u/mol1t

We are approaching a massive emission! Both Back to the Zone — Update 2.0 and Cost of Hope expansion will be launched on August 20, and here is everything you need to know before heading Back to the Zone (with no spoilers).

https://www.stalker2.com/news/cost-of-hope-update-2-0-everything-to-know

The time to return to the Zone is almost here.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Cost of Hope launches on August 20 — check the map to find the exact release time for your region.

Upon release, the expansion will be available as part of the Ultimate Edition of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, or as a standalone purchase for $29.99 / €29.99 / £24.99.*

Mark your timezone, prepare your gear, and be ready to discover the true Cost of Hope.

*Subject to regional pricing.

The Zone needs propaganda — yours.

Freedom and Duty are looking for stalkers ready to spread their message across the Zone.

Choose your side and create a propaganda poster or recruitment leaflet for Freedom or Duty. Rally new recruits, praise your faction, mock your rivals — make something that belongs on the walls of the Zone.

Create your original poster — fight for Freedom or Duty.

Share it with #StalkerPosterContest and tag us on Instagram, Twitter, or Discord — win S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Cost of Hope keys and branded Xbox controllers

Submissions are open until August 31, 18:00 CEST (UTC+2).

Full rules in Discord: https://discord.gg/stalker

In one day countless stalkers breached the first milestone and already finished the second one. Freedom and Duty are delighted to welcome fresh blood that strengthens their positions in the Zone. But the conflict only gets more heated.

At https://duty-or-freedom.stalker2.com/ we have new arts of Mavka and Zulu in 4K; grab them and share with your friends. Maybe your faction will get recruits!

Next milestones are awaiting unlocking.

Time is ticking (the clock is literally in Skif's hands) — the release of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Cost of Hope is coming.

August 20, 2026

A wall. One inscription.

Freedom saw it as a threat. Duty called it a provocation.

The bar has once again become a place where everyone speaks quieter, but listens closer.

D4 still holds, but old disputes have already crawled out from under the concrete, paint, and dust.

And if the factions have started speaking in slogans — it's time for stalkers to answer with their own.

Faction Slogan Contest.

Pick a side: Duty or Freedom. (Discord.gg/stalker)

Write a slogan that could lead your favorite faction forward.

The meeting place — a dedicated channel on our Discord server. It seems the peace between the factions is cracking at the seams, and this is only the beginning…

Winners are competing for the prizes of exclusive S.T.A.L.K.E.R. figurines and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Cost of Hope keys
https://discord.com/channels/504587323577729024/1529805305855344720

Duty has no connection with the graffiti found near the Bar.

We do not leave threats on the walls.

We do not hide behind paint.

We do not confuse duty with night-time oopsie-daisy on concrete.

D4 remains in force, and Duty adheres to its terms.

We make no claim to the Bar and this message has nothing to do with us.

If anyone wants to spout slogans - go ahead.

Just remember: loud words don’t hold the Perimeter.

It is held by those who don’t run away when the Zone bares its teeth. Don’t drag us into this, because next time the conversation will be very different.

— Duty.

There's one Helen in the Zone. But this time it's not so simple…

Helen is the name given to the reactor's upper biological shield — scheme "H". Before the incident, it was a massive metal structure about 17 meters in diameter, through which fuel and control cables passed. A kind of head of the reactor, except weighing close to two thousand tons.

During the explosion, it was torn from its regular position, thrown upward, and left standing almost on its edge inside the reactor shaft. And dozens of bent pipes now hang from it; they came to be called "Helen's hair." In reality, these are the remains of the technological channels. They say some of the fuel may have stayed behind among them.

After the incident, people could only approach it remotely: drilling holes, sending in photo-probes, installing sensors. Too dangerous of a place for a stroll.

And Helen herself stands as if she still hasn't decided: whether to fall, or wait a little longer.

Do you think they built the Sarcophagus to bury the fourth block?

No. They built it so the fourth block wouldn't bury everything around it.

After the first incident, there was nothing left to repair there. Over 206 days, an entire mountain of concrete and metal was raised over the destroyed reactor — 345 thousand cubic meters of concrete and 7 thousand tons of metal structures. They were assembled at a distance, because it was impossible to stand nearby.

The Sarcophagus was built from new structures and from what survived of the block itself. From the very beginning it was considered a temporary solution, meant to buy some time and quickly seal off whatever remained inside.

And what remained inside was almost all the fuel, fragments of the reactor core, radioactive dust, and places people couldn't reach for decades. Then the second incident happened — and since then, people speak of the Sarcophagus in a whisper. Because who knows, maybe the Monolith will hear.

Or maybe it's listening right now...

"Today, near the Bar, someone left a very eloquent inscription on the wall: 'The Bar under Freedom's protection is the Zone's weakspot!'

Of course, we've already been told it was a 'provocation' and 'Duty' has nothing to do with it... Sure, we believe it.

But D4 is still in effect. We remember that.

