Information about THQ being not satisfied with the situation that developed inside GSC had already reached us before. "They (THQ) didn't even imagine what it's like to work with GSC, - shares with us one of the former members of the company - they didn't even understand who they dealt with. STALKER always was in the state of general design. It's always been a project which was more spoken of than really done." Another source claims that at the end of November THQ made a decision to stop financing the development and to conduct a thorough revision to gain control over the development process. "We don't care what shape the game will ship in anymore, - said one of the THQ bosses to an IGN journalist, - the game must ship in 2006".

In addition to all this last week part of the original STALKER development team was moved to another project and another part was simply made redundant. "These were considerable dismissals," - told the source that still remained a member of the GSC staff, - "I heard that next week a THQ representative will arrive and he is going to stay until the project is finished."

The third source has information that a brand new engine not based on X-ray technology was in the works inside GSC, which could have been used to power renovated STALKER. Almost all of the team left the studio taking the technology created in a few months with them. GSC representatives consider this fact as theft, but former employees refer to "special circumstances". One of the members of the GSC team assumes that STALKER could be taken away along with the source code by the THQ representatives and handed to another team for work on the project. We attempted to contact GSC representatives but failed to receive an answer. THQ representatives commented on the issue drily: "No comments".