S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl - Standard Edition
Description
Newest patch available!
Discover the legendary S.T.A.L.K.E.R. universe and experience:
Unique gameplay built on a blend of FPS, horror, and immersive sim
It is a non-linear story, with a variety of paths that lead to one of the several endings
Benchmark-setting graphics developed using cutting...
Discover the legendary S.T.A.L.K.E.R. universe and experience:
Unique gameplay built on a blend of FPS, horror, and immersive sim
It is a non-linear story, with a variety of paths that lead to one of the several endings
Benchmark-setting graphics developed using cutting-edge photogrammetry and scanning technologies
Advanced artificial intelligence systems that will keep engaged even the most hard-boiled players
Immersive survival mechanics like hunger, sleeping, bleeding, radiation effects that enrich the gameplay
Dynamic day-night cycle and weather will add even more realism to the gameplay experience
Mod support gives the freedom to the creative stalker to extend and enrich the game universe
Multiplayer mode, will be added after release as a free update
Chornobyl Exclusion Zone has changed dramatically after the second massive explosion in the year 2006. Violent mutants, deadly anomalies, and warring factions have made the Zone a very tough place to survive. Nevertheless, artifacts of unbelievable value attracted many people called S.T.A.L.K.E.R.s, who entered the Zone for their own risk, striving to make a fortune out of it or even to find the Truth concealed in the Heart of Chornobyl.
EPIC NONLINEAR STORY IN SEAMLESS OPEN WORLD
Take over a role of the lone stalker and explore photorealistic seamless open world in a 64-km² radioactive zone with a variety of environments that reveal post-apocalyptic atmosphere from different angles. Make your way through the Zone to define your destiny as you choose your paths within highly branching epic story.
VARIETY OF ENEMIES AND HUNDREDS OF WEAPON COMBINATIONS
Meet members of different factions deciding who of them worth your friendship and who deserve a bullet. Engage intense gunfights with a variety of enemies that follow different tactics trying to outsmart you. Choose your preferable firearms from 30 types of weapons with numerous modifications that allow creating hundreds of distinctive lethal combinations.
LEGENDARY MUTANTS WITH DIFFERENT BEHAVIOUR MODELS
Prepare to encounter horrifying mutated creatures that will try to slaughter you following different behaviour model. Each mutant may appear in different subtypes which makes their behaviour less predictible. Truly extreme danger represent regions with lairs with numerous mutants hunting in large groups.
ARTIFACTS OF INCREDIBLE VALUE AND UNFORGIVING ANOMALIES
The most valuable artifacts and secrets of the Zone are hidden in the most dangerous places. Beware of the hazardous anomalies and unique devastating arch-anomalies as you hunt for highly valuable artifacts scattered around the Zone. Will you dare to unveil the mysteries of the Zone that took lives of many others before you?
Sadly this one is just as disappointing as I expected from the heavily scripted "real gameplay footage" videos presented before the release.
It appears that the main priority when finishing the development was to cater to XBOX standards of controls, accessibility, information - things that are just as important, but not at the price of not making sure that the core gameplay is anoyhow fun.
At every point of interest, enemies spawn right in front, sometimes right behind you, in infinite waves, with mutants automatically aggro-ing you and always knowing your exact position. Fun it is not.
I broke my rule to never preorder games for this title. As you can guess I really regret it.
Even after several patches almost every aspect of the games is broken in some way. Mods are the only saving grace, but after a while you get kinda tired trying to fix this game by repacking mods and solving conflict issues.
Wait a few months for more patches and/or big sale.
you will still enjoy this game, its very atmospheric and so far I have been sucked into the world.
I have played the game for around 8-12 hours now. still in the lesser zone so i have not ventured so far.
Does the game have it issues yes it does.
Its lacking some functions and features from the old games, like pages in the PDA, binocolurs and so on.
luckily for me im sitting with quite an high system (RX7900xtx and an I7 12700k with 32GB)
so im lucky enough to not experience the performance issues some people are talking about.
Sadly A-life is not really comparable to the older games (as of now GSC says it does not work as intented) but the world does not feel alive in the same way as the old games, as i said in the beginning the atmosphere is there and sucks you in, but you will notice that everything is just a bubble happening around you and not the entire map. hopefully we will get a system more compare able to the old one in the future.
So far I have been having a good time in the game, and hope to see it improvements in the time to come.
one good thing is that this game still have a great community and alot of fans so already mods for it is flooding in and that is without an official modding tool.
it is a good game and as alot of games it has it problems espacially in the beginning. So if you are not in a hurry to play it. wait a few months to let it cook in the oven a bit more. if you are a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. fan the world will have alot to offer.
TL;DR As somebody who preordered the Ultimate Edition, I'm actually very pleased with my purchase so far. I knew my current hardware was on the low end and that I'd struggle to get a solid performance out of it, but it's doing better than I feared.
I'll do my best to avoid spoiling things, but here's some pro's about the game
- Fully open-world Zone map, reportedly eight times the size of CoP
- Towns feel populated and busy, moreso than prior games
- The atmosphere and environment is impeccable and very close to the teasers/trailers that had previously been shared
-Edition bonuses are not given to you directly, and must instead be found through a series of stashes dotting the Zone
- The game retains its eccentric naming schemes for characters and many have unusual dialects or mannerisms, which I personally love, they feel more organic to me in this way
Nearly all of my complaints are related to performance. I'll list what I know/understand about the current build.
- The game's shader compilation is configured for dev-mode, where it takes a long time calculating shaders on first boot and rechecks every shader in the game on subsequent boots. There is a way to configure it to use more optimized/efficient shader compiling, but several people (myself included) run into OOM (Out of Memory) errors. This will likely be resolved by next patch.
- The game's lighting and reflections uses software Lumen, which is a raytracing technology. This itself is fine, but the issue is the game currently ONLY uses software Lumen. If you own a GPU with RT hardware, its not currently being used to power Lumen. This will also likely be resolved by next patch.
- Most of the graphical options don't provide a substantial performance difference. The best to lower for performance are Fog, Foliage Quality, and Environmental Draw Distance at the moment. I'm hopeful they'll adjust the settings or offer more toggles to claw back some FPS.
I've been having a really good time playing Stalker 2. It's weird and wonderful seeing so many familiar and beloved locations from the previous games, but now not separated by loading screens.
Gameplay is exatly what I would expect given the previous titles. Story is good too, as is the voice acting, and the visuals are beautiful.
There are some bugs, but so far nothing that has impacted my enjoyment anywhere near enough to consider stopping playing.
The single time I've had a true game-breaking bug, I was able to load a save from five minutes before and lose almost no progress, and it didn't happen again. It is a good idea to save frequently and keep a bunch of rotating saves.
The other time I thought there was a game-breaking bug, I thought to update my video card drivers, and that fixed it.
I look forward to more patches though, there are some things like the shaders not cacheing (even when following their official work-around), and enemies spawning too close or respawning too frequently, that definitely need tweaking.
Overall I am very pleased and happy to support a smaller studio, especially one based in Ukraine. It puts games like Starfield to shame.
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Last 30 daysLast 90 daysLast 6 monthsWheneverAfter releaseDuring Early Access
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