Much like in Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s Roadside Picnic – which served as the inspiration for the original Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl and its two number-less follow-ups (stylized S.T.A.L.K.E.R.) – there’s something inherently alluring about GSC Game World’s depiction of the Zone, a cursed location where the laws of physics often are upside down and everyone is looking for something that can’t be found anywhere else. In Stalker 2, not much has changed, which is both good and bad.
Neither Clear Sky nor Call of Pripyat, which were rushed out the door in 2008 and 2009 respectively after the first Stalker’s success in 2007, substantially altered the formula that separated the newborn IP from the competition in the FPS space. 15 years later, Heart of Chornobyl (now Ukrainian spelling) promises the same, which is admittedly refreshing in the face of like a hundred open-world games that are chasing the same trends. Some recent pre-launch previews called Stalker 2 “an open world shooter with the guardrails removed,” which is the sort of thing that diehard fans of the series loved to hear. After spending enough time (but not enough to issue a final verdict) with the game, I’d say that description is perfect.
At the core of Stalker 2, systems and mechanics are the same: It’s a survival open-world shooter through and through. Anyone approaching this as a Far Cry title will have a bad time. It rewards both preparation and patience, which is why reviewing it under pressure after a far-from-ideal review code timing situation has been taxing, to say the least. It’s a game that marches to the beat of its own drum, and that instantly makes it valuable in today’s AAA climate. I’m fully expecting many reviewers and players not to vibe with this one based on that alone. That said, it’s also riddled with flaws that shouldn’t be overlooked and have little to do with the game doing its own thing.
After many ups and downs, including a cancelled previous iteration, hacks, and leaks, and the invasion of Ukraine, the fact alone that GSC Game World has reached the finish line with such an ambitious project should be celebrated. By and large, Stalker 2 doesn’t fail to deliver a flashier continuation of the ‘irradiated’ survival fantasy that the three older games offered. Few game worlds are as absorbing and genuinely threatening and ruthless as the Zone, but in its commitment to continuity and iterating on past efforts, rusty bits that should’ve evolved more over 15 years have been preserved instead.
The ‘advanced AI systems’ hyped up in promotional materials aren’t much different from what was found in the three original games. Sure, human enemies are vaguely better at actually going on the offensive than in other FPS titles, but that doesn’t make them very smart, and still walk in line into bottlenecks if you’re patient enough. This also applies to the fearsome creatures and mutated freaks that plague almost the entire Zone. They look better than before, but their attack patterns – and even some animations – haven’t evolved nearly as much as the UE5-powered graphics. It’s jarring to a degree, as the game as a whole looks (and sounds) substantially pricier, but its actual behaviour isn’t very different and frequently feels stuck in the past.
Of course, Bethesda Game Studios’ Starfield suffered from many of these issues last year, but that game was still bound to rusty tech. Stalker 2, meanwhile, is sporting all sorts of modern visual advancements – and has some killer cutscenes – but regularly comes across as dusty. Chances are diehards will love this, as part of Stalker’s appeal always was the ‘eurojank’ element, but I’d say it hurts the sequel’s chances of finding more devotees.
Regardless, such ugly bits don’t sink the core gameplay loop of trekking across a vast map where every step could be your last (feel free to savescum as much as you want) and no one likes each other much. The Zone is beautiful even when it shows its uglier side, and by side-stepping modern trends, GSC has crafted a living, breathing world that’s full of surprises but never feels like a ‘checklist open world’ (I enjoy those, but games like this one are necessary to keep things fresh). While some sections haven’t landed as well as they should due to technical issues, there are many times when everything comes together and you get one long trek that feels dangerous and scary in a way that’s incredibly rare to experience while playing something that looks this expensive.
Movement and gunplay are weighty, albeit restrictive at times. This is by design. Skif, the protagonist, isn’t meant to be a hero or a badass gunman. He just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and is looking for answers in the very worst place on Earth. No lite RPG systems to be found here, just your skills, patience, and finding (and taking care of) equipment and weapons anywhere you can. This means you can luck out with a nice bag of loot found in a surprising place and blast through encounters that can be rough otherwise, but also that you can often find yourself in tough spots and terribly unprepared, as there’s no level-gating of any kind. As for the mysterious anomalies that make the Zone even more difficult to traverse, there are more than before, but never are too difficult to bypass, which feels like a missed chance to take that danger – unique to this world – to the next level.
