STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl Review in Progress - IGN
A particular type of challenge can significantly enhance a game’s intensity and make it more engaging. When game developers put you in situations where you have to rely on your wits while facing lethal threats that can strike at any moment, and rarely provide an easy escape route, it becomes evident that the survival elements inherent to the STALKER franchise are still very much present in the much-anticipated STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl. However, there’s also a frustrating sort of challenge that hinders your ability to fully enjoy the experience, such as subpar technical performance, bugs that can be amusing at times but can also disrupt gameplay, or illogical enemy behaviors. STALKER 2 has both of these challenges in equal amounts. It often trips itself up, but despite these obstacles, there are moments of brilliance that shine through.
STALKER 2 is an enormous game. As I write this, I've put around 20 hours into my playthrough, and there’s still plenty left to explore in The Zone, including both the main story and side missions. It feels like I'm squinting to see the finish line. Unfortunately, I received the review copy just a week before the game's release, and I encountered a bug in the main quest that halted my progress. This setback cost me a full day of gameplay and forced me to reload an earlier save, resulting in the loss of almost four hours of progress. Because of this, I won’t be able to provide a final review by launch day. For a series like STALKER, where uncovering story mysteries is a key part of its strong fanbase, it’s crucial for me to see the game through to the end, no matter the challenges I face along the way.
The Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, the area surrounding the catastrophic nuclear disaster of 1986, serves as the core of STALKER. This place is not only a harsh and sometimes breathtaking open world but also a captivating backdrop tied closely to Ukrainian history. Strange anomalies that defy the laws of physics act as lethal threats scattered across the expansive landscape, while perilous mutated creatures roam the terrain. Supernatural events resulting from the nuclear fallout create an atmosphere of risk at every turn. In this environment, Stalkers—mercenaries from various factions—navigate the dangers while taking on high-stakes jobs to survive; it's a tough place to make a living.
In this sense, STALKER 2 excels in creating a captivating atmosphere. The game features breathtaking dynamic weather, pitch-black nights, and radioactive storms that fill the sky with ominous shades of red and green, making the environment both unsettling and menacing in various ways. Even the simple sound of rain tapping on the roof of a rundown ship immerses you in the desolate landscape of Chornobyl. For those familiar with the original STALKER games—Shadow of Chornobyl in 2007, Clear Sky in 2009, and Call of Pripyat in 2010—there’s a strange sense of comfort in returning to The Zone as a seasoned player.
STALKER 2 holds onto many of the design elements that define the series, both positively and negatively.
The main storyline offers a clear path to follow, but it doesn’t really grab your attention right away. Our protagonist, Skif, is set up and betrayed during the first mission, which sends him spiraling into a complex situation involving a scientific group called SIRCAA and a military faction known as The Ward. While I don't always crave epic quests or noble causes, it was a bit disappointing that much of the early objectives revolved around tracking down individuals who could lead you to someone else, creating an endless loop of searching for more people in hopes of finally locating the person you really need. Thankfully, once STALKER 2 got rolling, it began to incorporate familiar elements from previous games, like uncovering the truth behind strange psi emissions, the dangers of research in The Zone, and the conflicts between cult-like groups and government entities. At that point, things really started to gain momentum.
Games like STALKER are quite unique in today's landscape, and even after 14 years since its last release, STALKER 2 still embodies many of the core design elements of the series, both positively and negatively. It embraces gameplay mechanics that are now common in more intense survival games, placing you in scenarios where you must thoughtfully choose how to confront enemies and which areas to explore. You’ll deal with equipment that can wear out and break, a combat system where even a couple of hits can be fatal, bleeding injuries if you happen to survive, the constant need to manage hunger, hazardous radiation, limited inventory capacity, and the ongoing need to scavenge for supplies. While it may feel clunky at times, I say that with admiration because I appreciate how minimally designed it is. After enough exploration and experimentation, I began to see how its various systems interconnect and eventually discovered the kind of challenge that I enjoy.
