In the distant 2007, all computer game enthusiasts in the CIS were presented with a revelation in the form of a project that didn't particularly stand out, but offered an incomparable atmosphere. And although the action of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl unfolded in Chernobyl, everyone found something personal and familiar in the local abandoned and shabby landscapes. And now, 17 years later, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl has finally been released. Regardless of the quality of the game itself, this is a significant event for the entire industry, and even more so for the CIS. Much has changed over the years, including relations between states. Fans have grown up, started families, some have aged, but S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl has remained just like its original. Whether this is good or bad, let's figure it out.
At one time, "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl" became a phenomenon, and the subsequent incomplete expansions only solidified this status. Although abroad the game was overshadowed by competitors — in 2007, Mass Effect and Half-Life 2 were released — in the CIS, it was an absolute hit. Everything was forgiven — poor technical condition, many unfinished mechanics, lack of a proper storyline, and a host of other problems that would have buried a new release under different circumstances. But why didn't that happen? A fair question, especially since 17 years later, many players will be introduced to the series for the first time.
It's all about the atmosphere, which is difficult to describe succinctly, but we'll try. Imagine you are in elementary school, climbing garages and local abandoned places with friends, holding stick-guns, and the main enemies are local homeless people. You explore the decay, fully realizing that it is an integral part of your life too, not a fictional world, but a very real one that can be seen outside your window every day. But that's just one facet. There were other gamers who delved into a specific philosophy. There was something sacred about wandering alone through the empty swamps and fields of the Zone, drinking vodka with men not because you're an alcoholic, but because it removes radiation, and searching for artifacts by throwing rusty bolts into anomalies.
GSC Game World did something very simple, yet complex — they meticulously recreated the atmosphere of the familiar old "Soviet Union." And the audience unexpectedly loved it. While other games told stories of amazing worlds and incredible technologies, "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl" offered to strum a guitar by a "Burzhuyka" stove, having lunch from a field kitchen.
At the same time, the project's lore was only partially based on real history. In the world of "Stalker," after the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident, the area around the station became not just uninhabitable, but on the contrary — much more alive. Due to radiation, mutants appeared and many anomalies that changed the usual rules of physics.
As a result, artifacts began to form, unnatural objects granting the bearer almost magical abilities due to radioactive contamination. And where there is treasure, there will always be treasure hunters. Thus, the very stalkers appeared — hunters for artifacts or simply those who had nothing left to lose. It quickly became clear that the wunderwaffe lost their properties outside the Zone (at least, this is clearly stated in the second part), and therefore stalkers became hostages of their own work. What they did best had value there. And so, they could neither get rich quickly nor leave this place for long. Some left families and entire lives, others fled from the law, and others wanted to gain new levers of control. Thus, among the motley population of the Zone, factions began to appear — each with its own principles, form, leaders, and goals. There were also those who did not belong to anyone — free neutrals. They could join someone temporarily or simply live separately, exchanging artifacts with those who offered more.
This information should be enough for you to understand what "Stalker" is. But what about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl? Now that we've delved a bit into the context, we can take a more objective look at all the pros and numerous cons of the game.
Let's start with the basics. You are probably aware that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is a project funded by Microsoft. However, GSC Game World was and remains a Ukrainian studio, which once didn't matter but now might concern some people. The development went through hardships, as the first mentions of the sequel date back to 2010. Since then, work has been repeatedly halted, and the release date has been postponed so many times that it became a meme. Microsoft became a real savior for GSC Game World. The company not only provided a substantial amount of money to the developers but also supplied them with a technical base and the necessary time for polishing.
However, scandals could not be avoided. We all remember the massive leak of the build and plot, followed by strange bans on YouTube, which affected us as well, and finally, the developers' civic stance, which greatly threatened the future of the novelty in Russia. Rumors circulated that there wouldn't even be a Russian translation in the subtitles.
