Delaying S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl again simply wasn’t an option for the GSC Game World. While the game has encompassed strong sales, its critical and audience reviews blast it for performance and bug issues, which the Ukrainian dev is working on.
Speaking with Eurogamer, CEO Ievgen Grygorovych explained that its development was kinda like a marathon.
“It’s very hard to explain your state when you’re in a very intensive work process for many months until release, and you’re working over, over, over what you usually can do and in the highest possible stress and overwhelming period. You have no energy at all and you decide – should we take one more marathon? And you just can’t say yes, let’s make one more marathon, because you’re already broken.”
Even when it initially delayed release, the game was never quite fixed, so instead of reintroducing the same level of stress as well as the looming key sales period, the team decided to release the game in the best state it could. After release, it could patch the game and make it better for those still around.
“You’re so tired that you would just die if you say let’s run an additional marathon. We didn’t have a chance to say let’s do it more. We just had a chance of ‘let’s do until this moment – the release date – as much as we can’.”
As of right now, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl has seen three significant patches to address big bugs and glitches and there doesn’t seem to be any sign of the team stopping.
Smash Jump’s Martin Popov said in our review: “While some parts of the game still need a bit of time in the oven, I can see myself coming back to the Zone.”
