A sure sort of friction can go a good distance in making a difficult and punishing recreation that’s additionally gripping. When builders go away you to determine issues out for your self amid harmful enemies that may kill you on a second’s discover, not often providing you with a straightforward method out of a multitude, it turns into clear that the survival instincts embedded in the STALKER sequence are very a lot alive in the long-awaited STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl. Then there’s the kind of friction that stops you from participating with it in earnest, like poor technical efficiency, bugs which might be generally hilarious however at others game-breaking, or nonsensical enemy habits. STALKER 2 has each varieties of friction in equal measure. It simply can’t cease getting in its personal method, however for all that’s working towards it, there’s an underlying greatness that surfaces every so often.
STALKER 2 is an enormous recreation; as of this writing, I’m about 20 hours into my playthrough and nonetheless have a lot left to do in The Zone in each the principle story questline and in aspect missions that I’m having to squint to see a light-weight on the finish of the tunnel. As a result of overview copy coming in only a week earlier than launch and a progress-halting bug in the principle mission (which price me a day of playtime and required me to reload a earlier save that made me lose about 4 hours of progress in order to keep away from it), I haven’t been capable of end it in time to present you a closing verdict at launch. And for a sequence like STALKER, the place the resolutions to the story’s mysteries are inherent to the way it’s earned its cult following, seeing it to the top is of utmost significance, regardless of the roadblocks I’ve to truck via to get there.
The Chornobyl Exclusion Zone – the location across the tragic, real-world 1986 nuclear meltdown – stays the guts of STALKER, each as a brutal and generally beautiful open world, and an interesting setting that’s integral to Ukrainian historical past. Physics-defying anomalies work as lethal hazards scattered round its enormous map, whereas equally harmful mutated wildlife lurk about and supernatural phenomena amid the nuclear fallout instill a way of hazard round each nook. Stalkers – mercenaries who make a dwelling in The Zone taking up dangerous jobs – from varied factions are additionally on the hunt all through; it’s a harsh place to eke out a dwelling.
In that respect, STALKER 2 is a masterclass in ambiance: beautiful dynamic climate, pitch-dark nights, and radioactive storms that paint the sky a hellish pink or poisonous inexperienced preserve issues each eerie and threatening in other ways over time. Even one thing as small as listening to the patter of rain from inside a dilapidated ship pulls you into Chornobyl’s wasteland. It’s acquainted to anybody who’s performed the unique STALKER sequence (Shadow of Chornobyl in 2007, Clear Sky in 2009, and Name of Pripyat in 2010) and as a veteran of these video games myself, it’s an odd consolation to be again in The Zone.
The primary story supplies a throughline to observe, nevertheless it isn’t the sort of factor that’s going to gentle a fireplace underneath you in its early hours. Skif – our character – is about up and betrayed in the opening mission, which leads him down a rabbit gap that ropes in the scientific group SIRCAA and the Zone’s de facto navy, a bunch often known as The Ward. I don’t at all times want a grand journey or virtuous function, nevertheless it was somewhat underwhelming that many of the targets in the start boil all the way down to discovering a man who is aware of the place to search out one other man, changing into a steady chain of discovering extra guys in hopes of lastly discovering the precise man you’re in search of. Fortuitously, as soon as STALKER 2 received off the bottom it began weaving in the acquainted themes seen in the earlier video games, comparable to discovering the reality about mind-bending psi emissions, the dangers with analysis in The Zone, and cultish teams clashing with governmental organizations. Then it began to choose up steam.
Video games like STALKER are fairly uncommon to see at this scale nowadays, and even 14 years since its final iteration, STALKER 2 retains lots of the design ideas of the sequence – for higher and worse. It leans into mechanics we generally see in hardcore survival video games these days, placing you into conditions the place you have to make deliberate choices on find out how to have interaction enemies and which environments to discover. There’s gear put on that may trigger malfunctions, excessive harm in fight so only a few hits can kill you, bleeding wounds if you happen to survive that, starvation to maintain at bay, radiation ranges to carry down, restricted stock weight to handle, and fixed looting in order to outlive. It’s inelegant, although at occasions I imply that as a praise as a result of I like how little or no is streamlined. I began to see how its methods come collectively after sufficient poking and prodding and managed to search out the kind of friction I get pleasure from.