STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl

There’s a certain kind of deep confusion STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl inherits from the series’ namesake, Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1979 film, Stalker. Both are heavily influenced by the 1972 novel Picnic on the roadby the Strugatsky brothers. Despite and in light of their many differences and similarities, all three share one important facet: the Zone, a setting fundamentally incomprehensible to the human mind. Developer GSC Game World brings this setting to life in an admirable and ambitious way. STALKER 2an immersive open-world survival horror simulator.

You play as Skif, who is drawn to the Zone because he practically requested its presence by mysteriously destroying his home with an Artifact, an anomalous fist-sized object that has lost its reality-warping powers precisely because it is now located outside the Zone. . Searching for a way to restore the power of the Skif Artifact finally begins the life of a Stalker a title given to eclectic loners who broadly seek personal enrichment through the mysteries of the Zone, whether financially or spiritually. Node STALKER universe, the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone suffered a second disaster in 2006, transforming all life within it and manifesting a countless number of physical, meteorological, and geological phenomena.

The Zone is consequently a more important character than Skif, the protagonist, as it dictates not only the narrative, but also STALKER 2the gameplay. This is where STALKER 2 delivers its inherited and satisfying confusion, constantly conjuring up new and disconcerting scenarios. It’s a survival game where it’s impossible to predict the next obstaclemade brutally frenetic by tight, gripping immersive simulation elements. Unfortunately, there is another type of confusion that occasionally creeps into STALKER 2inorganic to the experience and caused not just by a litany of bugs but also by its own ambitious systems.

STALKER 2 is often brilliant and endlessly engaging

Welcome to the zone, a hauntingly beautiful place

The Zone is extremely dangerous, which makes STALKER 2 relentless. Especially during game opening hours, many mistakes are made and lessons learned. Its immersive simulation and survival horror halves work seamlessly together to deliver a game that revolves almost singularly around the methodical navigation of the Zone. Food, medical supplies, ammunition, artefacts and intact equipment are in short supply and all of this has weight, including every bullet. Deciding to ditch a few bottles of vodka (a stiff drink is useful to combat the effects of radiation) could mean the difference between life and death if a particularly agile mutant is encountered.

But that’s just the conundrum: what if a particularly agile mutant isn’t found? What if I just have to tread carefully between patches of electrified grass, or deftly avoid a handful of serenely bouncing giant bubbles so they don’t come into contact with me and explode into clouds of noxious gas, or make quick work of a patrol who sees me by mistake? , a lone Stalker, as an easy source of loot? My time in the Zone taught me how to deal with all these thingsso maybe I’ll risk limping slowly for a mile so I can sell my bounty to the nearest merchant.

There is great satisfaction on the way STALKER 2systems teach you to be a better Stalkereven if the lesson is often to quickly and unceremoniously make Skif the Zone’s latest victim. You may be halfway through the game, on your way to becoming a legend of the Zone, when a mission takes such an unexpected turn that you find yourself stranded far from the relative safety of a base almost back to square one – low on energy, ammo and keeping few Medkits. worrying.

Even dozens of hours later, STALKER 2 can be surprising. What seems like a fairly simple objective of finding a squad from one of the Zone’s rival factions quickly turns into a psychotropic investigation into a massive rift, culminating in a terrifying hand-to-hand conflict against a band of mutants dressed in witch masks. gas in the dark tunnels they call home. There are also conversely and surprisingly meditative expeditions into STALKER 2like a long, peaceful walk through calm but torrential rain after a particularly eye-opening main quest.

Except when in relatively populated areas, STALKER 2 It’s singularly intense. It uses the trappings of the survival horror genre well, but isn’t necessarily overtly terrifying. Dark, blood-soaked corridors and repulsive monsters are mainstays, but I didn’t feel really scared, just frequently unnerved. And that creepy feeling persists in the open world too – the forests, swamps, and abandoned Soviet architecture are as frightening as they are picturesque, and there’s always the risk that you’ll stumble upon an entirely new phenomenon. I’ve often found myself saying more explicit versions of “What is happening?“out loud while I play.

STALKER 2’s ambitious systems can sometimes feel too obtuse

A-Life 2.0 is impressive, but also unwieldy

STALKER 2 is largely the sequel to its predecessors as it is a modernization of STALKERthe cult classic shooter trilogy, Shadow of Chornobyl, Clear skyand Called Prypiat. Its most important system is the latest iteration of the A-Life series’ proprietary simulationwhich is essentially responsible for making the Zone feel like a contributing member of the game world. For the most part, it works wonderfully, leading to the aforementioned obstacle challenges. Each jaunt to the next objective constantly involves another puzzle or environmental encounter.