Let 'Duty' also not forget: the Bar is not a checkpoint. Not all stalkers like being told what to do.

Just a friendly warning.

Yours, Freedom."

Youth have learned nothing; those schools nowadays are useless!

It was the reactor itself that exploded. The Turbine Hall just happened to be right next to it, and it took the full brunt too: fire, debris, dust, and radiation, of course.
The place was enormous — over four hundred meters long. Two turbines per unit, five hundred megawatts each. When they were running, there was no point in shouting because no one would have heard you.

The floor shook, the pipes hummed, and cranes crawled overhead. A real electricity factory.

By the way, it was the turbogenerator that the night test was planned for. They wanted to check whether its residual rotation would be enough to keep the pumps running without external power. Well, you know the rest…

After the explosion, the roof caught fire. And everything inside — oil, cables, and generators — began to burn. Personnel shut off the oil lines, switched the generators over to nitrogen, and put out whatever could still be put out.

Now it's quiet there. The turbines stand still, the paint is peeling, and light breaks through the roof.

So don't make noise in there. The echo travels a long way on its own, without your help

As for the Golden Corridor: it didn’t just run between the power units. Behind some of the doors lay the plant’s true nerve centres — Unit Control Room (UCR).

The Unit Control Room. Each power unit had its own separate one. From there, the operators controlled the reactor, turbines, pumps and the electrical system. Before them were entire walls of light bulbs, pointers, diagrams and recorders. Hundreds of different signals. The plant had already demonstrated on one occasion that not every button does what is expected of it...

That night, tests were being carried out on one of these panels; the operators were monitoring the parameters, and then they pressed the emergency protection system that was supposed to shut down the reactor. But the operators could not see nearly everything that was happening inside it. After the explosion, people remained at their consoles for some time, trying to work out whether they could keep anything under control at all.

Some of the UCRs were subsequently cleaned up and returned to service, and the station was operated from them for many years to come. Others remained part of the accident site: chairs, control panels, buttons, telephones. Everything is still in place — just covered in dust and radiation.

After the Second Incident, rumours circulated that the lights on the dead control panels would sometimes come on of their own accord. Most likely, this is a myth – who would have checked? But if you see anything like that, it’s best not to press anything at all.

Want to test quest creation and other big updates to help us shape the future of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.2 Zone Kit Modding Tool?

Apply for the closed beta — more details in our blog.

https://www.stalker2.com/news/zone-kit-narrative-closed-beta

— Besides the legendary Monolith, there’s another urban legend around the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The story of the Golden Corridor.

It’s a beautiful name, but don’t be fooled. Before the accident, it was just a regular service passageway between the power units. Staff used it to get to the control rooms, reactor buildings, and turbine halls. But on the morning after the explosion, two shifts were already passing each other there: one rushing to help at Unit 4, the other returning from there, covered in radioactive debris.

Later, they tried to clean the corridor, but they never quite managed to do so completely. That’s why the walls and ceiling were covered with golden metal panels to at least slightly reduce the background radiation. That’s where the name comes from. No luxury but ordinary protection against what can no longer be cleaned away.

I don’t know if anyone has walked through it since the Second Incident. Rumors, of course, have circulated, but in the Zone, every other rumor is a lie, and every third is a myth. After all, Chornobyl is the heart of the Zone, so few are willing to find the truth. But to see that corridor with my own eyes… I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to.

In short, in the Zone, gold isn’t just for the show. Here, it’s used to cover up mistakes of the past.

Although who knows what kind of joke the Zone might play. Maybe the corridor really is made of pure gold.

Haven’t seen doves in the Zone for a long, long time! We have at least one here for sure. Never seen it myself, but my trusted buddy told me about that dove. 

He said the administrative building of CNPP is crowned by a massive metal bas-relief called “Atomic Dove”. To be fair, it looks nothing like a dove… Deserves its “atomic” part in the name.

This bas-relief was designed to symbolize the peaceful atom, and the building it decorates was the main entrance to CNPP, the administrative building where personnel was checked and where you would get the entrance permits and go deeper into the station.

Everything changed in one night.

Under the building hides a highly-protected bunker with a crisis headquarters. During that life-changing night when 4th block was on fire, people in the bunker were desperately trying to figure out what’s going on and how to fix it. Since then, the administrative building has ceased to be a grand gateway to the future and has instead become the place from which its consequences were dealt with.

Now, machinery is rusting in front of it, the wind blows through the windows, and that dove is hanging on the wall. It was through the doors of the administration block that the path to the very heart of the station began. And I dread to think what has become of it now.

If you find yourself around that place, don’t stick around for too long. Be safe.

Stalkers!

Here is some more info from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl Almanac — created in collaboration with ATB-Market, GSC Game World, and Loyalty Games.

Explore the Faction Wars, trace Strelok’s journey, and uncover the fall of C-Consciousness.

More files are coming soon. Stay alert for the next lore drops.