S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Cost of Hope releases today — how to start the expansion and why GSC recommends Advanced Start

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Cost of Hope is out today, Thursday, August 20, 2026, on PC, Xbox Series X|S and PS5 / PS5 Pro. GSC Game World published the instructions for it the day before, on Wednesday, August 19, in a Steam announcement titled "Cost of Hope & Update 2.0 — All You Need to Know". The most useful part of this text isn't the list of new features: it's how to get into the expansion.

Because this expansion doesn't launch from a dedicated menu entry. It starts from an already ongoing playthrough, triggered by a message that lands in Skif's PDA, and its content is split into two parts that unlock at two moments far apart in the main campaign. GSC has therefore added shortcuts to the main menu for those who don't want to replay dozens of hours of story before getting to it.

Here's what each of these shortcuts does, why the studio explicitly recommends Advanced Start, and why the faction choice it imposes doesn't change anything about the DLC's content. That's the most counterintuitive point in the whole announcement.

One clarification before we start: GSC only published this announcement in English, even though the game is indeed localized in French and Cost of Hope's Steam page lists French among its supported languages. We are therefore reproducing the menu labels exactly as they appear in the studio's text, without crafting our own translation — the same rule applies to region and mission names. If your client displays something different, the position of the options in the menu won't change.

The real entry point: a signal on your PDA

The expansion is played as Skif, the protagonist of Heart of Chornobyl, and its events take place in parallel with the main story. So it's neither a prequel nor a sequel: it's a storyline that slots into the one you already know.

In practice, once the DLC is installed, there's nothing for you to activate. During your main campaign playthrough, you receive a signal on your PDA, and it's this signal that kicks off the expansion's storyline. No manipulation, no box to tick.

This mechanic has a practical consequence that many players will discover tonight: if your current playthrough is before the first trigger point, nothing will happen. The DLC isn't broken, it's just not reachable yet from where you are.

The content is split in two, at two very different moments

GSC specifies that Cost of Hope's content is spread across two parts of the game, and the gap between the two milestones is considerable.

The first checkpoint comes early: the Lesser Zone is the starting region, which you leave within the first few hours of play. The second is significantly further into the story — already, in the base game, it's a mission that serves as a threshold trigger for other content. In other words: a freshly started playthrough only gives access to half the expansion, while an advanced playthrough gives access to all of it.

The three main menu shortcuts, and where to find them

For those who buy the expansion without wanting to redo the campaign, GSC has added shortcuts to the main menu. The exact path:

New Game → DLC Content → Skip Ahead to The Cost of Hope

Three options then appear.

These three entries are found under New Game: they open an already advanced playthrough and do not touch the save you have on disk.

Why Advanced Start asks you to choose Spark or Ward

This is the point that will make most people hesitate. Advanced Start drops you at a moment in the main story where several faction-related decisions have already been made. The game can't guess them on your behalf: it needs you to specify them. Hence the two variants offered, Advanced Start – Spark and Advanced Start – Ward.

And here's the nuance that GSC spells out in black and white, the one you shouldn't miss: this choice does not affect the DLC's content. It only applies to the base game and its own storyline. So you're not choosing a side for Cost of Hope — you're choosing the state the main campaign is in at the moment you take back control.

There's no point, then, trying to figure out which of the two variants "unlocks more content" in the expansion: the answer is neither. Pick whichever matches the playthrough you would have had. For those playing in French, the French Steam page renders Ward as "la Garde": a menu displaying that word does indeed refer to this variant.

What GSC recommends, and when this doesn't apply to you

The studio is unambiguous: for players coming for the DLC, Advanced Start is the recommended option. It's the only one of the three that opens up both parts of the expansion right away.

Two clarifications go along with this. All the features of the 2.0 update are available regardless of your starting point: taking a shortcut doesn't deprive you of any free additions. And the open-world structure remains intact — you can leave the DLC storyline at any time to explore the Zone.

There remains the case where this recommendation doesn't apply to you. If you have an ongoing playthrough you're keen to see through, don't create a new one: no new game is necessary, all saves from previous versions are compatible with 2.0 and with Cost of Hope. The PDA signal will come find you wherever you are. GSC adds a measured caveat: a player who has been away for a very long time has missed a lot of content added during the update cycle and may want to start over — the studio explicitly states this is not a requirement.

What awaits at the end, and what the announcement adds

A word on the destination, without repeating what we've already published. Cost of Hope is the first major expansion for Heart of Chornobyl. It opens up two new regions — Iron Forest and the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant (CNPP) — for a story that GSC puts at "dozens of hours." We described them in detail in our August 4 article.

What the August 19 announcement adds is that players won't be confined to just those two territories. The expansion also brings players back through SIRCAA and the X-16 laboratory, as well as other locations the studio is keeping under wraps for now. GSC quotes Skif in its text, in English: "We found a whole city that shouldn't even exist." No French version of this line has been published.

What to check before launching the game

• Your edition. Owners of the Ultimate Edition or Season Pass receive Cost of Hope automatically, at no extra cost. Standard and Deluxe editions have two options: upgrade their version to the Ultimate Edition — picking up its bonuses along the way — or buy the DLC as a separate product.
• Your mods. GSC strongly recommends launching 2.0 and Cost of Hope with no mods installed: an updated game running with mods that haven't been updated can cause instability and performance issues. The studio gave early access to leading modders through the Zone Kit closed beta, so some mods could already be updated today. Some, not all.
• The patch notes. GSC says it will publish short and long patch notes today, Thursday, August 20, on its website's Patch Notes section, as well as on its Steam page. They aren't online at the time of writing. Any list of changes circulating before their release should not be taken as official.

In short: if you have a save in progress, don't touch anything — keep playing, and the PDA signal will eventually arrive. If you're starting fresh for the expansion: New Game, then DLC Content, then Skip Ahead to The Cost of Hope, and finally Advanced Start in the variant of your choice — that's the studio's recommendation, and the only option that unlocks both parts of the DLC. Early Start only makes sense if you're also planning to replay a good chunk of the main campaign along the way.