While we have previously worsen to ply reviews for game still being put to work on so heavily during the review process , our critic identified a world-wide instability , in addition to core intent woe , that we do n’t believe will be quickly fix by a individual update . It ’s with that in judgement that we have decided to run our review establish on what we ’ve recreate . We encourage our readers to do their research beyond this revaluation onceStalker 2is out to get a good sense of how well the launching rendering is operate with extra updates . Here ’s our fullStalker 2performance guideto get start . ]
A secret plan likeStalker 2 : bosom of Chornobylis fantastically challenging to review .
I indite this after set up a third enormous prerelease update , this one a 135 GB whopper that patched and reinstall over 145 GB worth of file . On one hand , I can applaud developer GSC Game World for its dedication to perfecting its first - person gun before it launches . On the other script , I ca n’t help but worry . Massive changes like this so close to the telegram are the textbook definition of a reddened flagstone .
Even with those patches , though , Stalker 2still submit a mint of frustrations that are n’t so easy to pave over . Some of these frustrations were due to hemipteron — from minor annoyances to major ace that waste good deal of clip during my playthrough . Others were due to trouble with the user interface ( UI ) and seeking objectives . Some will likely be fixed by future darn . Others may just be the developer ’ vision . It ’s not always clear which is which .
Is it fair to review a biz when I ’m still download monumental patches for it ? Whether you believe that answer to be yes or no , the vexation - induce roadblocks that I take on while encounter the extremely unstableStalker 2have made for a disappointing playthrough . After nearly 15 years of await for the next mainline serial entering , the biz feels less like a groundbreaking continuation and more like a world full of overleap opportunity .
Stalker 2 : spirit of Chornobylcombines first - mortal shot , survival horror , andopen - worldexploration . gear up several long time after the outcome of the original trilogy , the Exclusion Zone ( the internet site of the Chernobyl atomic disasters ) has become a flourish region with numerous disparate factions vying for controller . A relative freshman , Skif , arrives for his first assignment , only to get shop by his comrades . Thankfully , Skif manages to survive , and it ’s up to you to help him settle the score .
There ’s a hunky-dory line between difficultness that comes from a challenge and the difficulty born from worriment .
Action gameplay inStalker 2is your standardfirst - person shooter(FPS ) thing . you could equip two primary weapons and one sidearm , as well as select upgrade and add modernistic attachments . You do call for to keep weapons in tip - top condition , since wear - and - tear do them to block . Weapon assortment is something deserving praising thanks to all the available options . This allows players to fine - tune their armaments to befit their motive . My current darling are the Saiga D-12 shotgun and AS Lavina rifle , since both contend high price and can have suppressor attachments .
Open - world geographic expedition , meanwhile , will earn praise and frustrations in equal measure . extolment because the Exclusion Zone is bigger and badder than ever before , and defeat because dissolute travel is limited to a Clear Sky - esque taxi divine service . Basically , you need to chat with template NPC in specific settlements , and you may only firm travel to colonisation with other guide NPCs . Certain incidents caused me to lose guide NPCs or a means of leave areas . It turns navigating the massive macrocosm into a boring slog .
I understand the approximation behind this , since it ’s imply to add a stratum of trouble as you further search and brave the dangers in the Exclusion Zone . However , there ’s a fine line between difficulty that hail from a challenge and the difficulty born from inconvenience . Stalker 2too often fall into the latter category .
As for crusade onward motion , it ’s mostly a semilinear affair in that there are specific quest chain that you must dispatch and lead to the next portion of the taradiddle . However , there are also major decisions that create depart paths , such as certain sect that you ’d side with . Likewise , a few characters from the original trilogy make their return inStalker 2 . Scar , Trapper , Nimble , Sultan , and more surprise all show up , which will be a surefire treat for longtime fan .
Story shenanigans
One ofStalker 2 ’s braggart lack opportunities is its narration , which fails to deport a concise or coherent floor . While the crusade has some promise , it ’s bogged down by a plodding narrative arc , where the objectives you tackle and the ending you turn over are often repetitious and unsatisfying .
seeking chains in several regions can be summed up as meet a couple of crucial leaders ; going to one or two locations to cumulate , activate , or disable MacGuffins ; push a few mutants ; and encountering some unusual person . You then return to drawing card after this roundabout way of doing tasks , only to be told that your primary object is in the next region .
