S.T.A.L.K.E.R. delay confirmed

THQ wouldn’t confirm the delay earlier on. Well the game now officially won’t be released before April 2006 at the earliest. Fansites reported it a few weeks ago but THQ wouldn’t confirm it.

Publisher THQ has confirmed reports that GSC Gameworld’s toxic PC first-person shooter S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl will not be released until April 2006 at the earliest.

The game’s been delayed a number of times, but THQ wants to give it the best chance possible and clearly sees the idea of pushing it for late 2005 - which is going to be a crowded period, to say the least - as counterproductive.

Please proceed to offer your condolences. And we should have a contest on how fast it takes to type out the game’s name.

The former Soviet Union had a fetish for acronyms, most breakaway Republics and the Russian Federation retain this. Not that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. actually stands for anything as far as I know.

Stupid Tiny Apple Lickers Killed Edward Reynolds

Looks like the Russians might be getting their own DNF.

I don’t know what S.T.A.L.K.E.R. stands for, but it’s loosely based on the Andrei Tarkovsky movie of the same name. A great film, by the way.

Man… this game is late.

I used this game as a competitive product when I was doing my marketing analysis for Painkiller. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was originally supposed to ship around the same time. Painkiller was delayed a couple months, but it shipped in April 2004!

True, it was originally supposed to ship around summer 2004 IIRC. Then pushed to holidays, then 2005, then Q4 2005, and now its minimum April 2006. They missed the release date by 2 years at a minimum.

As to what the title stands for, last time I heard GSC hadn’t announced that.

For me, the concern is not so much the missed release date. It’s the 4 or 5 slips past announced dates. It’s one thing to be 3 months from ship and realize “uh oh, we’re never going to make it. We need another 6 months” and then ship 6 (or 8) months later. It’s entirely another thing to say “we’ll ship in 6 months” and then “we need another 6 months” and then “well… we’re really off base on this one. We need another year…”

This project reeks of poor management.