STALKER 2 is finally almost here after many years of waiting, but it will cost you a sizable chunk of your storage to play it. Xbox has had a fairly light year for exclusives so far, but it is packing quite a punch for the end of the year. The console struggled last year with some major misses last year such as Redfall, but Microsoft plans to make up with that for some huge hits this year. On top of offering Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 at no extra cost for Xbox Game Pass owners, Microsoft will bolster its exclusive offerings in November and December with Microsoft Flight Simulator, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and STALKER 2, a new post-apocalyptic survival game that has been in the works for a very, very long time.
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STALKER 2 has been in various forms of development since 2010 and after a long road, it will release next week on Xbox and PC. While it’s not developed or published by Xbox, Microsoft has been incredibly supportive of the game for years and has worked out a deal with GSC Game World to help market the game and bring it to Xbox Game Pass on day one. Needless to say, it’s a big deal to get such a massive RPG at no extra cost for Xbox Game Pass subscribers. However, it will cost players in a different way. STALKER 2 is now available to pre-load and it will take up 146.58 GBS on Xbox Series X|S. That is an absolute beast of a game that outweighs other huge titles like Red Dead Redemption 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, and more. It’s definitely one of the biggest Xbox games out there in terms of file size. Hopefully, this means its chalk full of content and high quality textures.
STALKER 2 will release on November 20th, so players have plenty of time to get the game pre-loaded on their console so they can play on launch with ease. Xbox Game Pass subscribers can start downloading the game right now in addition to those who have chosen to pay the full retail price for the game. Unfortunately for those who like to bounce back and forth between their console and PC, it does not look like STALKER 2 is Xbox Play Anywhere compatible.
STALKER 2 has overcome some incredible odds to even get to this point from office fires to being at the center of wars. The Ukrainian studio partially developed the game in the middle of a warzone with some of its developers even going to go fight in the Russian and Ukraine war. Ultimately, the studio moved its operations to Prague to continue development. On top of that, the studio was the target of a cyberattack which resulted in key materials from STALKER 2 being leaked online such as playable builds. All of this resulted in the game getting delayed multiple years from its original planned release of December 2022. Nevertheless, the game is finally coming out and fans are eager to dive right into it.
