We know but the amount of clones that spawn are outrageous. Especially since you can’t reload while sprinting like the old games, they’re a nightmare to fight. I reckon the devs need to tone down how many clones spawn at one time. My first encounter with them I just ran away as it wasn’t worth the ammo and you can’t loot any type of trophy from mutants like you can in the old games.
i have a problem with you saying its tripple A. GSC is for sure a AA devoloper. In some ways i think its good to say it because it shows that a AA devoloper made something that easily sitens next to AAA, but then i have a problem because AAA comes with certain expectations.
@@jordancomeaux6888I feel like we should be using AAA like we do with beef though. I feel like a triple AAA game is basically a 9/10 -10/10 game. If you’ve seen other game falls under a 8 it can no longer be considered triple AAA. I know that’s not the definition but we should change the definition of what a triple AAA game really is.
When a developer puts a "full price tag" on their game, it comes with expectations, that in a very, very long time amongst "All full price games" haven't been met. And that is a full 100% finished and working game...
Some armors can have "leaded" pockets that block all radiation from the artifact put into that slot. I got one with 2 leaded slots, so I can toss a max radiation artifact into each no problem.
Don’t wanna leave negativity but that editing just doesn’t fit Deadly. It feels overdone, tactless and takes away from the content rather than adding to it.
It's been like this for a while on this channel, it's awful, I'm guessing he hired somebody with a strong CV but turns out that was for zoomer content. Or he's trying to diversify by hiring them, get zoomer viewers, Idk. I hate the reality that eventually products all converges on the same "optimal" goo that is the most profitable formula
The Room cut had me rolling. I agree wholeheartedly with your review -- it needs work. The looting is so boring that it kills exploration, which is really a big problem for a game that has such a big world. The weapon modding was a let down...honestly, playing Stalker 2 made me want to just play Tarkov, but after 900 hours into Tarkov I feel pretty jaded about BSG and doubt that that game will ever get better. Stalker 2 has the foundation of a great game, and with dev updates and mods I think it'll be fantastic.
If any developer still deserves our support after a release like this one, it is them. I cant imagine trying to do my day job with a literal war going on outside.
Bohemia Interactive let them use a studio in Prague. They aren’t in Ukraine. But that’s still wild. The people they love and their home is under constant attack. I couldn’t even imagine juggling that along with releasing a large game like stalker.
@@riptors9777 not all of them are in prague. Some stayed in ukraine and kept on working on the game while also working in different positions to support the ongoing struggle
A lot of people confuse poltergeist with a bug lol. Idk man looks like hating stalker 2 is a new "current thing". Stalker 2 is a good game. In my 50h I crushed only 2 times, dont have fps problems. And encounter bug only once (nothing critical, just needed to do some workaround) my obly criticism would be in mutant balance. Fighting them feels not as fun as it was in the old games. Bloodsuckers are too frequent, dogs are to annoying (in previous games they could be scared easily) and i could be wrong, but I think in previous games phantoms of pseudo dog didn't deal damage to you, at least I didn't remember that it was this painful. But all of it can be changed with updates, I am having a lot if fun, this is a very good game. Better in a lot of aspects than any other AAA game
Because Deadly, as much as I like him, is a tourist. He played GAMMA, which is a super Westernized version of STALKER that is super removed from the original games.
How? By having a lot of bugs. It's about trust and if you don't trust a game because it has a lot of bugs, you start to see them even if it's a enemy function.
