With Microsoft pushing for its exclusive franchises to be available on other platforms, it seems any semblance of a game being an Xbox-exclusive is really out the window.
Earlier this year,Microsoft confirmed that Gears of War would be making its PS5 debut in August, and today, another big shooter released last year is now officially confirmed for the PS5 as well.
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New features have been added to enhance it as well.
While not developed by a first-party Xbox studio, this former Xbox-exclusive was one of the few games Xbox fans can lay claim to as their own, though that changes today.
AAA Shooter Released In 2024 Now Confirmed For PS5
The game is none other than GSC Game World’s STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl. The Ukraine-developed game was released in November 2024 for PC and Xbox Series X|S, and here we are, less than a year later, talking about its PS5 release schedule.
While there’s no set release date announced today, GSC Game World has marked the action game as a “Late 2025” release on the PS5.
The developers didn’t mention any PS5 Pro-specific enhancements, but did confirm the game will utilize some of the DualSense’s features, such as haptic feedback and adaptive triggers for “deeper player immersion.”
Given GSC’s excellent post-release support of the game, PS5 players can expect to play the much-superior version that has gotten countless updates when the game releases.
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This has been a game that PlayStation fans have been requesting a demo for years now.
When STALKER 2 was released last year, it had its fair amount of bugs that needed fixing, but the developers have been very consistent in rolling out title updates to make the experience a lot more enjoyable.
Our review of the gamenoted the performance issues, but underneath it all also mentioned how gamers “can easily sink 100 hours into it without noticing, especially if you have a deep love for previous iterations.” With a lot of the technical issues now resolved, don ’t be surprised to see the PS5 version get better review scores across the board.
STALKER 2 is one of the many former Xbox exclusives that are headed to competing platforms. Aside from Gears of War:Reloaded’s release due in August, even the long-standing Forza racing franchise has already made its PS5 debut this yearwith the release of Forza Horizon 5 on Sony’s current-gen platform.
To Sony’s end, it has nowagreed to release live-service mega-hit Helldivers 2 on Xbox Series X|Snext month. For the sake of gamers, let’s hope we see more games drop their exclusivity banners and become available where gamers want to play them.
