GameStar 01/2025
The 2025 gaming vintage will be really strong. We have put together the 25 big hits for you for the coming months.
In order to get this out of the way quickly, let's tackle the unpleasant things right at the beginning. I quote from Markus' editorial for issue 01/25:
»If you buy your GameStar issues at the kiosk, you may have noticed: We had to increase the price of the magazine by one euro. Of course we don't like doing something like that, but unfortunately increased transport and logistics costs are forcing us to take this - long-delayed - step. A tip: If you subscribe to GameStar now, you can secure the old price for now - in addition to the usual subscription benefits.
So now you're all in the picture. Phew!
“Phew” is the correct keyword, by the way. For at least two games that we tested in issue 01/25, but more on that later. Let’s tackle the cover story first.
As always, shortly before or shortly after the turn of the year, we will give you an outlook on the most interesting, most promising, hopefully greatest titles that await us in the coming months. If known. Elden Ring: Nightreign is still missing from our cover story. And that even though we already knew when we were creating the list that From Software had something new in the works with and around Elden Ring for 2025. But then you don't just write in the dark. A preview of Nightreign will follow on February 25th.
Phone 1
Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl is...see headline below. Now it's not quite as bad as it was when it was released because GSC Game World is patching heavily, but goodness! Of course, the development circumstances of the title were anything but rosy, and I firmly believe that the studio did everything humanly possible to get the game on sale as smoothly as possible, but...
Stalker 2 essentially suffers from the same problems as the first Stalker. I quote from my travel diary that I wrote in 2017 for the game's tenth anniversary:
»Could I have guessed back in Kiev that all the tiny and sometimes unimportant details that GSC wanted to graft into the game were impossible to implement? And were they even impossible to implement? But I had seen how much effort had been put into the physics engine, for example. So why doubt it? Maybe because there were only a relatively small number of developers in the office, but there were so many plans?”
Stalker 2 relies on many of the mechanisms of the original, but inflates everything even further. In short: the game is far too big. If GSC had slowed itself down a bit, the game might have seemed healthier. Oh man...
In stores and in mini subscriptions from December 20th
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The full version
More highlights
- The test of Empire of the Ants, which doesn't tear up trees in terms of gameplay, but visually does.
- The test of Planet Coaster 2, which forgets demanding simulation fans a little, but takes creative people to seventh heaven.
- The test of Mechwarrior 5: Clans, and not because a particular reader was very disappointed that he didn't find the test in 12/24, but because we only had space for it in this issue.
- The first part of the two-part report series on submarine simulations. They are currently celebrating their 40th birthday.
Phone 2
Colleague Martin Deppe is usually a person who is not easily disturbed by anything. That's his Westphalian nature. But when Flight Simulator 24 didn't want to work at all at the beginning and he and the special issue team he led began to find themselves in a serious time crunch, his peace of mind was over. For days, every morning meeting of the print team started with a tirade of tirades about everything that wasn't going well at FS 24. And that was a heck of a lot!
Accordingly, Flight Simulator 24 didn't do as well in the test as we had actually hoped. You can say without shame: The thing should have been Flight Simulator 25. That wouldn't just have saved us a lot of frustration. But just like Stalker 2, we'll be re-testing Asobo's massive simulation in the not-too-distant future, and hopefully we'll be able to give both games the all-clear.
But that won't happen until next year. In this sense:
Enjoy the holidays, we'll see you again in 2025.
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