The evening of November 20 marked the release of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl*. The game launched on PC and Xbox Series, including the Game Pass subscription. Judging by the numbers, its debut on Steam was successful.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl**
According to SteamDB, on the release day, the peak number of simultaneous players for the Steam version of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl* reached 113,587. This is the best result in the series.
Previously, the record belonged to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl* with a peak online of 2,308. It's important to note that SteamDB has been collecting stats only since 2008, while S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl* was released in 2007, so it is unknown how many people played it on Steam at launch.
Thanks to such excitement, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl* ranked high among 2024 releases by online presence on Steam, taking 19th place** between Liar’s Bar (113,798 players) and EA SPORTS FC 25 (110,026 players). It is quite likely that the new release will improve its position in the coming days.
Online presence of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl* on Steam
By the time this news was written, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl* received 8,400 reviews on Steam, 81% of which were positive. The gaming press also welcomed the game warmly, giving it a Metacritic score of 74-81 out of 100, depending on the platform. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl* is praised for its setting, preservation of the spirit of the older games, and engaging story, while many criticize it for technical issues. GSC Game World*** has already promised to gradually improve the game's state.
*Owned by GSC Game World, whose activities are considered undesirable within the Russian Federation
**We do not consider Banana (online over 917,000 players) as the project's authors admit that a large portion of Banana's audience are bots, not real players. Games like V Rising and Sons of the Forest, which reached their online peak during early access years prior to their 2024 release, were not included in the top chart.
***The studio is considered undesirable within the Russian Federation