It just feels like a 40 - hr effort that should have ended 15 hours earlier .
This “ Princess is in another castle ” approach might bring in some game , but not when we ’re talking about a massive open - populace game where immobile travel is extremely circumscribed . In the same vena , this is a game where you expend most of your fourth dimension walk around , so there has to be a satisfying end to each mini - arc . Otherwise , it just experience like a 40 - minute crusade that should have terminate 15 hours before .
There are segments that almost feel insulting . casing in point : A prospicient mission chain where I had to take the air all the way to the southeasterly part of the map to pass a Monolith - controlled factory . I then had to attack the cabal ’s pedestal , but I had to skirt around the region lest I get instantly killed by “ invisible snipers . ” Shenanigans ensued , so my comrades and I had to retreat . Next , I was asked to win with other NPC soldiers , but we had to retreat again . I would then get a wireless call recount me to travel to the northeastern United States because I had to grab a new MacGuffin .
For the entirety of the two hours I spent on that pursuance mountain chain , I did not see a personal stash so I could keep items for later instead of throwing them aside if I got too encumbered . I also did not see a single NPC for item selling or repairs . The quest Sir Ernst Boris Chain felt thrown together as an afterthought without any esteem for the role player .
Compounding those woe , the faction system is n’t as detailed or synergistic as I ’d hope for . In the original trilogy , sure factions may be electroneutral or hostile by nonpayment , and you may join a select few . I expectedStalker 2to expand mechanics like that . That ’s not the case , leaving my resourcefulness to run wild with features that could have helped heighten my playthrough — perhaps a faction menu or panel where you see all the groups , their bosses , contender , member , available quests , merchandiser , and famed reward .
Anomalies, artifacts, and adversaries
Similar to its predecessors , Stalker 2is a biz where the environment is a character in its own right . The devastating event that have transpire in the Exclusion Zone have made it a land of nightmare , filled with give up facilities , empty field of force , and derelict buildings . It ’s also crawling with numerous mutants , including the camouflaged Cthulhu - esque Bloodsuckers and psionically - gifted Burer . In my first few hour of playing , I felt the surface tension as I research area at night , worry whenever I pick up a low growling or a thrumming noise in the desktop .
The Exclusion Zone is also pullulate with multitudinous unstable anomaly , from gouts of fire spewing from the ground to toxicant kitty with acid bubbles to semi - transparent air pocket pushing you through a dimensional bailiwick . There are even terrifying conditions disturbances like Emissions that turn the skies to a bloody deep red hue , as well as lightning storms that can strike Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and begin a fire . These mystical phenomenon hold both an ethereal calibre , which sometimes made me gaze in awe , and unrivaled danger , as I know that one wrong move could spell out my character ’s doomsday .
Getting close to danger even yields rewards since some of these anomaly fields hide out artifacts . All I had to do was bring out a scanner , take the air around until the sparkle blink speedily , and watch as the artifact materializes from an anomaly . These artifacts can then be fit out to gain bonuses to resistances and other stats .
This feature is something that ’s present in previous Stalker game , but Heart of Chornobyldoesn’t expand on it in any meaningful manner . New car-mechanic , like artifact upgrading , combinations / extract , or even perk / skill tree diagram or on - economic consumption abilities , could have helped to freshen up a chemical formula that was in indigence of a melody - up . Regrettably , much like faction , this conception scarcely feels changed from its original origin over a decade ago . That leads to an experience that feels bind in the past .
Technical troubles
Regardless of how I find aboutStalker 2 ’s story and world , I ca n’t stress this part enough : I know notable performance issues during my testing on PC . I have anNvidia RTX 3080 GPU , Intel i9 - 10900 K CPU , and 32 GB RAM . I have a aboriginal 4 K resolution video and , reach the enormous single file size and prerequisite , I knew that this would be a very demanding game . unluckily , even with DLSS - Performance and intermediate graphics preferences selected , I was still experiencing major frame rate drops , sometimes below 20 frames per second ( fps ) , especially in bases like Rostok and Slag Heap .
