An ugly
rumor coming out of Ukraine claims that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is canceled and developer GSC This is
seriously disappointing news if it turns out to be true. According to a Google translation of Ukrainian News, GSC Game World founder and CEO has decided to shut
down the company. Although it appears that someone –perhaps employees at the
studio – weren’t happy with the progress being made on S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
2. The closure of the studio, means that S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
2 is dead in the
water.
And sadly, it looks like is
true: GSC initially denied the report via Twitter, but that tweet was quickly
deleting and then following by another GSC
Director, who write, “not PR. GSC close.” In response to inquiries from Rock, Paper, Shotgun, GSC said only,
“Sorry, no comments at this point,” which is never a good sign.
Game
World has been closed down,On the other hand, this
wouldn’t be the first time that an eastern, European game
company pulled a bizarre “we’re going out of business!” stunt to drum up
publicity. It’s a, very faint hope – but give
how much I’ve been looking forward to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, I’m
going to cling it.
UPDATE: It turns out that, who earlier “confirmed”
the closure of GSC on Twitter, doesn’t actually work for GSC Game World at all;
his Link profile lists him as the “Head of Publishing, Games Division” at
Mail.ru. He also told that he
has “no connection” with the project and was only tweeting about what he’d
heard. An interesting twist! We’re waiting for an official response to our
inquiries from GSC and will update again when we hear more.
UPDATE 2: Marketing director at 1C Multimedia [1C
Company published the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games in some regions] has blogged
about the closure of GSC, which you may or may not take as confirmation as you
see fit. “GSC is closed, a fact confirmed by all. The team is almost completely
dissolved, the state has only a few people,” he wrote, obviously Google translated.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series to consoles fell through and the
project sales for a PC-exclusive post-apocalyptic shooter based in eastern
Europe weren’t enough to justify the expense of developing the game. There were
also apparently concerns, as stated earlier, about the current state of the
game’s development and some claims that GSC Game World chief is just “stupidly
tired.”
We’re still awaiting official
word from GSC but at this point, it sounds very much like that’s .
.