Stalker 2has had its fair share oflaunch issues, but that hasn’t stopped the game frombeing successful. Many have wondered why Developer GSC Game World didn’t delay the release to iron out the issues and ensure a smooth release.
It turns out that a delay was never on the table, but not for the reasons you expect. Normally, games are rushed out in a buggy state to meet financial deadlines. This time of year is a hectic release season to get ahead of holiday shopping and end-of-year fiscal results.
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In the case ofStalker 2, however, there was a different reason: GSC was simply too exhausted. A delay would have only exacerbated things. GSC CEO Ievgen Grygorovych spoke withEurogamerthis week and explained the studio’s decision not to delay the game:
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.
Delays Wouldn’t Have Helped Iron Out Every Issue With Stalker 2
As we saw with patch updates,fixing issues can only cause other ones. Grygorovych explains that there was never a scenario where the team would have everything fixed. Yes, getting in sales before the end of the year was a factor here, but it cannot be understated how much GSC went through during development.
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The company was forced to move to the Czech Republic from its home in Ukraine due to the Russian-Ukrainian War. It’s natural for the team to start to feel overwhelmed, and adding more development time does nothing to alleviate that feeling.
GSC is hard at work smoothing things out post-release, and fans have been noticing. Aside from the Russian review bombs, the game still enjoys a “very positive” status, according to Steam.
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