Stalker 2 gets first gameplay trailer and April 2022 release for Xbox Series X/S and PC

The first Stalker 2: Heart of Chernobyl gameplay footage was revealed on Sunday alongside a release date of April 28, 2022.

The post-apocalyptic shooter is coming first to Xbox Series X/S and PC and will be available on Xbox Game Pass at launch.

Ukrainian studio GSC Game World premiered the debut trailer for the title during the Xbox Series X software in July 2020.

As in previous series entries Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl, Stalker: Clear Sky and Stalker: Call of Pripyat, Stalker 2 is set within the Zone, an alternate history version of the Chernobyl exclusion zone “filled with mutated creatures, deadly radiation, and a strange, anomalous energy”.

Players will explore its open-world as one of the bounty hunters known as Stalkers, in what GSC Game World PR specialist Zakhar Bocharov has called “an epic, branching story culminating in lots of different endings”.

He told Xbox Wire last year: “For the first time in the series, the Zone will be yours to explore as a post-apocalyptic open-world — one of the biggest ones to date.

“The previous S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games introduced A-Life — a living world simulating system. The reimagined version of this system, which we call A-Life 2.0, will control the state of the world and the behavior of characters and mutants, making the Zone ever-changing and truly alive. Countless events and encounters will happen every moment — even if you are not around to witness them with your own eyes.

“Xbox Series X makes a good match for these ambitions,” Bocharov added. “With no compromises needed, the power of Microsoft’s next-gen console compliments GSC Game World’s first-ever console announcement perfectly.”