The game’s devs at GSC Game World made the announcement via Twitter, saying that the delay allows the team to “fulfill our vision and achieve the desires state of the game”. Which is fair, since S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart Of Chernobyl is expected to be pretty huge. Especially if the first game from way back when was any indication.
— S.T.A.L.K.E.R. OFFICIAL (@stalker_thegame) January 12, 2022 GSC Game World also says that “we are convinced that development should take as long as necessary, especially in the case of such a project”. Certainly a line that fans of Cyberpunk 2077 may have wished that CDPR said back in 2020. Of course, there’s the more cynical view of thinking that the devs need more time to remove all traces of NFTs that it previously put into S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart Of Chernobyl. At any rate, this would make the the release of the game about a month after Bethesda’s Starfield. Which arguably wouldn’t be enough time to complete a Bethesda game, assuming the new IP follows the traditional format. (Source: GSC Game World / Twitter)
