Stalker 2 in the test: purchase warning - a game is not allowed to appear like this

Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl im GamePro-Test.

Hardly any game has experienced such ups and downs since the start of development seven years ago as Stalker 2. We remind you of the numerous postponements, many of them extremelyand above all the development of the open world survival shooter under extremely difficult conditions. But a few weeks ago sawEverything looks like developer GSC Game World could, against all odds, bring a potential hit to Xbox Series X/S and PC.

But our test version on the Xbox Series X is of this positive assessment - and alsodie PC-Version, which GameStar colleague Natalie took a close look at - miles away.

Although it canprovides a lot of fun in its best moments and it always shines through why we loved roaming through the hostile exclusion zone around the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl in the 17-year-old predecessor. However, a desolate technical condition, some major mistakes in the game design and, on top of that, an extremely unpleasant pre-order policy mean that we have to issue a purchase warning at this point in time.

Here you can jump directly to the points that interest you:

• For newbies: What kind of game is Stalker?
• To the big bug report

For newbies: What kind of game is Stalker 2 anyway?

So that you can better classify and understand our criticisms, we want those of you whohaven't played, just pick it up. If you are already well informed about Stalker 2, continue here.

Roughly summarized, Stalker 2 is a first-person open world shooter with survival mechanics such as eating and sleeping. In addition, the game gives you a lot of freedom when completing missions, keyword sandbox. Do I work for one faction or the other? Do I accept the risk and simply kill the client and his gang to get the reward straight away? Do I sneak through the enemy base or lurk on a nearby hill with my sniper rifle at the ready?

It's playedScythian, an ordinary Ukrainian citizen who lives not far from the “zone” surrounding the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. More about the story later, but the most important thing here is that we play a normal guy who is untrained with a weapon, for whom the 60 km² large and partly radioactive game world is completely new territory.

This is especially important because Stalker 2 plays that way and on youincreased “level of realism”sets. Skif only takes 2-3 hits without improved equipment, can only carry a limited number of weapons, healing items and general items due to a weight limit and is certainly not a Rambo. Not one of those who just sends a horde of mutants or enemy soldiers into the afterlife. Any contact with an enemy can quickly lead to death. In addition, (similar to...) Ammunition is an extremely rare resource and every missed shot hurts.

Stalker 2 therefore does not have a classic action feel like Cyberpunk 2077, for example, where you can live out your power fantasy. The “Zone” is your biggest enemy due to deadly anomalies such as lightning flashing on the ground or suddenly flaring columns of fire and its many hostile inhabitants, and you have to choose your loadout cleverly before each mission. By the way, there is no character progression via level ups. Skif becomes stronger by finding new weapons, armor and artifacts.

A desolate technical condition

What sounds really cool in our short summary and is extremely fun to play once everything is running smoothly is, however, pushed into the background due to technical deficiencies.

To divide the bug report:First, we'll look at the bugs that have a massive impact on playing Stalker 2. Below we will list problems that, although extremely unpleasant, had a far less serious impact on the fun of the game in our test.

Issues that directly impact playing Stalker 2

Sound

• Sound drops from weapons and NPC dialogues
• incorrect soundscape is played
• Sounds are constantly played in a loop

It's no coincidence that we mention problems with the sound as the top priority. In a stalker game, it is extremely important to be able to assess the dangerous environment when scouting. But this doesn't work when enemies shout loudly in our ears while looting a small barn, even though they are actually fighting a battle between two factions hundreds of meters away. Such moments when exploring the game world, in which the wrong soundscape is played, are not only extremely irritating, in the long run they are, to put it bluntly, downright crazy.

If, for example, weapon sounds are not played, the question also arises as to whether a cartridge has become wedged in the chamber - this can certainly happen due to wear and tear on the weapon - or whether we are dealing with a bug? Such problems with sound ultimately lead to important survival aspects no longer working.

HUD

• Compass display flickering
• permanent disappearance of the HUD

Orientation is extremely important in a game world as massive as that of Stalker 2.We often place markers on the map to move from A to B or to avoid dangerous areas such as contaminated water.

If the compass at the top of the screen starts to flicker beyond recognition at regular intervals or if the entire HUD is hidden after cutscenes or dialogues until the restart, this puts a huge strain on the nerves and the fun. Especially at the start of the game, we often didn't know which item was where on the quick access bar. If, at the crucial moment, we get the vodka, which protects against radiation, instead of the medication kit, then Skif is over.

