When it was announced last August, few were surprised by the unveiling of a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. sequel. After all, GSC Game World's open-world first-person shooter managed to sell around four million copies worldwide, all but ensuring the franchise's continuation. Now, all of the sudden, any hope one might have had for more S.T.A.L.K.E.R. looks as though it has been dashed.

Short of some kind of miracle, this is looking like the end of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series.

There are a variety of conflicting reports appearing all over right now, but the gist of them amounts to this: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 development has completely ceased, and that GSC Game World will in fact be closing its doors.

The original news report on the subject, which appeared on Ukranian news site Ukranews, posited multiple theories as to the developer's closure. One particularly strange one involved Ukranian law enforcement expressing an "interest" in the company, whereas another simply stated that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 development had not been going particularly well, and that company founder Sergei Grigorovich had simply had enough.

Initially that report was denied by the official S.T.A.L.K.E.R. twitter page, but that denial has since been deleted. RockPaperShotgun reached out to GSC Game World, and merely got a "Sorry, no comments at this point" response.

Several outlets have cited comments from a Twitter user named Dmitri Bourkovski as confirmation that the studio has closed, but Bourkovski appears to have no direct connection to GSC Games World, and even says as much elsewhere in his Twitter feed.

We'll update this story if any additional details leak out, but as of right now, it's all looking pretty dire.