Stutters and slowdowns were jolly uncouth in my playthrough , as were related issues . For example , the game might slow down to a crawl while spill the beans to vendor NPC . At sentence , my button inputs would n’t get recognized at all due to the delay . If I needed to start the map , sometimes the port would get adhere . If I needed to heal myself with a medkit , the animation would n’t trigger and I ’d have to get at my backpack to mighty - tap the item . There were also instance when locations , terrain , and NPC simulation contain a while to fully load .
It ’s a beefy secret plan that crumbles under its own weightiness .
These lilliputian tidbits were just the peak of the iceberg . The earlier review build that I ’ve been playing has had a litany of technical troubles . Some were just minor hiccups , like floating and deoxythymidine monophosphate - posing Nonproliferation Center , muted gunshot and other sound effects , and Skif ’s voice sounding like he ’s on the other end of the radio instead of being the literal player character . as luck would have it , these problems do n’t take place as frequently after the most recent update .
Others were more egregious , such as “ dead post ” in swampy terrain . If I so much as compact into these spots , I would n’t be able to move or jump back on solid undercoat . Some area make my fictitious character to fall through textures . sure quests could n’t be finished either due to glitch – one , in particular , had an NPC that foreclose me from exiting a building , leave behind me with no choice but to recharge an early save . Another bug caused a facility to become for good locked . There was no indication that I had to enter it immediately , so I initiate bet for nearby loot . The edifice became unobtainable as I move farther away from it .
In a unlike case , the talks was passing puzzling and a UI microbe prevented the NPC ’s icon from appearing in the grasp and map . I wondered if I was presuppose to scour the Brobdingnagian wasteland just for one person . I later expose that he was hiding in a nearby shed , and his marker would n’t appear unless I was brook a few infantry away . Additionally , a dialogue sequence with an NPC even caused my controls to stop working , so I had to restart the game . Stalker 2also compiles shaders every time you set in motion it . near luck with restarts in case of glitches or clash , because this process can take anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes .
It ’s a beefy game that crumbles under its own weight , but those technical ambitiousness do n’t always palpate deserving the crusade . Take A - Life 2.0 for object lesson , which the game’sofficial websitetouts as a “ life - simulating system that builds a holistic live environment where the player ’s actions have an impingement on the universe of the Zone . ” On paper , it would be kin to seeing NPCs , sport , and anomalies reacting to one another to make the Exclusion Zone sense alive .
This is far from what actually go on in my playthrough . At dear , I can describe it as the AI Director fromLeft 4 Deadsporadically switch enemy my way . Sometimes I ’d clear a small region as part of a repeatable pursuit . Just when I thought there were no foe left , a team of brigand would suddenly spawn , even though there was no inkling that they even be or were near the localisation . I figure this might be why some generic NPCs have randomly generated name ; they were made to breed in that spot so you could at least encounter someone or something .
Missed opportunities
Believe me when I say that I was rooting for GSC Game World to follow , particularly with the circumstance surrounding the Ukrainian studio that made it and which have caused this claim to get stay and pushed back several times . Those circumstances have even caused the developers themselves to forgo their job so they can valorously fight back for their nation . Thestory behindStalker 2is more authoritative and harrowing than the one on screen .
alas , Stalker 2is plague by issues , from serious technical troubles to questionable design selection . Another delay might not have been feasible , but itstillcould have used one .
I ca n’t help but focalise on the lose chance . There are concepts that just are n’t fully flesh out , and sure feature feel entirely absent . Stalker 2relies too hard on existing thought from the original trilogy that came out 15 long time ago , perhaps to appeal to longtime fans . The downside is that very fiddling was done to expand on those concepts . If we look at numerous open - world adventure / natural selection games that have been released in the preceding 15 years , we can see a wealth of features and innovation that make participant ’ sentence feel well spent . Stalker 2 , like to its predecessors , essentially has enough piquant mechanic for a silklike 12 - 60 minutes story , but far too niggling for a 100 - plus - minute undetermined - domain offering .
If you ’re really really eager to plunk intoStalker 2 , keep your fingers crossed that some of these more egregious technical issues have been press out by the time you jump playing . If you ’re still on the fence , you’re able to look until more fixes are in place or try it out first if you have anXbox Game Passor PC Game Pass subscription .
Stalker 2 : Heart of Chornobylwas try out on microcomputer with a codification provided by the publisher .
