S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Launches Big on Steam as Dev Promises Fixes for ‘Rough Edges’

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl has enjoyed a big launch on Steam, becoming one of the most-played games on Valve’s platform on release day.

Ukrainian developer GSC Game World’s post-apocalyptic horror shooter saw a peak concurrent player count of 113,587 on Steam, a number that was enough to place S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 in the platform’s top 10 most-played games list. That dwarfs the Steam peak concurrent player count of all the other S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games, including 2007’s S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 also launched on Xbox Series X and S and straight into Game Pass, so its combined peak concurrent player count will be much larger than what we’ve seen on Steam (Microsoft does not make its player numbers public). The expectation is that its player count will continue to grow as S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 heads into its first weekend on sale.

It also has a ‘very positive’ user review rating on Steam, despite suffering from various bugs detailed in IGN’s S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl Review in Progress.

GSC Game World has told fans it plans to address these bugs with a series of patches. “S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is a massive game,” the developer said. “We understand that in such a game, there may still be rough edges: we literally haven’t released anything of this scale before. We’re absolutely committed to being here, monitoring your feedback, and quickly fixing any issues that need our attention.

“In the first days after release, we’ll be working with hotfixes, rolling them out as precisely as possible, but as frequently as we can. Then, we’ll switch to larger updates that include constant improvements.”

Free in-game content is also coming to the game. Expect more on that when GSC Game World shares its roadmap later in December. “We have big plans for the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. universe,” the developer added. “In a way, today is both a return and the beginning of a grand new journey.”

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 has suffered a number of understandable delays, most recently in July when the game was due out in September. GSC Game World said at the time that the extra two months would give the developers the chance to fix “unexpected anomalies,” aka bugs.

GSC Game World has also been vocal about the challenges the studio faced getting S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 up to scratch after a mixed reaction to its debut public showing last year. At gamescom 2023, GSC Game World addressed what some had called a “downgrade” sparked by S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2’s then latest gameplay trailer. At the time, GSC Game World told IGN it was still targeting a visual quality and level of polish suggested by S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2’s eye-catching 2021 trailer despite the horrendous conditions suffered by the staff amid the war with Russia.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].