Stalker 2 has released, what’s everyone’s thoughts?
Personally I spoiled myself with Anomaly and GAMMA so certain features are missing but as a jump from the original series I’d say the developers made a great new entry into the franchise.
No more loading screen:
For years I’ve been met by loading screens, sometimes within seconds of each other now we only have deal with the shader initialisation.
Movement:
In the original movement was limited but we now have climbing built in, but only to a limited degree not like the anomaly mod which I do prefer as it allows most structures to be climbable.
Voice acting and dialogue:
I’ll be totally honest I don’t like this aspect and I know I’m an outlier on this as with dyslexia I can’t read subtitle’s fast enough, meaning I can’t use slavic language with English text as I can’t read the text fast enough. Whereas og stalker had a text based interaction system meaning I could take my time.
Graphics:
Not something I really care all that much about, I think mood is more important but with that said its a pretty game although lighting has been odd from time to time, out side mid day dark as shit, this might be an atmospheric touch where the zone is an odd place but never saw this same lighting behaviour in the originals.
Mood:
Pretty good, its definitely carried the stalker vibe just wish the upbeat Americans would shut up lol. Dark caves are now black which I’m well into. Monsters are scarier then before.
Difficulty:
Being a veteran I figured I’d go veteran difficulty or the hardest difficulty. In the original series this was essentially a time to kill slider. The hardest mode meant the lest rounds the player could chew but in turn the least rounds enemies could chew. They’ve changed this and I feel for the worst, bloodsuckers and fleshes take an unholy amount of bullets to put down, whereas before mutants were difficult but the player could become proficient at killing them by knowing their behaviours, this doesn’t feel like the case now but I’m still early game and have yet to see.
Controls:
Not massively into it as keybinds for the PC have been changed and we will need mods to revert the console centric stuff.
Stability:
Preface I’m using Linux and proton, my system is and last generation. With that said the game in 4 hours of play time crashed twice, FPS sits at 110 ‘Epic’ graphics setting.
So stalkers all in all I’m having a good time. How’s your experience?
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Mine has been good so far. 10 deaths and no CTD yet.
Shader cache loading time is my current bug with it pinning my 9800k to 100%.
Atmosphere is spot on, rag tag groups with a loose agreement to keep the peace is very on point.
But yea those bloodsuckers are something tanky.
Its good to hear, I like the older mutants as they were skill based, land shots and dodge, even coming strait out of rookie village a skilled stalker could handle a bloodsucker with a sawn off. but now its empty clips or ran passed them. Hoping late game fixes this.
Had to stop after about 40 hours. Game is borked at this point and can not do the quest “on the edge”.
Some thoughts on the good:
- Like the maps and new sound
- Like the combat
- No loading screens is great
- It feels like a Stalker game
Some thoughts on the bad:
- The economy is borked, artifact hunting is one of the least profitable things you can do.
- Not enough stores/loot dumps for how much the game makes you become a loot goblin (I don’t mind being one). I end up having to fat waddle a km often.
- The nature of enemies spawning a few feet from you is a major issue (I have been looting a body, get shot, fight the new bandits off, loot them, get shot in a loop)
- Emissions happen even during main quest events, and can soft lock you (I got an emission during a part in the game when you are in a swamp, right as a scripted mutant fight kicked off.)
- Mutants are too much of a bullet sponge. (the snorks are about right, a single buckshot blast to the head as they leap works. The 8 shotgun head shots to a bloodstalker at point blank less so)
- Unreal 5 is bad, its just not ready. This is not on the stalker 2 team, but I think in 40 hours I have had 10 crashes, 6 failed to starts and at least 3 times I have had to restart my whole PC to get the game loaded again (I more then make the req specs)
Some thoughts on the annoying/weird:
- The lighting is just bad, not the end of the world but no nightvision or working flashlight make nights and poor weather just a pain (and that would be a good thing if not for the next point)
- The amount of just OK weather/daylight is rare to the point of being shocking. (I remember getting to see on a nice day and the game looked so different)
- The sound of the storms is loud and since it is so constant playing the game becomes frustrating.
- Cut-scenes are mostly stupid and un needed in modern games (they look the same as the game and in this case you get sick of skifs stupid little pea shooter and stupid actions)
- Repairs are just wildly off, you will have guns you loot as yellow become red just from the trip back to a store.
I agree on all of this, but I will say in the swap I also had a psi storm just after the mutant spawn, not mentioning names for spoiler and also wtf are mutants just spawning in? Very tacky and cheap.
Lighting is aweful and the Christmas cracker light we get to use suck.
Alive is borked and CSG know this, hopefully we get a good fix.
I’m now 30hs in and the game is stalker but needs to cook.
The main story has some really cheap scripting and I hate it.
I would if I could not progress the main story and do side stuff until a patch just before the “swamp” mission. I had the Psi storm as well but also a full on emission (took 20 health packs and just ignoring the mutant to run to the end).
I sent in a ticket and put the game down for now, I want to play but would have to see if I have a save maybe 10 hours back.
Oh and some of the main missions are WAAAAAY to long. All my stuff is in tatters by the end of that one 5 hour mission and I am fat walking half way into most missions.
Man that sucks, hopefully it’ll be patched soon. If your on PC it might be worth looking through the mods. I’m using a few to rebalance mutant health and economy.
I just finished a main quest that took literal hours. Thankfully some loot made up for my braking equipment…
I had to put it down until at least that one bug is addressed. Just hope that my save is not made invalid.
