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S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2’s First Major Expansion ‘Cost of Hope’ Set for Summer 2026

The add-on advances a serialized arc through new regions with outcomes shaped by player choice.

Overview

  • The expansion, revealed Thursday during Xbox’s Partner Preview, adds a parallel storyline starring Skif that starts from a PDA signal during the main campaign.
  • GSC Game World calls it a massive nonlinear add-on with dozens of hours of new quests, characters, and exploration in the Zone.
  • Players can explore the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant and the Iron Forest, each with its own hub, quests, activities, and new weapons and gear.
  • It launches simultaneously on PC (Steam, Epic, GOG), Xbox Series X|S with Cloud, and PS5, and both the base game and the DLC support Xbox Play Anywhere cross-ownership.
  • The studio positions Cost of Hope as the middle chapter of a new trilogy of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 expansions, with another story DLC planned, and says price and a firm date are still to come while Ultimate Edition owners receive it via the Season Pass.