Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl

[one-armed dwarf]

Saw this on resetera, seems to indicate that embargo is day of release. Gamepass might be the play until then, in that case

 

I'm not vouching for this guy's channel or anything, just saying about the timing of things. It unlocks 5PM on Steam on Wednesday I think

 

 

 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

Reviews out now, sort of all over the place

 

https://www.polygon.com/review/481607/stalker-2-review-pc

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/stalker-2-review

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/review/review-stalker-2/

 

Eurogamer have delayed their review as they're finding it too buggy currently. It'll be published on Friday

 

https://www.eurogamer.net/wheres-our-stalker-2-heart-of-chornobyl-review

 

edit Gamestar.de have also not given the game a score yet apparently, use google translate or ask Mary

https://www.gamestar.de/artikel/test-stalker-2-review,3423054.html

 

edit 2 Alex from DF doing similar with his technical analysis, waiting cause of all the bug fixes coming in. Read a few other sites doing similar

 

Wouldn't put whatever you're playing currently on the backlog for this unless you're super excited for it I suppose, waiting can only help

 

Verge call it a beautiful pain in the ass, that's more like it. Comparisons to the Tarkovsky film and Annihilation are interesting

 

https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/20/24300652/stalker-2-heart-of-chornobyl-review?utm_content=bufferdb093&utm_medium=social&utm_source=bufferapp.com&utm_campaign=buffer

[Maryokutai]

The German page just mirrors what everyone else is saying: performance issues, very frequent crashes, multitude of bugs. On the plus side the game seems to be pretty much exactly what fans of the first were hoping for, just as filled with friction and jank, not at all streamlined towards being more accessible (in the 'reaching mainstream' sense).

 

It's super cool to see that this actually turned out to be a good game, though unfortunate it releases in such a state. As always it's hard to really blame the developers here, one can only hope they have the means to polish it up a bit so that people can hop in next year and enjoy it to its fullest.

[one-armed dwarf]

I'll say I'm not trying to dump on the impressions posted above, I like games like Pathologic which are doing this sort of thing where it's not the video game equivalent of four quadrant focus tested stuff and trying to find ideas that may not appeal to everyone but appeal very highly to a certain type of player. An aggregate score tells you very little about that kind of game cause the stuff one group hates about it happens to be what the other group falls in love with

 

It makes sense IMO that some outlets are giving it a bit of latitude here to release some stability fixes in the first week, it's not a usual type of release at all and shouldn't be treated as such, even if that doesn't mean it should be treated with kid's gloves either

[DANGERMAN]

The release date always had the feel of just trying to get it out before the end of the year. Stalker is not a series you put out at this time of year, it's not COD or Assassins Creed. 

 

Hopefully it's eventually good, but there's going to be a lot of people who give it a try who absolutely hate it if it's like the originals 😂

[shinymcshine]

I'm just a bit surprised, for the games that simultaneously release on Gamepass, that MS don't insist on an extra layer of quality control, and insist on a deferred release if it's too bugged - but it might suggest either they can't or just don't really care.

[Maryokutai]

Probably a mix of them trusting their standard quality control and those deals being signed so far in advance that the pen is being held by goodwill. I don't even know how you would quantify a buggy game in lawyer speak. Plus you never know whether it even affects the game's success, too. Imagine they had secured Witcher 3 back in the day and refused to keep it in Gamepass because the release version was really messy and then watched in horror when it started to sell like crazy everywhere.

[one-armed dwarf]

There's a bit of discussion online about 'A-Life', which is the framework they had in older games which govern NPC interactions, faction fights, reactive enemy behaviours etc. People seem to think it's not in this or not working right, it's sort of one of the big things in the old games. In Stalker 2 it sounds like a lot of the enemy spawn stuff could be hardcoded while in the old ones it's a bunch of systems and player interactions cascading into different, unscripted outcomes. It was a pretty big part of its 'immersive sim' identity, so not a minor nitpick if it's not here

 

Explanation of mechanic in original game https://blackshellmedia.com/2017/08/12/a-life-an-insight-into-ambitious-ai/

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/stalker/comments/1gw7djs/so_alife_isnt_really_in_the_game_then/

 

I guess it'll become more clear as more people play it, it might just be very buggy 

 

edit literally minutes after posting saw this, they're aware of issues and will be patching.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/stalker/comments/1gwd7mf/they_seem_to_have_officially_acknowledged_the/?utm_source=embedv2&utm_medium=post_embed&utm_content=whitespace&embed_host_url=https://www.rllmukforum.com/index.php

 

I'm definitely going to wait before sinking much time in this tbh, I want all that crunchy systemic stuff ticking away in the background, not falling apart

 

edit summary article

 

https://www.gamepressure.com/newsroom/a-life-controversy-in-stalker-2-is-more-complicated-than-you-thin/ze7599

[mfnick]

I’m looking forward to trying this once they’ve sorted the technical issues out a bit more. Think it may be a bit too hardcore for me but still want to give it a go. 

[one-armed dwarf]

Here's Eurogamer's review. 3/5

https://www.eurogamer.net/stalker-2-heart-of-chornobyl-review

 

Stalker 2 is definitely something I'm looking forward to spending time on but the current state of the enemy spawning and AI systems are just so rough and incorrect right now, that it would ruin the experience for me. Saw some stuff which was very Cyberpunk 1.0, enemy's spawning as soon as they were out of the viewpoint, like you turn around and there they are. For a game about immersion and danger, this doesn't really draw you into things.

 

Unfortunately I think it will take a very long time to get that stuff to a place where it feels like it's as it should be. The issues with this game are far worse than Cyberpunk 1.0 imo (at least, speaking to the PC version, not the shameful state the PS4 Cyberpunk arrived in), although the reasons for that are 100000 times more understandable and it seems churlish to give out about it. Still, it's a reason to wait and hope.

 

Might see if I can boot up my SoC save tho from a few years ago and get somewhere with that.

[Maryokutai]

Game profitable: https://forbes.ua/news/gsc-game-prodali-dostatnyu-kilkist-kopiy-stalker-2-shchob-vivesti-proekt-u-pributok-investor-krippa-18122024-25653

 

A bit surprising I have to say, but I guess considering they got a Gamepass deal and also made this in a country whose economy is in shambles probably shifted the numbers in their favour quite a bit. Good thing though – it's really not a game for me, and I doubt I'd even play it when it's patched up, but you can't not root for this studio I think.

[one-armed dwarf]

I actually think it also sold really well, based on the steam CCU. People have a huge appetite for this particular kind of game

 

I definitely recommend waiting tho, don't buy it on a Christmas sale just yet, it's too raw right now as the AI/spawning/npc routines arent working right.

 

Unless you really really want to get it I suppose. Of course with gamepass you can just download it and see how it goes anyway