[Update: Bourkovski is not in the employ of GSC, instead saying he is a friend of the company. His Tweet confirming closure stories was deleted, but he still says he has been told the studio's been shut down. That said, he's asking everyone to wait for the OFFICIAL word. Hopefully we'll know one way or the other soon.]
Dreadful news for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. fans -- the game's long-awaited sequel has officially been canceled, and developer GSC has shut its doors. The news comes directly from game director Dimitri Bourkovski, who Tweeted the information earlier today.
News of the studio's closure was first found on Ukrainian news site UkraNews, but GSC denied the report. However, that denial was soon deleted, only to be followed with a confirmation from Bourkovski.
I only very recently got into S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and was really looking forward to the sequel. I find Eastern European game development fascinating and it's terrible to see one of the better known studios bite the dust so quietly. Thanks for the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, and best to luck to everyone involved.
GSC denies Stalker 2 cancelled rumour [Eurogamer]
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Contest:
1:30 PM on 12.09.2011 | 
If one of the big companies scarfs it up I'm going to likely be sick. THQ or Bethesda would be best case scenarios and even those wouldn't be great.
The body is a metaphor for my soul. The player: the state of the world.
Its a shame the stalker series doesn't get a lot of cred
To anyone that was thinking about getting into series i highly recommend shadows of chernobyl and call of pripyat
Its got the precision of COD, The torment of dark souls, and the open world of bethesda games
Great fuckin game, you will be missed GSC
I at least hope the employees get jobs elsewhere, I don't exactly how big the eastern european game development job market is, but consider even ours seems so small sometimes, I expect that one to be even smaller.
Good luck guys, and thanks for an awesome game :(
I hope that means a few members from the development team may have the resources to start a project elsewhere.
Most likely cause of closure is simple - GSC couldn't find investors and publishers for the new PC story-driven game, most popularity of which would be in the Eastern Europe area. And while Grigorovich himself was thinking about closing the studio for some time, as evidenced by those who know or work with him, this closure was unexpected as is the complete lack of comments from Grigorovich himself (who doesn't reply calls at this time). I'd still wait untill we get all the info to know the facts for sure, and to know what happens with the IPs of GSC (Cossacks, Heroes of Anihilated Empires and STALKER).
THQ's Metro is what came to mind immediately. Not the least, because the boners who made it worked on Stalker. I loved it, but they toned it back from Stalker. It was still a fun mess of mechanics, but it wasn't nearly as complex as Stalker. Which was a bummer.
It was so awesome wandering in that wasteland trying to figure out what the fuck everything was and what was going on. Who the fuck is Jim Sterling? No. Who the fuck is Strelok!
I haven't noticed any bugs since the patches.
@Stinky
Nope.
OH NO, PIRACY. WE MUST DRM ALL THE THINGS.
/s
Haha! You mean you actually played the vanilla game?
Everyone knows stalker needs a little bit of mod grease
ballistics mod FTW
http://stalker.filefront.com/
I saw that they released a ton of concept artwork on some website, too.
Bet if they release their concept art and some of the other art/story assets, modders will make their own version of Stalker 2 on the Pripyat engine. In fact... I'm about 99.9% sure they would lol.
Yes, use the fallacious jackass publisher excuse.
Never made the game sold spectacularly on Steam, and the fact that the company has had practically no incoming revenue from not having had a release in years.
Never made the game sold spectacularly on Steam, and the fact that the company has had practically no incoming revenue from not having had a release in years.
Not really. They released no less than 3 games in the last 4 years.
Anyhow, this is quite surprising and sad. I loved Shadow of Chernobyl and Clear Sky and I'm about to begin Call of Priyiat. Last year they proudly announced the series had sold 4 million copies, I wouldn't have expected this, and I hope the IP will live on.
BTW, for those who considering diving into the world of Stalker, make sure to install the Complete mod. It makes a huge difference!
They had 4 million from STALKER just recently. I don't see how that just *disappears.*
Piracy is by and large irrelevant. It's how many sales you get.
The fact is the majority of those pirates are never ever going to be an income source.
Whether you have 100 pirates or a million pirates is irrelevant. If your still only going to get the same 3 million sales.
STALKER 2 was meant to be a multiplat title as well. Meaning that it would have had more money making avenue's and one's fraught with less piracy.
Maybe they are stalling it for the next generation of consoles who knows
Piracy is by and large irrelevant. It's how many sales you get.
The fact is the majority of those pirates are never ever going to be an income source.
Whether you have 100 pirates or a million pirates is irrelevant. If your still only going to get the same 3 million sales.
STALKER 2 was meant to be a multiplat title as well. Meaning that it would have had more money making avenue's and one's fraught with less piracy.
Maybe they are stalling it for the next generation of consoles who knows
"LATEST UPDATE: 1c Ukraine’s Sergey Galenkin has blogged about the closure of GSC. He states: “GSC is closed, a fact confirmed by all. The team is almost completely dissolved, the state has only a few people.” Galenkin blames the cost of developing a PC only shooter for a European audience, and a failed console publishing deal, for the collapse of the developer."
So by the looks of it they were probably hoping on paying a chunk of their development cost's off with the potential console sales.
Which is probably because the publisher decided that STALKER is too niche or as a friend put it he spent too much time doing thing's that weren't shooting.