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GSC Founder Says Xbox Paid More Than Stalker 2 Budget, Studio Says That Is Not True

The public contradiction raises questions about who negotiated the timed exclusivity and the undisclosed size of platform payments.

Overview

  • This week GSC founder Sergiy Hryhorovych said Microsoft paid an amount larger than Stalker 2's full development cost to secure a yearlong Xbox console exclusivity.
  • GSC Game World issued an official statement saying Hryhorovych was not involved in exclusivity negotiations or the game's full production and that his comments do not reflect the company's account.
  • The studio's statement also said owner Max Krippa provided the majority of the game's development funding, countering the founder's implication about how the project was financed.
  • No independent reporting has verified the size of any exclusivity payment, and the deal's financial terms remain undisclosed to the public.
  • The dispute comes after a fraught Ukraine-era development, a rough late-2024 launch that required major patches for performance, AI, and animations, and an Xbox timed-exclusivity window that ended in November 2025.