[UPDATE] GSC Game World has confirmed those rumors.

　　[ORIGINAL STORY] STALKER 2 is one of those games that required extreme patience from its fans. The sequel to the cult survival horror first-person shooter game was first announced in 2010 for a 2012 release date, but GSC Game World was dissolved in late 2011, seemingly putting an end to the project. The Ukrainian studio was resurrected three years later, in December 2014, though they decided to work on Cossacks 3 first.

　　The real-time strategy game was launched in September 2016 for PC. A couple of years later, GSC Game World announced it had resumed work on STALKER 2 with a 2021 target launch date.

　　The game, made with Unreal Engine 4 (later updated to Unreal Engine 5), is debuting first on Xbox Series S and X consoles. It was later discovered that Microsoft signed a three-month exclusivity deal with GSC Game World and got STALKER 2 to launch on Game Pass from day one.

　　As such, the rumor posted today by Tom Henderson on Insider Gaming is definitely plausible. Henderson's sources claim STALKER 2 will be playable at the Xbox Gamescom booth, which Microsoft has recently said will be their biggest ever 'to show off the incredible games we have coming to you'. This would mark the first time the highly anticipated sequel is playable by the public.

　　It also bodes well for the game's release date, which was pushed back a few times. The first concrete one was April 28th, 2022, which GSC Game World had to delay to December 2022. That delay announcement came in January 2022, around one month and a half before Russia invaded Ukraine, disrupting the lives of many, GSC Game World included.

　　The game's development inevitably took the backseat to what was happening in the real world, as the developer confirmed in early March. STALKER 2 development resumed once again in late May, though it obviously couldn't be at full speed yet.

　　Still, fans were treated to a gorgeous gameplay trailer just before the year's end. Officially, STALKER 2 is targeting a generic 2023 launch window, but a playable build available on the gamescom showfloor could mean there's indeed a concrete hope to get our hands on the game before 2024. We've contacted GSC Game World to get a comment on this rumor.

　　By the way, Henderson also mentioned Towerborne and Forza Motorsport being playable at the Xbox gamescom booth. Forza Motorsport is due on October 10th, while Towerborne doesn't have a release date yet. Gamescom runs from August 23rd to 27th in Cologne, Germany.