Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl will release in December, according to distributor Plaion

Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl looks set to release on 1st December, 2023.

That's according to distributor Plaion (formerly known as Koch Media), which is listing a firm release date of 1st December on its website, even though a release date has not yet been confirmed by development studio GSC Game World, which is also self-publishing the first-person shooter survival horror game.

As noted by Andrew Marmo (thanks, wccftech), who spotted the listing, it seems unlikely that this is a placeholder, as the website is listing other games with no firm release window with the placeholder date of 31st December, 2023.

Ukrainian developer GSC Game World recently asked fans not to share an early test build of Stalker 2, stolen and leaked online by Russian hackers as part of what it calls a "year and a half" attack.

GSC Game World - which relocated from Kyiv to Prague last year following Russia's invasion of Ukraine - first confirmed it was the target of Russian hackers back in March, when it revealed an employee's accounts was hacked and that the studio had been threatened with blackmail.

"We are a Ukrainian company," it wrote at the time, "and like most Ukrainians, we have experienced many things that are much more terrifying: destroyed houses, ruined lives, and the deaths of our loved ones. Attempts to blackmail or intimidate us are completely futile".