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S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl | Review Thread

Karak

Member
ok thanks ! regarding difficulty do you think higher difficulties are manageable with a controller or are impossible without mouse and keyboard ?

Many thanks for taking the time to answer
For sure. There is nothing you can't do on the controller and in some ways with its shortcuts and how its set up it might feel more comfortable for someone*just opinion*
I played about 40% on controller. What I wasn't in love with is that I felt I had to dial the controller in way more than usual. Lots of finickiness until I felt its sensitivity was correct.
 

Karak

Member
Karak Karak sorry if I missed it, but how was performance on XSX, or were you PC only?
PC had some bugs. But my 4090 was 45 or 50 up to around 80 at 4k ultra in some areas, hampered instantly by storms, or big fights. DLSS I was able to play with most of the time but in huge areas it dropped. With last nights patch some of that cleared up tremendously but I wouldn't call the game highly performant.
Shadows from low to epic gives or takes 15fps alone. So be aware of that. And the game has a boatload of settings.

Console seems to be patched up more than I expected and is a bit closer to capped 30 on Series S and CAPPED on other.
 

Kupfer

Member
The GamePro review of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl highlights significant technical and gameplay issues, resulting in a cautious purchase warning for the Xbox Series X version. Despite its ambitious scope as a 100-hour open-world survival shooter, the game suffers from numerous problems, including bugs, performance issues, and design flaws.

Key Takeaways:​

  1. Technical Problems:
    • Severe sound glitches disrupt the immersive survival experience.
    • Persistent HUD issues, including flares and disappearances, impair navigation.
    • Performance is inconsistent, with frame rate drops to unplayable levels in certain areas.
  2. Gameplay Issues:
    • Buggy AI and spawning problems diminish the challenge, especially with enemies appearing abruptly or failing to interact correctly.
    • Quest bugs often prevent progress in side and main missions.
    • Numerous visual glitches, including clipping and graphical inconsistencies, undermine the atmosphere.
  3. General Critique:
    • While the core gameplay and realistic survival mechanics occasionally shine, the game's unstable condition overshadows its potential.
    • Preorder policies and the rushed delivery of review copies added to the concerns.
A Day 1 patch was released late in the review phase, leaving some hope for improvements, but the game’s current state does not justify a recommendation. GamePro will revisit the game after further testing and a more thorough evaluation of the patch.

source
 

Karak

Member
The GamePro review of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl highlights significant technical and gameplay issues, resulting in a cautious purchase warning for the Xbox Series X version. Despite its ambitious scope as a 100-hour open-world survival shooter, the game suffers from numerous problems, including bugs, performance issues, and design flaws.

Key Takeaways:​

  1. Technical Problems:
    • Severe sound glitches disrupt the immersive survival experience.
    • Persistent HUD issues, including flares and disappearances, impair navigation.
    • Performance is inconsistent, with frame rate drops to unplayable levels in certain areas.
  2. Gameplay Issues:
    • Buggy AI and spawning problems diminish the challenge, especially with enemies appearing abruptly or failing to interact correctly.
    • Quest bugs often prevent progress in side and main missions.
    • Numerous visual glitches, including clipping and graphical inconsistencies, undermine the atmosphere.
  3. General Critique:
    • While the core gameplay and realistic survival mechanics occasionally shine, the game's unstable condition overshadows its potential.
    • Preorder policies and the rushed delivery of review copies added to the concerns.
A Day 1 patch was released late in the review phase, leaving some hope for improvements, but the game’s current state does not justify a recommendation. GamePro will revisit the game after further testing and a more thorough evaluation of the patch.

source
They may have got their game late cause code was for sure not rushed.
 

DanielG165

Member
Dyanmic events aren't done in the same way here as they are in a lot of other games including that it tracks events as you encounter people.

As I showed in my video> i was meeting Stalkers and everything was fine, I had put my gun away but the lightning hit ME and startled them and they started shooting.
This entire statement alone is what’s making me all the more excited to dive in later, as well as your other description on how different things can be in just a single building, or on the journey to it. We don’t really see much of that in a lot of games, even open world ones.
 

SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
If you expected better than low-to-mid 8s I think you probably aren't that familiar with Stalker. These games were always buggy at launch, difficult, and complicated. They aren't for everyone and that's okay.

If they are hewing closer to what made these games unique and interesting rather than trying to turn it into something more accessible like FarCry, then that's probably a good thing.
 

Mister Wolf

Member
I don’t get why so many are trolling this game, acting like it’s a game from Xbox. They only signed a timed exclusive and marketing deal.

Maybe when it comes to the PS5 in 3-6 months, people will be allowed to praise it then.

0021433607.jpeg


Human nature.
 