Since resources are scarce and fast travel isn’t a thing (guides at certain locations can take you to certain other locations for the right price), every bullet counts. Sadly, most enemies remain ‘spongy’ in a way that doesn’t really mesh well with the realism that’s covering almost the entire game. Try to land those headshots and make sure to put lots of money into upgrading the guns you like using, as some advanced encounters will be hair-splitting otherwise. Also: Don’t forget to drink and eat.
Similarly (and to the surprise of no veteran), monsters like Bloodsuckers and Controllers will also require you to approach things differently, yet there isn’t anything new about their combat behaviours 15 years later. Again, they make for creepy enemies that can (and will) catch you off guard, but diehards won’t be startled. You should see a clear pattern by now if you’ve read this far: Stalker 2 is largely the same game, but much bigger and better looking (the dynamic days and nights as well as the weather events are particularly stunning).
The one thing setting it apart from its predecessors is a much deeper narrative that packs more branches and decision-making than you’d expect. With several factions with deep lore and connections to the Zone’s past, a fair number of subplots and pivotal moments manage to both shock and intrigue. Still, newcomers should brace for lots of mumbo jumbo that almost 100% requires doing some additional reading if you haven’t done your original trilogy homework. Much like its overarching game design, Stalker 2’s narrative is unflinchingly committed to its most ardent followers, and that’s both a strength and a weakness.
As I approach the later parts of the main quest, however, I also begin to think there’s a disconnect between Skif’s paper-thin motivations and his very main character-y actions, helping folks all over the Zone only to obtain answers. Sure, he’s a man who appears to have lost everything, but there isn’t a big enough hook that fully justifies all his treks and meddling in affairs of the Zone. But again, I’ve yet to roll credits on Stalker 2, so I’m hoping for a late-game twist.
Another huge question mark going into this sequel was its performance and overall polish, and I’ve got both good and bad news. The good news is that any modern PC capable of running demanding AAA games made with UE5 should be fine with the right combination of settings, with the DLSS 3 Frame Generation option being the one toggle you shouldn’t skip if you’ve got a modern Nvidia card. AMD’s FSR solution is also available and helps, but doesn’t achieve the same results in my experience. It’s a gorgeously realized game thanks to the advertised photogrammetry and scanning tech, and while some in-game animations are rusty, the cutscenes are generally great.
The bad news is the game can be quite unstable and buggy – at least in its pre-launch state – for reasons completely unrelated to the hardware (in my case, well above the recommended settings). Averaging around 100 FPS with Ultra settings and while using DLSS’s Quality mode with FG on, ‘emissions’ rendered the game a stuttery mess until a patch was released, with GPU usage going down instead of up for no apparent reason. Such problems have been cleaned up now (at least in my experience), but some areas seem to be plagued with UE5’s infamous ‘stutter struggle’ while others that are more visually demanding are smooth as silk. This one should’ve stayed in the oven for even longer, I’d say.
Perhaps more worrying is the fact the game oftentimes downright breaks, with crashes causing the drivers to act up until the PC is rebooted, textures in some random areas going haywire, assets floating around during cutscenes, and quest markers randomly disappearing. Likewise, audio also likes to partially cut itself out, only to come back through constant pausing and unpausing. It all adds up, eventually causing an otherwise immersive experience to feel bumpy and anything but smooth. Of course, the developer is promising to repeatedly update the game after launch, but it’s a sad state of affairs after so many delays and a 15-year gap between the equally flawed originals and the sequel.
While I’m not expecting my overall feelings to change much, it would be a disservice to GSC’s admittedly hard work to put up a score just to meet the embargo when I have yet to uncover more of the Zone’s secrets and see how Stalker 2 behaves in its launch state. It’s bound to cause division for sure, but I strongly believe it’s the sort of messy but off-beat big-budget release that we need more of right now.
Check back soon for the full review.
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