Nevertheless, despite all of Microsoft's investments, numerous delays, and phenomenal support, the technical condition of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl leaves much to be desired. After the first patch with more than 600 changes, the situation improved slightly but not completely. They say broken quests and balance were fixed. However, this once again proves that the developers seemingly had no understanding of what they were doing and how. Personally, we didn't have problems with tasks, but at some point, part of the saves magically disappeared. In short, it's far from ideal. The release is very similar to early access, and the joke that the game will work after 200 mods and patches no longer seems funny.
There are so many bugs and annoying issues in the game that we haven't seen in quite a while. In modern realities, studios that finish games with patches after their release are criticized. Therefore, it's not entirely clear what GSC Game World was counting on by releasing their magnum opus without proper optimization and with a ton of minor and major flaws. Many mistakes are considered a real disgrace nowadays. What was forgivable in 2007 will no longer look the same in 2024, after all, we had the experience with Cyberpunk 2077.
We tested S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl on both Xbox Series X and PC, so we can confidently say that a lot of work still lies ahead for the project. There are no slowdowns on the console, but there is a criminally small draw distance, lighting and shadow issues, and a low level of graphics, making the animations painful to watch. Long loading times after each death come as a bonus. After the patch, some nuances were fixed, such as the disappearance of texture flickering, but the main volume of problems is still in place.
On PC, the picture is significantly better, but without some tweaking, it's impossible to play at all. There are already plenty of guides and mods online for optimizing the process so that the hit doesn't lag or crash on mid-range and high-end hardware. By the way, we also have such a guide. After the patch, the situation improved slightly, but it's obvious that 600 changes are not enough for the game to be fully ready. There are also general problems that seem not to be bugs but rather strange oversights that should ideally be eliminated during testing. For example, enemies and characters often stand in default poses (less so after the patch) and only come to life when you approach, facial animations and NPC behavior resemble The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion or Fallout 3 (walking through interior objects included), the protagonist can get stuck in water for no reason, anomalies deal damage either in a limited area or magnetize to you, boxes can't be broken with a buttstock — only with a knife (now they can), and some characters can simply disappear at the developers' will, although logically they shouldn't.
And we're not even talking about the balance, which has already been almost completely redone. Everything, from the number of hits needed to kill an enemy to the cost of repairs, has been changed. It feels like students-interns were working on all this during development, and now real experienced people have arrived.
The picture itself is generally pleasant but again with reservations — a lot depends on lighting, weather conditions, and the area you are in. Often, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl looks like a game from ten years ago or even like the first part. The high system requirements literally hang in the air and are not justified by anything. It feels like 17 years have not passed, and there is practically no difference between the projects, get used to it.
But not optimization alone. The main thing in any self-respecting game is the gameplay. And this is worth discussing in detail. Structurally, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl hasn't evolved since the first part. You have an open world and a storyline. By following quests, you will gradually move into new areas of the Zone. There are also side missions, as well as the traditional shooting of bandits and mutants, collecting artifacts, and tons of bags with vodka and sausage, which are called stashes here. We sell loot (trophies) to local traders, and with that, we upgrade our equipment by buying more advanced weapons and gear.
But the devil, as always, is in the details. Let's start with the open world. Yes, there are no obvious walls, so you are free to go anywhere, but it's better not to show too much love for freedom. Enemies change slightly from area to area, and particularly meticulous explorers can accidentally kill a quest character and "ruin" a piece of the storyline or even the entire playthrough. The plus is that usually, the corpse has a PDA with all the necessary information, but if you are not supposed to know it yet according to the story, there will be problems. And what's cool about reading notes instead of dialogues and cutscenes is unclear.
The map is indeed huge, but mostly empty. It's unclear who convinced the developers that a thousand stashes make for a densely populated world, but that's the logic. Most often, you will travel in absolute solitude from one bag with vodka and sausage to another.
The world itself does not live. Everything that happens is tied to strict scripts and spread thinly across the map. There will be no random events. If you found or met someone, you will not find them elsewhere. Bandits fight in the same respawn points, and mutants appear infinitely in the same strictly designated places. If you killed a bloodsucker in an empty village, the next day, it will attack again as if nothing happened. This completely destroys the atmosphere and the feeling that you are living through a story with real people. All map exploration turns into runs from point to point like in an interactive museum, just to make something happen.
