S.T.A.L.K.E.R. fans are in for some bad news and some good news derived from them, overall balancing it out as a better situation for the franchise than it was in the past decade.
With Call of Pripyat from 2009, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. franchise saw many announcements for upcoming games that never came to pass. The last one, regarding the game as a 2021 release seems the most promising for several reasons, one of which was added just recently. That said, it was camouflaged as somewhat bad news but in the end, it's not bad at all.
Alexander Vilkov, the voice actor present in all three S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games thus far, noted on his Instagram that GSC Game Worlds are expecting his work by the next winter. There is no guarantee that the post will remain up since the inherent secrecy of game development could ask for removal of the post but Nintendosmash grabbed screencaps before this happened.
Considering that it would be silly to release the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 before voice acting is added, it's safe to assume the release date is late 2021 since the year is still the target release window as the devs didn't announce any delays yet.
While the fans would definitely love to get their hands on the new title as soon as possible, the late 2021 release is still better than a cancellation announcement.
Since Vilkov's statement also confirmed the active development, once again, it also serves as a reassurance to fans who were worried S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 would get scrapped as so many attempts were before.