Mortisfacio

Member


Oof. Encumbrance system looks far more painful than your average game. Stealth mechanics broken. Bland enemy types. Skill Up I tend to align with a lot, so I guess I'll play this game later once they fix it more and there's some mods to fix the rest.
 

Karak

Member
This entire statement alone is what’s making me all the more excited to dive in later, as well as your other description on how different things can be in just a single building, or on the journey to it. We don’t really see much of that in a lot of games, even open world ones.
Where Far Cry games, I admit I like some of them, throwing 1000 things at you and somehow a Honeybadger has taken down an airplane and 5 buffalo. Stalker presents a much much quieter world but one where ANYONE can be the Honeybadger.

Hopefully they get that day 0 patch or whatever up and running. But I am sure this one is going to be clumsy for awhile.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Like practically every game now, wait a month and magically the devs have a patch to iron out lots of bugs and performance issues.

So what they could had done is wait a month and launch a more polished game. But instead Release ‘n Patch.
 

DanielG165

Member
If people can drop their jaded fanboy bullshit for five minutes, they might appreciate the fact that the Devs managed to get this out of the door in any state was a feat worth applauding...given their circumstances.
Yeah, they’d apparently wake up every day to air raids, many of the devs went out to fight and never came home, they would lose power… It’s unbelievable that they managed to get this game across the finish line, and I’m supporting them fully because of it. It’ll most certainly be in a better place perhaps even a few days to a week from now, but I’ll be diving into it as my first Stalker game today.
 

mèx

Member
What's the point of these reviews if they complain about technical issues that are supposedly fixed for the end user.

Will trust the opinions of people actually playing the patched game here. If it's truly broken even after the patch, I might wait a bit before playing this. If there is the odd bug here and there, it will be fine.
 

foamdino

Member
This should have been given way more time - because the dev team were under such ridiculous restrictions/conditions. What publisher would make them rush this out? Looks like the core stalker game is there, but it's just not finished/polished up.
 

Arsic

Loves his juicy stink trail scent
Honestly this did better than I anticipated but plenty more reviews to still come in.

I plan to play this week when I get back home but my only worry about games have major bugs and performance issues is that they have things going on that can fry your GPU.

As long as the game doesn’t melt my actual hardware I’m willing to lower it to medium settings , 1440p, dlss balanced to hopefully get 60fps on a 3080.

The core gameplay loop seems to be a good one, and while I doubt I’d subject myself to 100 hours of it, I can see myself having fun for 10-20 on gamepass before PoE2 drops soon.
 

Karak

Member
What's the point of these reviews if they complain about technical issues that are supposedly fixed for the end user.

Will trust the opinions of people actually playing the patched game here. If it's truly broken even after the patch, I might wait a bit before playing this. If there is the odd bug here and there, it will be fine.
I stayed up until 4am playing the latest just in case. While there has been the idea of a day 0 or patch 0, many times the reviewers last patch IS that one. While I have seen a ton of footage with patches 3 patches ago though. So not sure. Ultimately sometimes it works out time wise and sometimes it doesn't.
 

bender

What time is it?
Where Far Cry games, I admit I like some of them, throwing 1000 things at you and somehow a Honeybadger has taken down an airplane and 5 buffalo. Stalker presents a much much quieter world but one where ANYONE can be the Honeybadger.

Hopefully they get that day 0 patch or whatever up and running. But I am sure this one is going to be clumsy for awhile.
giphy.gif
 

Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
165GB when microsoft flightsimulator 2024 was only 12GB and that one has the whole world.
these devs lack talent.

Tv Land Reaction GIF by #Impastor
 

DragoonKain

Neighbours from Hell
I'm honestly more put off by the stuff in Skill Up's review that isn't performance related. Low encumbrance, broken stealth, quest markers not working properly. These things would absolutely destroy an experience for me. I absolutely loathe low encumbrance in games since I'm a hoarder in these types of games and I have no patience, so if I had to trek over-encumbered or have to drop stuff I wanted to collect it would ruin my experience. And I like doing stealth, so having enemies see you through walls or nonsensically would make me rage quit.

In general the gameplay loop in this game isn't something that I really love in a game to begin with, so I don't think this game is going to be for me.
 
It's easy to say 'don't release a broken game' and I agree to an extent. Cyberpunk 2077 should never have released when it was literally unplayable on current gen hardware at the time.

I think at some point delaying a game to patch it just doesn't amount to anything. We see all these games that had 6 or 7 years of dev time that were, quite frankly, shit. No amount of time would have saved Starfield for instance. There is a sweet spot I think of around 3-4 years of dev time that every AAA studio outside of Rockstar should aim for. The Witcher 3 took that long, so no excuses for most other studios.

