl and try to release it in as familiar a form as possible. Gamers ended up with a buggy game, and reviewers ended up with a very buggy one.
«She’s not perfect, we need to fix everything, she has problems. But this is a game! Playing with soul, feelings, love. Without the game, the problem would not have been fixed,” insists the lead producer of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Maria Grigorovich.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was released on November 20 on PC, Xbox Series X and S, and Game Pass. Technical problems did not prevent the game from reaching 1 million copies sold two days after release. The day before, the project received its third patch in a week.