You can't make a Metro game without the Metro and still call it Metro. It's amazing how far they went in completely forsaking the core lore of the franchise. Remember the Dark Ones that were the central focus of the two previous games? Well, you can forget about them because they're not here. They don't even matter! Remember the Metro's mysteries, the supernatural creatures, and the amazing lore that was being built around them? Well, you can forget about that too because it's not mentioned here. It's not even remotely touched upon. This is just another "survival after the apocalypse" game. You could have called it Mad Max and it would have amounted to the same thing. They inherited such a creative and richly potential world storyline, and they dumped it for cannibals and pseudo-zombies. Don't get me wrong, it's still a fine game, but they really killed its more interesting aspects. It feels like a watered-down version. Not to mention the special atmosphere of those solitary journeys through the Metro's tunnels, a feeling you'll never experience in this game. The open world aspect doesn't mesh well with the Metro franchise because it ends up being the worst of both worlds: You have the linear game mechanics of corridor games, but combined with the openness of an open world where there's nothing particular you have to do (there are small details, scenes, and dialogue scattered here and there, but nothing really interesting). Worth mentioning: 1) I experienced MULTIPLE game-breaking bugs, forcing me to reload earlier saves. 2) The ending is clearly rushed and abruptly ending, they were probably running out of money. 3) At under $10, this is still very much worth the purchase, but it's a disappointment for fans of the Metro world like me.
First, a piece of advice: read recent reviews, not the ones from Nov 2024. GSC has done a lot of work and continues to patch the game. It is now "playable" but NOT "polished." To be fair, I think ppl had high expectations after long delays and they compare STALKER 2 to heavily modded versions of the original games, like LA/Anomaly/GAMMA. Remember how the old vanilla games were also buggy and relied on the Complete mods to be decently playable? This is what we should be comparing the new STALKER 2 to. And it came a long way. Performance in UE5 is demanding, as expected. On my 5070 Ti laptop, a stable 60 FPS is achievable, but it fluctuates wildly even with DLSS. More optimization is clearly needed. While I only had 2 crashes in ~60h, make no mistake: 8 months post-release, this game is still PLAGUED with bugs. Expect to install mods just to fix basic balance issues, like the ridiculously spongy mutants. My first complaint is the profound lack of novelty. This feels less like a sequel and more like a beautiful but predictable remaster of the originals. There are no new mutants and no compelling new Zone mysteries. The few new locations lack charisma. Past the nostalgic thrill you're left with a game for which you have 0 expectations. The narrative is decent, but the choice system is too unpredictable. Your ending can be determined by vague, obtuse dialogue choices in cutscenes. I had to abandon my save at the end game because of an obscure choice that locked me earlier with a faction I didn’t want to join. Worse, after reloading from an earlier save I discovered: there IS NO GOOD ENDING IN THIS GAME. The "true" ending feels like a middle finger to the original mindset of SoC. You're given the pretense of agency, only to be forced into a bad outcome no matter what. In its current state, STALKER 2 is merely "fine". In a few years, I am sure modders will shape it into the masterpiece we long for. Ignoring the ending, it's a familiar, but janky, trip back to the Zone.