An integral part of exploration in "Stalker" has always been finding stashes. And in the second part, you'll have to do this even more than before. Suffice it to say that you won't get anything powerful according to the story. It gets ridiculous when you're promised a gun as a super-duper advanced weapon, and it turns out to be broken and useless. If you want to dress like the first stalker in the village, clean the map. The developers forcibly make you play as they intended and harshly punish any attempt to speed up the sluggish gameplay. Most stashes are not hard to find, but occasionally, there are truly challenging spatial puzzles where you have to find the correct path to the bag. These are the moments when you want to praise the game, but it's a shame that there are few such caches, and because of the bugs, you'll never be completely sure whether it's a really tricky stash or the authors just forgot to draw the ladder.
We also didn't find the life simulation, which, by the way, was promised throughout the entire advertising campaign. The much-vaunted A-Life 2.0 doesn't exist in the game, not even in its first form. The system supposedly allows each NPC to literally live in the world, with their own goals and objectives. For example, during one mission, you need to decide whether to kill the faction leader or take money from him and leave. We decided to experiment, take the reward, and then return to finish what we started (in other quests, this was quite possible), but imagine our surprise when, upon returning, the gang leader simply vanished from the base. We literally stepped out of the gate and came back. After this, it becomes clear that they failed to implement any kind of simulation. Now the developers are making excuses, continuing to promise fantastic changes in patches, but wait, you had 17 years. Why has it become worse than the original?
There are many other problems in the open world that can be summed up with the phrase "nobody does it like this anymore." For example, there is no fast travel in the game. Guides constantly hang around in the camps, who, for a fee, can take you to open peaceful bases (not all), but you can't teleport anywhere yourself. Why? Opinions are divided here. Fans claim that it's all for the sake of atmosphere, so you can feel what it's like to carry 80 kilograms of bread and guns to the nearest camp with reduced walking speed due to overload. The protagonist's inability to grab ledges while jumping and thus overcome ordinary fences also apparently adds to the atmosphere. Skeptics, including us, are sure that it's all about artificially slowing down the gameplay and an unwillingness to change anything in the original concept. The thought that the developers really don't want you to complete the game not in the conditionally planned 80 hours, but in 60 or, God forbid, even less, often arises, but you feel it most strongly in the open world.
Similar problems can be attributed to the local infrastructure. As you progress, you realize that the entire map is divided into areas. Each has its own peaceful camp with everything you need — a trader, a technician, a medic, and a place to rest. This is logical because, due to the lack of teleports, you should always be relatively close to a place where you can drop off excess junk. But that's not the case. At some point, you start being led through a series of bases where, for example, there's a technician but no trader. Where to look for one — figure it out yourself. And so you play for the fifth hour with eternal overload, and you can't sell it to anyone, it's a pity to throw it away, and returning to old locations will take up to forty minutes of real time. Here, it seems to us, questions arise for the game designer, who should not only come up with funny nicknames for bandits but also think through the internal economy of the game and such geography.
The second important part of the gameplay is shooting. It is also full of complaints. Each gun is unique and feels real. This is undoubtedly a plus. But here, too, the developers decided to slow down progress for some reason. The guns in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl have a shelf life and gradually wear out. In the final stages, they start jamming regularly, which becomes fatal because the enemies hit very hard and accurately, while they themselves are reluctant to take damage, and you notice them from a much closer distance. To prolong the life of your favorite gun, you need to repair it with a technician. If you don't keep an eye on it, you'll pay the average monthly salary of a Russian for a full repair. The problem is that absolutely all human enemies have weapons that are either already broken or in a medium, yellow, state of quality. Why a shabby bandit and an elite stormtrooper have guns in equally poor condition is a mystery. Apparently, so you don't get too happy about the loot dropping from enemies.
