GSC Game World Confirmed S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl Will Receive Another DLC and Multiplayer

Last week, GCS Game World released Cost of Hope—a new DLC for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl—which has significantly transformed the game. In addition to expanding the franchise’s lore and adding a new storyline with previously unexplored locations, the developers also released Update 2.0, a new patch that significantly improved the game’s performance, as well as introduced graphical changes and a host of other gameplay updates.

As it turns out, the studio has no plans to stop there. Recently, the developers gave a new interview to Rock Paper Shotgun, in which they stated they are already working on new DLC for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl, and it will differ significantly from Cost of Hope—in terms of its unique narrative approach, specifically—and will offer players a completely new gaming experience. Additionally, CGS Game World is actively working on adding multiplayer to the game; they are still refining the concept but have confirmed that it won’t be like Counter-Strike—though the single-player component remains the priority. You can check out more detailed comments from the studio’s CEO, Ievgen Grygorovych, and the executive and head of creative, Mariia Grygorovych, below:

“The biggest, not very nearest but close to nearest things that we are working on DLC 2 and multiplayer mode. Those are the two biggest next steps.

We believe that we are not doing something that everyone does. We are not trying to copy other mechanics and we are doing something that our players, who're playing for 2000 hours in our game, would like. Not a lot of our players really even wait for multiplayer, because we're mostly a single player game and company. So we just experiment with what we can do in multiplayer.”

As for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Cost of Hope, the expansion has received high praise from both critics and players. Its Metacritic score currently stands at 84 (based on 16 critic reviews), and users have given it a score of 8.2. The situation on Steam is roughly the same— over 80% of reviews are positive.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Cost of Hope, alongside Update 2.0, is now available on PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5.