STALKER 2: First Impressions

STALKER evokes familiarity for a lot of older gamers like me. We've seen the zone, friends.. Wandered through it, encountered anomalies, and died.. A lot.

I myself never finished the first STALKER game (and never even played the other sequels); At first, my only ability to experience it was via a demo I got through a CD included in a magazine (if I recall correctly); later, at some point, I managed to get my hands on the actual game, and did quite a bit in the zone.. Until I got frustrated enough to be distracted by another, newer, shinier game that was less punishing.

I would still think to myself, however, "Maybe if I tried doing X instead of Y.." as I played something else, and therein lies the beauty in STALKER (and STALKER 2): The nagging desire to find a solution to a difficult problem without any obvious clues.

STALKER 2 is a game for folks who like challenges, put simply.

Anyway, my first impressions of STALKER 2? It's got the feel of classic STALKER, wrapped in a lovely modern package with modern considerations.

I'm not talking about modern as-in the dumbing-down of game systems: No, the full challenge is still here. I'm talking about modern graphics and controls. Modern storytelling. Modern world design.

It's STALKER for us old folks who still game, yet also STALKER for new gamers looking for the next big challenge.

I don't mean to sound like an old man yelling at irradiated clouds, my friends: There is nothing wrong with how modern games are simplifying things. Games are more accessible that way for a lot of folks, and I am all about accessibility.

Like souls-likes, however, there is a beauty in the more challenging games.

Speaking of accessibility, a quick note: STALKER 2's accessibility settings are fairly limited.. You've got the standard adjustments for captions, and color blindness options, but beyond that the only other ways to help folks with other accessibility concerns are things like the toggle/hold options for crouching, aiming and the like, and the difficulty settings.

I myself am playing on "Stalker" difficulty, which is essentially "Normal". There is an easy setting, of course, but I myself wanted to experience the game in it's full, challenging glory (and die a bunch along the way).

So far, I love it; the nervous indecision on who's side to jump into during a firefight, the riskiness of exploring that nearby map marker while you make your way through a quest, and the harrowing knowledge that at any moment you could be jumped by an anomaly, mutant, or even a fellow stalker along the way.

It's a beautiful chaos, friends.

As an aside: I haven't experienced any major bugs or performance issues as early reviewers have noted. The game plays flawlessly on my RTX 4070 Super rig at Epic settings (1440p resolution with DLSS at Quality, and no frame gen), as it should.