S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was announced two times, once in 2010 and most recently two weeks ago. Back in 2010, GSC Game World, the creators of
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, Clear Sky, and
Call of Pripyat didn't manage to finish the sequel as GSC founder Sergiy Grygorovych shut it down in 2011. Four years ago, GSC suddenly returned to the world of the living.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 's return was just a matter of time.
Two weeks ago, Grygorovych announced the news and released the title card with the "
2.0.2.1." inscription implying that
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is scheduled for 2021. Speaking on Russian games podcast
How to Make Games, Epic’s director of publishing Sergey Galyonkin said that
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2’s announcement was made this early to drum up excitement for the project and allow GSC to get a publishing deal at E3.
According to Galyonkin,
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is still in a design document stage, which is a very early, pre-production stage. Galyonkin is not a GSC employee, but he has an access to this information because the studio is licensing Unreal Engine 4 for the development of the game. He also added that
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is being made a different team from the one responsible for the
Cossacks RTS games.
You can check out the full interview with Galyonkin down below, just remember that it's in Russian: