GSC Game World’s game will be released in a somewhat incomplete state despite repeated delays, but at least they tell us in advance what things won’t be there by default in the “store” version…

Yesterday we quoted from WCCFTech’s interview with Slava Lukyanenko (the executive producer) and Zakhar Bocharov (their PR expert), but this time we’ll quote from a different topic. Hardware ray tracing (RT), cross-platform mods, and a multiplayer segment won’t be in the game by default, but they will find their way into the Ukrainian studio’s long-awaited product soon after release:

“We will have software ray tracing. As for hardware ray tracing, it’s too early for us, but we are experimenting with it. We are trying to have it at launch, but it is highly unlikely that you will have it at launch. But Nvidia DLSS will be there. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a well-known franchise, not only because of the games, but also because of the support of the mod community that has been thriving for the last 15 years, and we don’t really want to let those people down. So after the release, I can’t say when exactly, but we want to do it as close to the release date as possible, we will have official mod support. We are cooking up some new interesting initiatives for next year. We are trying to support both PC and console,” Lukyanenka said.

“Yes, we actually already support mods in the original trilogy. I can’t confirm whether it will be the same for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 or something else. But the thing is, the modding scene is a bit of a wild west right now where you have to download files, swap files, et cetera, so we want to make it more structured. There are certain ways on the market to make it structured: Steamworks and others. We’re researching it, we’re playing for it, and we want to do it as close to release as possible, but we can’t just guarantee it’s going to be on release, but we’re doing our best to be there on time. As for multiplayer, it will be an update after release. But for now, we’re making the single player as polished as possible. Anything related to multiplayer is probably part of our post-launch phase, so we just don’t have an update on that right now,” Bocharov added.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl launches on Xbox Series and PC on November 20 (it’ll also be on Xbox Game Pass), and there will be free updates and paid story DLC after launch. The former includes the aforementioned additions.

Source: WCCFTech