STALKER 2 Draws Huge Steam Launch Numbers, Developers Promise Fixes

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl has launched successfully on Steam, reaching over 113,000 concurrent players on its first day.

This puts the game in Steam’s top 10 most-played games list and far surpasses previous STALKER games’ numbers.

The game, developed by Ukrainian studio GSC Game World, launched simultaneously on Xbox Series X/S and Game Pass, though total player numbers across platforms aren’t available.

Despite technical issues and bugs, the game maintains a “very positive” rating on Steam. The developers addressed these problems in a statement: “S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is a massive game… 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.”

GSC Game World plans to:

• Release frequent hotfixes in the first days
• Move to larger updates later
• Share a content roadmap in December
• Add free in-game content

The game faced several delays during development, partly due to the ongoing war in Ukraine. The developers continue working to improve the game while dealing with challenging circumstances.