The goal of A-Life 2.0 is to ensure that the player is not the only influence in the Zone. Patrols from rival factions will get into firefights or start blasting packs of mutants if they inadvertently get close to a lair. Following the sounds of gunfire and staying out of sight until the action is over is a great way to get some easy supplies if you’re in a pinch. It can lead to what feel like satisfying organic encounters; a few times I had to run away from a bunch of mutants because my weapons jammed too often due to low durability, only to be saved by a patrol that was nearby.

There are other times when it feels like you’re inadvertently peeking behind the proverbial curtain: hostile NPCs spawning right in front of you, or consecutive encounters because the game is clearly generating AI nearby to keep things interesting, but now it’s starting to feel like you is the only Stalker the Zone knows. These frustrations are hardly detrimental to the overall experiencehowever; they are clearly peculiarities of a system that is trying to do something fascinating and with great success.

This is the confusion that seems inorganic to STALKER 2 – unfortunate moments that run through the simulation, where it is not clear whether everything is working as planned. They are particularly noticeable in the game’s ill-defined faction system. One tip will tell you that wanton acts of violence against members of a faction will result in tit for tat, but it’s often inconsistent or simply unclear why NPCs attack Skif.

One particularly strange example resulted from a fight with a small group who were trying to convince me to get some coupons, the de facto currency of the Zone. The conversation turned to violence, and later the faction leader told me to be careful, as further transgressions would make me persona non grata. I thought I should leave the past in the past since said leader was involved in a mission, but when I returned from the mission he sent me on, the foot soldiers opened fire on me anyway.

Interestingly, this criticism is minimized by STALKER 2of the setting itself – who’s to say this wasn’t just a consequence of the Zone, a place almost entirely inhabited by people with deep psychological trauma, both pre-existing and inflicted by their current environment. The Zone is unknowable, as are the bizarre people who decide (or are forced) to call it home. Surely there are more confusing things to find than a gang leader who seizes power and decided: “In fact, I lied, let’s kill that Stalker when he comes back.”

STALKER 2 is buggy and a bit unoptimized, but it’s already improving

Pre-release patches are moving forward

Bugs are normal with STALKER games, but I’ll preface this brief discussion of them with this: STALKER 2 looks great and runs admirably on Xbox Series X, and although I encountered many bugs, they are so small and the game so attractive that it is very easy to overlook these technical issues. I didn’t encounter a single issue that couldn’t be resolved by saving in place and immediately reloading the save.

The biggest brands STALKER 2Overall performance appears to be inconsistent frame-pacing in Performance mode (although it appears to hover relatively close to its 60fps target) and frequent, noticeable pop-ins. Other issues are more comical: two NPCs using the same chair, a character approaching the fixed conversation camera every time they utter a new line (see image above), a person’s head turning 180 degrees while you talk to them, enemies shooting at you while standing chest-deep in ground geometry, etc.

However, GSC Game World seems to already be on top of these issues. A huge pre-release patch for the Xbox version (about 139 GB) apparently improved performance and fixed some bugs, and the game is already confirmed to receive significant post-launch support, including story expansions and a multiplayer mode, which will presumably (hopefully) be accompanied by further optimization.

Final considerations and status of the ongoing review

This review will be updated with a score and narrative critique

STALKER 2 It’s huge and dense, with the developers noting that a full playthrough can take 100 hours, if not more. I don’t want to judge the narrative conclusively before progressing through the game, but so far it’s appropriately engaging. Like the Zone that dominates it, the narrative is a whirlwind of eccentrics and anomalies. Despite some bugs, the production value is easy to see, from atmospheric scenes to verdant radioactive waste.

Simply exploring the Zone in STALKER 2 it’s deliciouseven if it’s an anomalous hellscape. The moment-to-moment action and game interface can feel a little clunky at times, but it’s far from the so-called “Eurojank” that the original STALKER the trilogy is often a model of. The combination of STALKER 2The countless missions, interesting locations and unpredictability via A-Life 2.0 make the game constantly engaging, like being led by an exceptionally sophisticated carrot and stick.

In the best possible way, STALKER 2 investigates the drudgery of surviving in a place that is intrinsically incompatible with human life. Immersive simulation elements reign supreme, often slowing your pace to a fascinating crawl through the Zone. The 15 year wait STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl paid; is unique and confusing like its predecessors, but poised to become more than another cult classic.