It’s been 15 years since the lastSTALKERgame hit store shelves. Naturally, fans would expectdeveloper GSC Game Worldto have made some big improvements to theSTALKERformula in that downtime. Well, the long-awaitedSTALKER 2: Heart of Chornobylis finally out, and it seems like that’s exactly the case.
After almost a decade of development,STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobylis here, and it feels like a modern update to the same quirky survival game formula that made the original such a cult hit.STALKER 2boasts a swathe of improvements over its 2009 predecessor, from modern graphics and animations to a wealth of quality-of-life upgrades. One of these quality-of-life upgrades goes a surprisingly long way in makingSTALKER 2’s survival mechanics feel like a natural part of the experience rather than a mere hindrance to the player.
One STALKER 2 QOL Feature Makes Its Survival Mechanics Much More Manageable
STALKER 2 Throws Players In At The Deep End
TheSTALKERseries features first-person shooter gameplay with an RPG-inspired open world, but it’s a survival game series first and foremost.STALKER 2’s prologuedoes a fairly decent job of introducing the series' staple survival mechanics to new and returning players alike, teaching players about inventory weight limits, the bleeding status effect, and more over its 30-minute duration.
But after that prologue, players are thrust intoSTALKER 2’s Zoneand told to make their way through the wasteland by any means. While players will be guided towards a nearby town and given various quests quite quickly, they are left to mostly fend for themselves when it comes to the game’s survival mechanics.
Players will need to eat food when their character grows hungry, cure their radiation sickness with alcohol or drugs, bandage their wounds when they begin to bleed, and carefully manage their inventory so they don’t become encumbered. This can be a lot for new players to get to grips with all at once, butSTALKER 2has one quality-of-life feature that really helps to make everything feel a bit more manageable.
STALKER 2’s UI Is a Subtle Strength
STALKER 2’s UIhelps the player in some subtle, but very meaningful ways. For instance, when on the inventory screen, the player can hover their cursor over an ammunition type and if the player has a weapon that’s compatible with the ammo type, it’ll be clearly highlighted, and vice versa. Similarly, the player’s inventory weight is displayed very clearly at the bottom of the inventory screen, appearing as a bar that goes from green, yellow, to red, clearly signifying when the player needs to shed some items.
Another key example ofSTALKER 2’s incredibly useful UI is that status effects are given a distinct symbol that appears above the player’s health bar when active. What makesSTALKER 2’s UI particularly helpful is that this status effect symbol also appears on any consumable that can be used to treat it. For instance, the bleeding status effect symbol appears when hovering over a bandage on the inventory menu.
These UI elements aren’t hugely noticeable, but they go a long way in makingSTALKER 2’s survival mechanicsfeel just right. A firefight that inflicts bleeding is still incredibly tense without players being made to fumble around their inventory and read descriptions of multiple items before finally finding the right consumable.
STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl
Chornobyl Exclusion Zone has changed dramatically after the second massive explosion in year 2006. Violent mutants, deadly anomalies, warring factions have made the Zone a very tough place to survive. Nevertheless, artifacts of unbelievable value attracted many people called S.T.A.L.K.E.R.s, who entered the Zone for their own risk striving to make a fortune out of it or even to find the Truth concealed in the Heart of Chornobyl.EPIC NONLINEAR STORY IN SEAMLESS OPEN WORLDTake over a role of the lone stalker and explore photorealistic seamless open world in a 64-km² radioactive zone with a variety of environments that reveal post-apocalyptic atmosphere from different angles. Make your way through the Zone to define your destiny as you choose your paths within highly branching epic story.VARIETY OF ENEMIES AND HUNDREDS OF WEAPON COMBINATIONSMeet members of different factions deciding who of them worth your friendship and who deserve a bullet. Engage intense gunfights with a variety of enemies that follow different tactics trying to outsmart you. Choose your preferable firearms from 30+ types of weapons with numerous modifications that allow creating hundreds of distinctive lethal combinations.