The wear occurs incredibly quickly, and the technician's services cost exorbitant amounts of money, which are not really given out. Maintaining your entire set of equipment in excellent condition is an extremely expensive procedure, forcing you to vacuum everything around to sell kilograms of junk for precious coupons (local currency). By the way, broken weapons cannot be sold; they are literally useless. And if you found some cool armor or a shotgun somewhere but then went through the story where there hasn't been a technician for several hours — condolences. The author of the article lost a cool chemical protection suit this way. A full repair cost 35,000 coupons, which couldn't be saved due to other pressing expenses.
The good news is that after the patch, the problem was partially solved. Prices became more affordable, and quest rewards increased, but we went through the main content before all this, and it was painful.
Weapon upgrades are done disgracefully and are no different from what was in the first part. You just click on the panel, and the stats change. Sometimes a sight appears. Remember how cool it was to customize weapons in Metro Exodus — and cry.
For reasons known only to the developers, rudimentary survival elements remain. The main character sometimes needs to eat, and energy drinks can quickly restore stamina and... that's it. There's a bed at each base, but it's unnecessary because there's no fatigue option. Food restores health, but if you go hungry, nothing bad will happen. Initially, the game warns that hunger gives a serious debuff, but we personally didn't notice any significant difference. You also can't upgrade stamina or carrying capacity. The only useful item among the "products" is vodka. It cures radiation. Everything else could easily have been cut or modified into a truly working system where you would have to regularly monitor the stalker's needs. By the way, this is present in mods for the original.
Since we're talking about weapons, it's worth highlighting enemies and balance as a separate point. Most of the time, you'll be fighting people who have not only become very sharp-eyed but can also kill you with two or three shots. Their weapons never jam, and they never run out of ammo. Meanwhile, the artificial intelligence, as you might have guessed, leaves much to be desired. If in the first part, bandits and stormtroopers tried to act tactically, now they are magnetically drawn to your position and just rush into bullets. For variety, they might throw grenades at you, but that's the extent of their military wit.
Especially amusing in this context are stealth missions, which exist only on paper. The entire stealth aspect is that you can enter some bases in different ways. As soon as you fire even once, your location becomes known to everyone. A silencer helps a bit, but it will only work if you don't miss a single shot to unhelmeted heads. If the opponent has a helmet, they can withstand even a point-blank shotgun shot. If even one soldier or bandit draws their weapon, stealth is compromised. Absolutely everyone will know your position.
The dismal picture is completed by the fact that all aggressive NPCs appear only when you approach, and sometimes even behind you. Sniping from afar won't work — the area will just be empty. Perhaps that's why the main character doesn't have binoculars, though they were in previous games.
But the situation with monsters is much worse. Firstly, they are very dumb. All mutants are bullet sponges that seem to exist only to deplete your supplies. There won't be much variety either. Most often, you'll encounter flesh, boars, rats, and bloodsuckers. You'll need a magnifying glass to find interesting enemies.
Fights mostly boil down to methodical clicking and chasing, with no interesting situations occurring. Regardless of the type, mutants act the same — hit and run. Saying that by the tenth hour it starts to annoy is an understatement. It's especially disappointing with the controller, whose first encounter only provokes laughter: the mutant just walks around the arena from side to side, spamming its psychic ability that doesn't even deal damage, and then leaves, and you have to, yes, chase it. The universe's lore is rich, so it's very disappointing that the developers didn't strive to make their monsters much more memorable and impressive. Blaming it on bugs won't work anymore. Eventually, you'll soon start running past creature spawn points. They don't drop loot, you waste a ton of ammo, and there's no challenge.
To be fair, after the patch, all monsters and humans die much faster and require significantly fewer bullets. This is a plus that might slightly improve the shooting experience, but if you haven't started playing yet, it might be worth waiting a bit longer in case they improve the AI as well.
