Today, some gaming sites, mostly russian, reported that Microsoft has started refunding money for pre-orders of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2.

Apparently, those who placed pre-orders received the following message from the Xbox service:

“Thank you for pre-order of STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl. The availability date for this item has changed to an unconfirmed future date. Due to this change, your pre-order has been canceled and any payment made refunded. Keep an eye on Xbox.com for future release date information about this title.”

Apparently, in a conversation with DTF.ru, representatives of GSC Game World emphasized that this is a standard decision for the publisher after the game has been postponed to 2023 without an exact release date. The studio emphasized that later S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 can be ordered again.

It is very unfortunate that GSC Game World representatives do not communicate with players on social networks, especially regarding such important news. The latest post on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 on Facebook is dated August 24, 2022 and is dedicated to the Independence Day of Ukraine. The latest Twitter entry is more recent – it is from September 2, 2022 and consists of one word “Anomalies” is the support of the flashmob that took place that day. Instagram page was updated in general as late as July 23, 2022, symbolically it advertises Pre-Order of the game itself.

We will remind you, initially the release of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Heart of Chornobyl was scheduled for December 8, 2022, but due to the Russian invasion release of the game has been postponed to 2023 without specifying a specific date. The game’s Steam page currently lists the release date as December 2023, but it’s just Steam’s standard practice to provide an end date for a possible release date if the exact date is not yet known.