A Ukrainian defender from the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade praised the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. for helping him with shooting skills and jokingly asked S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 from the studio’s founder. GSC Game World, the game’s developer, sent him a game key.
- The 3rd Separate Assault Brigade posted a YouTube video from positions near Bakhmut, Donetsk region. In one of the part of the video (from 10:50), serviceman Viktor Rozovyi, as a joke, compared shooting combat with computer games, in particular, with S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and said that such games helped him to learn how to shoot. Then he jokingly asked for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 from the developer:
- The official account of the game developer, studio GSC Game World, commented the video and wrote that it has already sent the game key to the serviceman.
- The official release of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl will take place in 2023 on PC and Xbox Series X/S. The game will be available on Game Pass from the day of release and is also available for pre-order on Steam, GOG, and the studio’s official website.
- In December 2022, GSC Game World released a new trailer and screenshots for its open-world first-person shooter.
- Since March 2023, Russian gamers have been blackmailing the Ukrainian studio GSC Game World, threatening to leak their new game in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series. In May 2023, Russian game communities are again discussing another leak of the game assets. Ukrainian developers are urging the game community to ignore it and wait for the official release.
