Stalker 2 Turned a Profit Before It Came Out Thanks to Money Microsoft Paid for Xbox Exclusivity

The founder of Stalker 2 developer GSC Game World has said the game turned a profit before it even came out thanks to the money Microsoft paid for Xbox exclusivity.

In an interview with YouTuber OLDboi, GSC Game World founder Sergiy Grygorovych said that Microsoft was so impressed by the number of views the debut Stalker 2 trailer received, that it soon got in touch with the Ukraine company to negotiate terms for exclusivity.

“We took more than the cost of Stalker 2,” Grygorovych, who has since left GSC Game World to make a new game with a new studio, said. “It paid for itself before the first day.” IGN has asked GSC Game World for comment.

Xbox was heavily involved with Stalker 2, which was made amid Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It snapped up timed console exclusivity and a day-one launch on Xbox Game Pass, while also helping to produce and market the game, as well as a making-of documentary.

After a series of understandable delays, Stalker 2 launched on PC and Xbox Series X and S in November 2024, as well as on Game Pass. It was released on PlayStation 5 a year later, in November 2025. Stalker 2 was originally due out much earlier, in Q4 2021, as per documents revealed in 2021.

Stalker 2 was a sales success, hitting 1 million copies in two days. It has so far surpassed 6 million players. Cost of Hope, the first major story expansion for Stalker 2, launched in the summer.

Grygorovych did not say how much money Microsoft paid for the exclusivity, nor how much Stalker 2 cost to develop. But his comments do shine a light on Microsoft’s gaming philosophy when it was building up its content portfolio to help boost interest in Game Pass.

Indeed, developers have over the years praised Microsoft for cutting generous deals for Game Pass and exclusivity, with some saying they helped reduce risk and keep studios afloat.

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Now, amid new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma’s “reset” of Microsoft’s gaming business, the future of Game Pass is unclear. Microsoft cut 1,600 staff from Xbox earlier this month, with another 1,600 to go this financial year. Sharma has pulled Call of Duty out of Game Pass as a day-one launch title, and is doubling down on Xbox’s biggest franchises, such as Fallout. Four studios are confirmed to be leaving Microsoft ownership, with another on its way. Sharma has called it the most “significant” restructure in Xbox history, insisting Microsoft’s gaming business “is not healthy.”

Speaking on MinnMax, Mike Brown, who was creative director on the hugely successful Forza Horizon 5 before leaving developer Playground to found his own studio, Maverick Games, which is set to release an open world racer of his own called Clutch, said this week that Game Pass had failed to hit enough subscribers to justify Microsoft’s huge spending on content acquisition. This includes the eye-watering $69 billion Microsoft splashed out on Call of Duty developer Activision Blizzard.

“I think it's really sad and I think it's really, really unfortunate,” Brown began. “They've honestly invested a fortune in the concept of Game Pass as a service, which led to loads of teams being acquired, loads of games being funded, loads of people getting jobs, all with a vision of getting regular games landing in this service for players. I think the reality is not enough people have subscribed to it at the prices that they needed to pay in order to make that business viable.

“And, that’s actually just really sad. Because we're now going to see studios getting shut down or spun off, and loads of people are going to lose their jobs, and that is honestly just a result of a well-meaning, player-focused concept of Xbox Game Pass not quite landing.”

Brown went on to defend Microsoft and Game Pass, praising the concept of the subscription service and the games that would otherwise not have been made were it not to have existed.

“It’s just a real shame,” he continued. “And as much as people point fingers and call different people within Xbox the villain of the piece, the concept of Game Pass was good. Like, it's a good idea. Let's have a subscription, make it affordable, try and get games to more people. We'll have a really diverse selection of games on there. We'll get a load of studios involved. We'll make some games that probably couldn't exist otherwise. And if more people had subscribed, that makes enough money and it works, and all of those studios go on and those games get made again and those teams will make other games. Unfortunately, it didn’t.

“I don’t know the number it needed to hit was, but it never reached the number that would make a $70 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard make financial sense. It’s really unfortunate. We don’t know what the future is just yet, but it is a reshaping of the business around that, after the first concept didn’t quite land.”

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].