STALKER 2: Heart Of Chornobyl Review & Screenshots
Similar to the harsh environment of Dragon’s Dogma 2, traveling quickly through The Zone isn’t straightforward. To move efficiently between locations, you’ll need to locate the right NPC and pay a fee. If you decide to walk, expect a challenging journey filled with rogue Stalkers, anomalies, and mutants that can easily impede your progress. (I won’t pretend that using save scumming doesn’t help alleviate some of that frustration; I definitely take advantage of it.) This game doesn’t follow traditional RPG mechanics, meaning there are no character progression systems or skills to earn—your focus is solely on hunting for quality gear, enhancing it at shops, and managing your inventory to ensure survival while remaining agile. You can take on side quests for extra cash or to score rare items, though not all of them will provide tangible rewards. Despite this, exploring The Zone has its own value, even if only a few side quests prove genuinely rewarding.
Combat in the game swings between thrilling, high-stakes firefights and frustratingly futile moments. The key difference lies in the strange actions of the enemy AI. No matter the difficulty level, opponents often come across as completely clueless, wandering around aimlessly while in combat and oblivious to their surroundings. However, their incredible accuracy and almost supernatural vision—even in total darkness—can make encounters feel unfair, and not in a logical way. The erratic movements of the mutants are more irritating than truly challenging, which diminishes the horror element they sometimes bring. I remember encountering more realistic and consistent enemy behaviors in the older STALKER games, so it’s disheartening to see a regression more than ten years later.
However, there are some silver linings in those battles. I've figured out how to navigate the challenges posed by the occasional adversaries, always prepared to heal myself in order to stay alive and take careful shots from advantageous spots. Sometimes, conflicts arise from conversations that go off the rails, and the enemies are lightning-fast, forcing me to accept that I might take a lot of damage, if I even manage to survive at all.
Strong shooting mechanics compensate for many of the combat's shortcomings.
STALKER 2 features strong shooting mechanics that help to compensate for some of its combat shortcomings. Aiming with a fully equipped assault rifle, complete with a handy red dot sight for easy headshots, or blasting a mutant with a customized shotgun that can slow them down with each hit had me eagerly anticipating the intense, life-or-death encounters that the game offers.
Despite its standout moments, STALKER 2 often shows it still has significant technical issues. Even with a powerful PC equipped with an RTX 3080, a 13th-gen Core i7 processor, 32GB of RAM, and an NVMe SSD, the game struggles on moderate settings. When I switch to low graphics and balanced DLSS, I experience similar frame drops and major stutters as I do on medium to high settings with enhanced DLSS. The overall frame rate might be slightly improved but remains far from a steady 60fps.
The fact that the poor technical performance on PC is low on my list of concerns highlights just how much STALKER 2 needs updates. The issues are numerous, including NPCs walking through walls, problems with textures, misplaced sound effects and dialogue, environmental elements randomly appearing and disappearing, and objects passing through one another. Some of these minor bugs can be amusing in a way—like when an enemy's body flips into the air after being shot—and can be brushed off as odd occurrences while you concentrate on your goals. However, the constant and serious nature of these glitches started to undermine my enjoyment of STALKER 2, particularly when it came to broken quest objectives that ended up wasting my time.
It's tough to predict if the issues will be fixed by the time the game is officially released. I just hope that the most frustrating bugs I've run into can be addressed soon. During my gameplay, there was a moment when I needed to meet an NPC inside a building, but I found that I couldn't open any of the doors. After standing around for a minute, I suddenly got teleported inside, but there were no dialogue options available to progress the mission with the NPC. The only solution was to revert to a save from four hours earlier and make a different choice in the story so that the right triggers would activate in later quests. I've encountered similar problems with side quests, but those were less crucial since I could simply choose to skip them and continue if an objective didn’t activate or change after I completed a task. Still, it’s frustrating to deal with issues like that while playing. Bugs like these really prevent STALKER 2 from reaching its full potential. It often feels like the game is barely pieced together, and considering the reports about its development, it's easy to see why.
There are moments when everything clicks into place—or at least works well enough—when STALKER 2 offers a unique experience reminiscent of older PC games. In these games, players had to take charge of their survival in a harsh environment that was indifferent to their struggles. While I still have a lot to explore, I remain optimistic that the upcoming gameplay will be more seamless. As I progress through the main storyline, the challenges and combat scenarios have become increasingly captivating. However, I’ve found myself battling the game just as much as I’ve been facing off against the various foes and anomalies scattered throughout The Zone. At times, things don’t quite make sense, but I’m drawn in nonetheless. I'm committed to seeing this journey through to the end and will provide a final review as soon as possible.