Apart from a loading time of 25 seconds, which is quite long for current-gen standards, there is no risk of further punishment when loading the save game.

If the HUD is permanently hidden, we often don't know at the start of the game which item is where in quick access.

Opponent behavior

• Enemies spawn right next to us
• Enemies in the distance are not visible
• Poor AI, especially of mutants and animals
• Telekinesis ability of a mutant, which rips the weapon out of our hands, which in the worst case clips through the ground
• Enemies are stuck in the area

In the best moments, enemies flank us, throw targeted grenades and put us under so much pressure that we start to sweat a lot. Thanks to different hit zones and good hit feedback, battles with human opponents are a lot of fun. But such fights are rare.

Often we just broke out in a sweat of fear because a disfigured mutant suddenly spawned next to us out of nowhere. In addition, especially in open areas, enemies only exist within a radius of 10 to 20 meters and are otherwise not visible. This meant that playing as a sniper was not even possible. In addition, there were enormous AI blunders, which meant that animals and mutants were formulaically running towards us in a straight line or that enemies were getting stuck in the area more often.

Performance

• enormous jerking in individual areas
• Jerky cutscenes and still images
• in performance mode more like 45-50 fps

In Stalker 2 on Xbox Series X we can choose between a performance mode (target frame rate of 60 fps) and a quality mode (target frame rate of 30 fps). The Series S version only offers a 30 fps mode, which we haven't been able to test yet.

In the performance mode we prefer, the frame rate is usually around 45 to 50 fps, which is definitely not optimal, but not unplayable either. However, it becomes really problematic when the frame rate drops to a freeze frame in some areas (such as the SIRCAA complex in the northeast of the zone), in combat sequences or cutscenes and we find ourselves jerking through the game for minutes.

A similar picture emerges in quality mode, with 30 fps being kept a bit more constant. If a lot of NPCs appear or we roam through elaborately constructed areas, drops to 25 fps are possible, occasionally even less. These burglaries are of course particularly serious. So neither of the two modes works ideally.

Quest bugs

The missions are not spared from problems either. So we encountered some side quests that we couldn't complete. Sometimes we couldn't place objects or take out enemies because they continued to be marked as a living target even though they were already dead. We even had to restart main quests a few times because, for example, an NPC blocked the door.

After 70 hours, neither we nor our GameStar colleague Natalie have yet encountered a complete plot stopper. However, the fact that so many side and main missions are affected by such serious bugs at the time of release is simply unacceptable.

More technical problems

As promised, we will list further points below that also affect the fun of the game, but are not quite as serious as the ones mentioned above.

Optics

• Motion Blur causes a blurred image and cannot be deactivated
• graphical quality and animations vary greatly
• partly broken lighting

Stalker 2 can be a really coherent and pretty game. If we are in dimly lit basements or wandering through the zone in a raging storm, it looks great! The whole truth is that thanks to the permanently active Motion Blur, we always have a slightly distorted and blurry image in front of us when we are moving.

Some areas also seem more like a game that was released at the beginning of last gen or even earlier. Textures here have too low a resolution or the lighting is so broken that hair is only shown as a white hat.

The game also varies enormously when it comes to animations. If the facial animations of important NPCs look really great, conversations with normal traders or clients are more reminiscent of the old-fashioned still image dialogues from Starfield.

Some areas are visually reminiscent of times long past, but...

More bugs

• occasional crashes
• NPCs and objects clip through the game world
• NPCs do the infamous T pose
• Enemies “fly”
• Body parts are in the wrong place in cutscenes
• Stamina is deactivated

Otherwise, Stalker 2 offers a best of all the quirks that you have probably already encountered in numerous open world games from Skyrim to Cyberpunk 2077 - and to which we can still turn a blind eye to a much smaller extent in such massive games when they are released . However, Stalker 2 pushes the limits of what is bearable.

From common clipping errors to NPCs with their heads on the wrong side of their necks, Stalker 2 is full of such bugs. Some of them were so wild that we even had to laugh out loud - something that we might have welcomed in any other game, but which rather damages the atmosphere of Stalker 2. It is also hardly possible to follow the dialogues in such moments. For example, we can't tell you what was discussed in the cutscene shown below, we were too distracted by the horror parade.

And Moin!