Stalker 2 dev explains another delay was out of the question after the team were “broken” by “marathon” development

Ukrainian video game studio GSC Game Studio has finally released Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl, albeit in an unfinished state. The team behind the new survival game has dedicated itself to fixing the game’s current issues as well as re-implementing its broken A-Life system, but they’ve also explained why the game had to release.

Why Stalker 2 was released in an unfinished state

Speaking to Eurogamer, GSC Game World studio CEO Ievgen Grygorovych explained that the team were running multiple marathons between delays, and another release date push would have “broken” the team.

“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,” Grygorovych told the outlet.

“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.”

The CEO explained that he “didn’t have a chance” to delay the game any further. Instead, the decision was made to release the game in as solid a state as possible and continue to work on the game after release.

Since release, the Stalker 2 studio has released a new patch almost every two days to fix bugs and improve performance. While modders are currently attempting to fix the game’s A-Life AI simulation, it seems that system won’t be officially remedied for a while yet. Nevertheless, it’s a wonder the survival game exists at all and—in our opinion—is still a remarkable game despite its unfinished state.

For more Stalker 2 coverage, read about how NPCs actually hide a scrapped feature for the game or read about how the team has finally nerfed those pesky Bloodsucker mutants in a recent patch.