It's dissapointing that the game is buggy, but it's out now. The devs have an incentive to fix it as quickly as possible. Not trying to make excuses for them but that's my thought process on games these days. I don't pre-order or have any expectations, so I can wait for it to be fixed.
 
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Flabagast

Member
I'm honestly more put off by the stuff in Skill Up's review that isn't performance related. Low encumbrance, broken stealth, quest markers not working properly. These things would absolutely destroy an experience for me. I absolutely loathe low encumbrance in games since I'm a hoarder in these types of games and I have no patience, so if I had to trek over-encumbered or have to drop stuff I wanted to collect it would ruin my experience. And I like doing stealth, so having enemies see you through walls or nonsensically would make me rage quit.

In general the gameplay loop in this game isn't something that I really love in a game to begin with, so I don't think this game is going to be for me.
Encumbrance is the point in these games... You need to make hard choices
 

TheMan

Member
It's easy to say 'don't release a broken game' and I agree to an extent. Cyberpunk 2077 should never have released when it was literally unplayable on current gen hardware at the time.

I think at some point delaying a game to patch it just doesn't amount to anything. We see all these games that had 6 or 7 years of dev time that were, quite frankly, shit. No amount of time would have saved Starfield for instance. There is a sweet spot I think of around 3-4 years of dev time that every AAA studio outside of Rockstar should aim for. The Witcher 3 took that long, so no excuses for most other studios.

It's dissapointing that the game is buggy, but it's out now. The devs have an incentive to fix it as quickly as possible. Not trying to make excuses for them but that's my thought process on games these days. I don't pre-order or have any expectations, so I can wait for it to be fixed.

Starfield is a different case in which a lot of complaints were related to design decisions. Stalker 2 apparently is a really good game buried by technical issues which absolutely could have been ironed out with time, in theory.
 

Karak

Member
Encumbrance is the point in these games... You need to make hard choices
Ya its litterally a part thats in their dev notes about the gameplay loop and...its a treasure hunting and collecting game where you can't use a dumptruck.
Personally not only did I NOT have an issue with encumbrance even on the hardest difficulty, it actually refocused me onto identifying the loadout I needed for a run. Far away run, different less encumbrance load with a different weapon setup than if its short.

Not sure about the stealth stuff as, with the newest patch, it worked generally for me. Still some issues as its an open world stealth game. But I did well over 100. Weight seems to make you make more sound as well. But I was able to kill easily enough without that.

But shame about the bugs because I for sure assume some complaints are also bugs creeping in and making the game feel even more confusing.
 
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I just remembered that this team shipped Cossacks 3 with dev tools enabled in all game modes lmao
Thankfully, the multiplayer didn't work for a couple of days.
 

Karak

Member
Looks like the day 0/1 patch is already doing a lot of the heavy lifting and alleviating the review period issues.

eaec2dd5c436552d01e67224aaee1933.png
Just saw these. Ya. The gun sounds in particular as well as some enemy alerts were patched out for me yesterday very early AM.
 

GymWolf

Member
Feel free to ask me what you need about the Game.
Are human ai and stealth as broken as skill up review says?

My immersion and enjoyment of playing a sandbox game goes out of the window if the ai is costantly glitchy and stupid and stealth is not reliable.

Can i at least expect the level of ia you can find in tlou2 or division 2 (or hopefully better)?!
 

DragoonKain

Neighbours from Hell
Encumbrance is the point in these games... You need to make hard choices
I don't know about that seems like it goes pretty extreme. For one, he used an example where picking up one big gun and some ammo made him over-encumbered. Which seems really extreme. And if that's the route you want to go, then at least give the player options to be able to quickly travel to base to dump off your stuff rather than having to crawl back, this seems tedious to the point of absurdity.

And also, if you get over-encumbered that fast when you're in a game that offers so many things to loot, it's essentially taunting you constantly with loot that you can't ever pick up and seems counterproductive.

Hard choices are fine, but when they come at the expense of making games tedious and a bore, then it seems to defeat the purpose. Games are supposed to be fun and what I saw in the reviews if they're accurately portrayed is something I consider the opposite of fun.
 

Karak

Member
Are human ai and stealth as broken as skill up review says?

My immersion and enjoyment of playing a sandbox game goes out of the window if the ai is costantly glitchy and stupid and stealth is not reliable.

Can i at least expect the level of ia you can find in tlou2 or division 2 (or hopefully better)?!
I don't know. But some of the issues folks are reporting were patched 2 days ago like guns missing sounds. Then again its PC...so you never know what bugs you may get. But on 3 pc's the gun sound issue went away Monday as DF reported.

Stealth worked for me overall but it was finicky and also got better with patches. Better than most overarching games of this type but possibly a bit "harder or more exacting?"
 
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