Finally, the elephant in the room — the plot. This time, the developers decided to focus even more on non-linearity than in previous projects. However, there's a problem that characterizes the game as a whole — it's not 2007 anymore. The local choices are so crude that you start to regret the absence of a clear plot without variations. There's nothing wrong with a sequential story, and it seems S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl would have benefited from it. Meanwhile, all the consequences are very cautious and don't change anything for the world as a whole. Situations like in The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, where a whole chapter depended on a decision, won't happen. As a result, there's no sense of responsibility. You don't care who to kill or who to help. The story will still follow the intended path, and decisions won't affect anyone. The most you'll get is visiting locations in a different sequence.
Overall, the plot is... okay, if you endure the beginning. The next protagonist is named Skif, but who he is as a person is unknown. His one-room apartment is blown to bits by a blue cucumber-artifact, after which the man makes the strategic decision to go to the Zone, charge the artifact, which for unknown reasons was still functioning, sell it, and get a two-room apartment. As the classic said — the plan is as reliable as a Swiss watch. Of course, Skif is betrayed several times, so he has to meet all the local bosses, run their errands, and finally find the coveted cucumber.
If you've been following the leaks closely, you'll see that the story is almost the same as it was. After all the main twists and even the ending became public knowledge, GSC Game World didn't make any drastic changes. Is this good or bad? Let everyone answer for themselves. Overall, Skif's adventures are no worse than those the Stalker went through in his time, and in many ways even better. Special praise goes to the cutscenes. There's information that almost everything was directed by Ilya Naishuller, which is felt. The combat encounters in the cutscenes are unusually good.
However, there's a fly in the ointment in this aspect too — the dialogues. They are terrible. Almost all conversations are robotic recitations of necessary information. The characters have no personalities, no memorable phrases, or distinctive traits. Regardless of the voice acting, it's hard to listen to. Moreover, you can't talk to every passerby anymore. If a character has nothing to say, Skif will just ask about Zone news, and that's it. Where did all the local color go, and why does someone like Dima the Lawyer (a real NPC in the game) have nothing to say to the main character — a mystery.
Reading our review, you might think that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is a terrible, unfinished, and failed game. But sales are breaking records, and many prominent journalists are showering it with compliments. Both opinions have merit. It all depends on the point of view. If you're just a gamer who can look at the new release with a fresh and unbiased perspective, then yes, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is not capable of impressing with anything at all. All the aforementioned criticisms are immediately apparent and won't disappear, and patches are a long way off. The game doesn't try to immerse you in its own world and explain to newcomers why they should be doing all this, what the "beauty of the Zone" is.
But if you're someone who has worn out discs with the three previous games, played all the fan-made story modifications, and missed that very atmosphere of eternal autumn solitude — it's a wonderful game. Bugs will definitely be fixed, how could they not be (they will, right?). In the end, you can install mods. The graphics in the game are decent, the plot is passable, the shooting is more successful than not, and artifacts and anomalies are generously scattered at every step. What else do you really need? The developers didn't promise an RPG, a proper survival system, or branching dialogues on the level of Baldur's Gate 3. And overall, GSC Game World never promised that their new game would be a step forward in any way. The only thing they can really be criticized for is the absence of A-Life 2.0. Fans were simply given the same thing after 17 years. But that's what many wanted, isn't it?
Therefore, we are convinced that in the end, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl will be fine. Modders have already fixed most of the most annoying issues (unfortunately, this won't work on consoles yet), patches with thousands of changes will continue to be released, the old fan base will bring in revenue, and then, hopefully, newcomers will join. After all, the abandoned places and decay outside the window are still the same, children still run around garages with wooden guns, and the main enemies are regularly local homeless people. "Stalker" is still part of our life, not a fantasy about a Soviet post-apocalypse — that's what captivates.
***
We tried to take the most objective look at one of the most important games of the generation. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is undoubtedly a great project, but not the best game. We sincerely hope that in a few years, some "Complete Edition" will be released, where the mechanics and ideas will be refined, but for now, it's a very mediocre shooter that hasn't gone far from the original. It turns out, they did bring back 2007 for us after all.