Seriously: Stalker 2 is something I needed in my life. I love playing it. I love playing it so much I’m literally not touching any other games right now; Mechwarrior 5 Clans? Yeah, I’m ready to review it, but I’d rather play Stalker 2. Black Myth: Wukong? Awesome game, but it’s not Stalker 2.
I don’t even want to write this review because - in the time it’d take to write and publish - I could be playing Stalker 2.
That doesn’t mean it’s perfect, however, and there are some important caveats folks need to know about, even after a few patches have come out.
It wouldn’t be Stalker if it wasn’t a dumpster-fire of jank. Seriously, this is a buggy game. At first things were fine, but as you progress you find more and more issues.. Some hilarious, some frustrating.
On the hilarious side, any time I encounter someone laying down in bed (usually because they are injured) and I talk to them, they begin to float up in the air. The first time I thought this was due to the Monolith dude in the next room levitating the guy, but.. Nope, it was a bug.
On the frustrating side, I myself have had a number of crashes at inopportune times, HUD elements disappearing after a cutscene, and I’m crossing my fingers that I don’t reach an apparently common bug where you can no longer progress in the main story.
Of course, the issues go beyond that: A-Life, the system designed to simulate a living world inside the Stalker universe, isn’t really.. There. Not in it’s intended configuration, anyway. It came out that they had to severely nerf it just before launch because it caused massive optimization issues and they just couldn’t get it fixed in time for release.
The game is still good without it, and you get to experience a bit of a taste of it still, but I think we’ll all be a lot happier with the game when they get A-Life working to its full glory.
This may seem like I’m dogging on GSC - the developers of Stalker 2 - but I’m not.
Look: I’m a developer myself. I’ve been writing code for a very, very long time. I understand that the first 90% is the easy part: That final 10% - the polish - is where hell resides in all of us as developers.
Add on to that your own country being under siege from an egomaniacal asshole (of which there are a lot of in pretty powerful positions in the world, but we’re talking about Putin here) and it’s an absolute miracle how fucking amazing this game is.
Anyway, my point is this: Stalker 2 is brilliant, and it’s absolutely one of my favorite games of the year.
It’s also a buggy incomplete mess that many folks may not tolerate.
Why play it, then? Let me tell you.
Stalker 2 provides a feast of nostalgia and a beautifully dark world to draw in those unfamiliar with the universe in equal parts. You don’t have to have played any of the original Stalker games to appreciate the complexity and dynamics that come along in this game: The emergent gameplay, the rich storytelling, and the sheer horrific tension as you trudge across the Zone, burdened with loot, low on ammo while other Stalkers are engaged in a firefight 100 meters away. You hope and pray nobody notices you just so you can get back to some semblance of civilization and unload your burden, restocking with the meager pittance you earn from your haul, hoping your gun can go for a little bit longer before you invest in repairs..
Of course, that last point leads me to something else you should know: This game NEEDS to be played on PC just because of mods.
Modders have already done a lot of help rebalance some mechanics of the game to make it a little more accessible; At launch most mutants were just absurdly tough, and repair costs for your guns and armor are damned near insurmountable unless you spent a lot of time min-maxing & save-scumming your efforts in order to ensure a net return on your outings.
GSC did fix this to a minor extent, but in my opinion mods are still a good idea.
That’s actually another reason Stalker 2 is so good: It’s moddable, which means you can make the game play the way YOU want to play. I myself prefer a more classic challenge, so all I modded was the mutant health (slightly lower to accommodate my limited dexterity in combat) and the repair costs (which are still high, but at least are no longer spirit-crushing).
Anyway, with those 2 little tweaks I’ve been completely immersed in the game. I love the side quests, the hunt for artifacts, and the random bits of exploration just as much as I enjoy the absolutely fucking intense main story.. Oh, and the gunplay? Absolutely chef’s kiss.
While the main story isn’t quite to the level of something like Control, it is definitely up there in quality and immersion, and the decisions you make in both that and the side quests have a real impact on the world and how you experience it. Early on you make a decision that can cut you off from access to a specific faction’s base, which subsequently makes exploring a specific region much harder because it’s over 2km of walking to get back to a safe place.
I didn’t mind that, though, just because it’s so much fun to explore the beautiful, wild, and weird world that is the Zone.
It really has captured me in a way few games have, and when it’s done? Like finishing a great book series, there absolutely will be a dark void of emptiness inside me.
Let’s summarize things, shall we?
See what I did there?
I honestly feel like every gamer should experience Stalker 2. The question is, how tolerant are you of bugs? Are you on PC and able to install mods should certain gameplay aspects bother you? Do you have a fair amount of horsepower in your rig? If so, grab it now and don’t waste your time thanking me.
If you’re on console, however, I’d suggest waiting a bit. Let GSC patch the game more, hopefully balancing things a little further alongside all the much-needed bug fixes.
Either way, you probably need to play it. It is just that good.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a Zone to explore (and a Mechwarrior 5: Clans review to keep putting off).
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