Nearly two decades after the release of its last game, Ukrainian game studio GSC Game World finally released the long-awaited sequel “Stalker 2 Heart of Chornobyl” Nov. 24. This game reimagines the real-life disaster of Chernobyl and turns it into a place known as The Zone, a dangerous location sprawling with phenomena that defy logic, people with their own agenda, and mutants. Players take control of Skif, a man who ventures into The Zone in search of answers and gets thrown into the middle of a faction war, a coup, and a plot that seemingly puts him at the center of it all.
Originally planned to be released in 2022, the Russian invasion of Ukraine forced GSC Game World to relocate many of its staff out of Ukraine, with some developers even joining the Ukrainian Army. The documentary of their journey can be found on YouTube titled “War Game: The making of Stalker 2 Documentary” and it’s a great insight into the setbacks that the developers had to face in the making of their game. Despite it all, GSC Game World didn’t let it stop them from telling the story they wanted to tell—and it all paid off.
Everything from the dynamic weather system to the environment and its inhabitants helps to create a tense and beautiful atmosphere that I occasionally found myself getting lost in. With every rustle of leaves, I would quickly turn around expecting a fight, and with every lightning strike, I found myself taking cover in the many abandoned houses. At one point, a deadly storm picked up and forced me to hide in a cave inhabited by mutants and I had to fight while hoping I didn’t get caught outside.
It isn’t just the enemies trying to take you out, but the environment too. All around the landscape are dangerous anomalies such as fire spouts, moving lightning orbs, and hot spots of radiation that will set your geiger counter ringing on full blast. If you’re not too careful, you’ll find yourself looking at the game over screen with the number of resets you’ve done counting up to taunt you.
That’s something players will have to get used to though, as this game is not easy and it expects you to learn from each reset on how to best approach a scenario. If you’re low on ammo, maybe it’s best to avoid fighting altogether or if you’re low on health items, maybe it’s best to stick to more known paths to avoid danger. Even things like your equipment get damaged over time so you’ll have to keep track of their condition because the last thing you want when facing a mutant is a broken gun.
The game is beautiful and engaging, but it’s not without flaws. The game runs using Unreal Engine 5 and this allows GSC Game World to create the dynamic global illumination and reflections featured in the game—but at a huge performance cost. This means that most computers that lack newer hardware will struggle to even run it at a playable frame rate, with consoles sometimes failing to hit a playable 60 frames per second.
In my experience, my game would hit a stutter due to the weather or the game loading too many assets at once, and wouldn’t go away until I reset the game. My PC is usually able to handle anything thrown at it but this time I had to rely on NVIDIA’s frame generation technology, which made my game run smoothly but at an increased input delay which is something you don’t want when you need precise aiming. GSC Game World has promised post-launch patches that will fix game bugs and improve performance. With a recent patch, I can say from experience that my issues have mostly gone away but could still use more help.
“Stalker 2 Heart of Chornobyl” excels at environmental storytelling and creating nail-biting moments that reward those who survive with the skills needed to navigate even the most dangerous anomalies of The Zone, but its technical issues can sour the moment. For now, I recommend consumers wait on the developers for additional further patches. The game is out now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S and is currently priced at $59.99, with the deluxe edition at $79.99 and the ultimate edition at $109.99.
