S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl - Standard Edition

The only "stalker" game i have played is Anomely + Gamma, this game is nothing like that. Stalkers 2 is the best looking game to date, the atmosphere is insane, the npcs are very well weritten except i wish they would have more Ukrainian sounding accents, They all sound way too british, but that is my only complaits except this ONE THING! Warning! Do not disable upscaling, if you are having grafical issiues you need to enable DLSS(Nvidia gpu) or FSR(AMD gpu) or EXSS(intel gpu, what is wring with you?) depending on what gpu you got, this will fix most issiues you might be facing. i really wish they warned yo about this before disabling, i am using a AMD 6950XT Anyway this game is insanely good aslong as you are not depserate for it to be Anomely 2 I give it a 100 out of 100 Bloodsuckers - Freedome Member

My experience is that the game crashes too much to be able to even proceed into the story.

The game looks like it would be great, so I picked it up for me and my grandpa to try out together. We are currently playing through the original stalker on CD so I picked this one up to play after. However, we are unable to launch the game on our hardware. I thought it would run on my 6700XT *Or his 3070* if I was able to set the graphics to low. However, after 4 hours trying and waiting I am unable to even boot into the main menu. Hopefully the game will get optimized and we will be able to re-buy it again later. TL:DR Game refuses to launch on a 6700XT or below. *Written on update 1.1*

The gunplay and anomilies are both fantastic and the game looks good. The main issues are the spawning of enemies and the constant frame drops, even on a 4070. Hopefully the next few patches are able to fix those issues with the return of A life 2.0 and performance fixes.

**Rating: 9/10** S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is like being slapped awake by a radioactive babushka—it’s brutal, immersive, and doesn’t care about your feelings. After *131 hours* in the Zone, I’m still hooked. --- **Survival on *Veteran*: Fix It or Die** The *Veteran* difficulty is perfect. Forget bullets—they’re easy. The real pain is *maintenance*. Keeping weapons and armor intact costs more than your neighbor’s goat. And I loved it. Every repair reminded me how much the Zone hates me. The economy? Coupons. You’re surviving on scraps—bleak perfection. --- **Emissions: Run, Idiot!** The emissions are terrifying. Playing with no HUD made it better—I didn’t know the map showed safe zones. It forced me to always keep track of where the nearest house, hole, or shack was, just in case the sky turned red. Every emission had me running like a Kozak, screaming, “Where the fuck do I hide?!” --- **Immersion Overload** No object markers, no compass. Turning off all that crap made every discovery feel earned. Artifacts, weapons, and armor became treasures, not loot. It’s immersive like no other game. --- **The Zone Is Alive** The graphics are stunning, and the world feels real. The detail turned me into a hoarder—artifacts, weapons, armor, you name it. --- **Weapons and Performance** The weapon variety is incredible. Performance was solid, though FSR 3 on epic crashed after a few hours. Dropping to High fixed it, and it still looked great. --- **Fast Travel? Not Here** Fast travel is limited to hiring guides, which I loved. No shortcuts, just struggle—pure Zone. --- S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is survival at its best. It’s unforgiving, immersive, and addictive. I haven’t even finished the last main mission because it would end the game. Instead, I’m still exploring the Zone, soaking in every radioactive detail and chasing down artifacts. The Zone keeps calling, and I’m not ready to leave.