@@potato_mash121 dude what the actual heck? Stalker has less bugs then cyberpunk, less then kingdom come, less then Skyrim when these games were on release. I remember getting game breaking bugs in Skyrim that were preventing me from finishing quests. And in my 50h in stalker 2 I got only one bug in one quest that has easy workaround without mods and console commands. I also got some visual bugs, but that were fixed in the first update. I literally can't understand why people say that stalker 2 is a buggy mess when IT'S NOT. You clearly didn't play the game and repeat what you heard, good job 👍
@@potato_mash121 and yeah how can I forgot games like divinity original sin 2, pathfinder l, rogue trader and you know baldurs gate 3 ? These games had bugs on release and still they were great and they had FAAAAR more serious problems then stalker
Spawn point (like on a militarry base) are a thing that needs to be fixed (some of them already), but pseeudo-dog illusions are endless by design. You can't fight that mutant by sittin in the corner passively.
i won't blindly defend SHoC, theres issues but there's a lot of unreasonable example of new players that don't know basic shit as the psuedo dog at 6:46 does that to confuse the player
The A life isn't there right now. I booted up COP again just to try and refresh my memory instantly I see a group of stalkers I pull out of the binoculars and I can see dogs, fleshes, bandits etc. all with their own unique pathing. I can talk to the random stalkers and even join them on whatever quest they are pursuing. Stalker 2 is amazing right now but the world is dead and enemies don't drop real loot.
Lmao, sorry guys, the game we literally just chose to release doesn't work the way we wanted it to..... And there was def nothing we could do to fix it, you know, before you paid us for the game
Great vid, I agree with pretty much all your takes. Probably my biggest disappointment in the game is the hidden stashes. Trek for ages, burn through all your ammo, deplete your guns and armor health by 50% (which will cost you all of your savings, and then some, to repair) and get to the stash to reveal you've earned a piece of bread, a sausage, 12 rounds of 9x18 ammo and a grenade....and that's 70% of the hidden stashes....no cap. Kinda crazy there aren't even coupons (the in game currency) in any of the stashes....ever.
@plusixty8992 not sure how you assume 30% of stashes have *great loot* out of what I said but no that's not correct. Misinterpret that anyway you like though.
Stashes that you have the info for are the ones that generally give way more stuff. That's kind of the point. And frankly it's way better than how it used to be, which is if you didn't have the info on the stash it would just straight up have nothing in it.
I wasn't expecting Stalker Call of Pripyat to have a much better economy, A-life system, and looting experience than its sequel. Did they seriously never realize that every enemy having broken guns and almost no ammo to loot from is extremely frustrating and feels brutally unfair? Repair costs being way too high is an unbelievably stupid mistake; it actively punishes you for doing anything. Mutants being bullet sponges with no rewards punishes you twice over. Bandits having broken guns and no ammo also punishes you twice over. Are they trying to punish you for playing the game? Half of this review is "the modders will have to fix it" which is pretty damning.
Counterpoint: In Call of Pripyat it's comparatively easy to amass a fortune and get really good gear to start with if you know where the stashes are, or you get a lucky zombie veteran. You can leave Zaton loaded and barely need to get a new suit or gun for the entire rest of the game. I can understand why STALKER 2 would be more stingy with its resources, especially money. There's much more game to do and experience, amassing a big pile of cash and resources early on would make the game too easy or skew the gear curve. I can see how more ammo and reduced mutant health would be useful, though.
not even just that but there is like no fucking items. there is like 3 foods, a water bottle, and an energy drink. like really? 90% of stalker is in the atmosphere and the world just feels empty, it just does not feel like a lived in world. in every other game im struggling because i have a can of peas, but no can opener. I have 4 different kinds of half empty cigs. Porn mags for psy resistance. this game just has none of that. im never worried about if i will have food for the next day, or enough ammo. it feels like stalker flavor fallout with half the detail of fallout.
@@Haitch_Kay more recently it is yes, but all the original games still have significantly more items in general, there are basically no junk items, repair kits, or anything really besides guns and ammo(and even in that case its less variety) compared to the originals. hell there is even less *tool* items for fucks sake.
@defnotthekgb8362 None of the original games had repair kits or tons of junk items. The originals had pretty much the same set of ammo choices (you usually had a Standard, Armor Piercing, and sometimes you had Hollow Points). You are literally thinking of things mods added in over time. Seriously, go look back at Call of Pripyat for example. Almost the same exact consumables, almost the same exact ammo selections (HoC has more, though). HoC has more guns and more armors too. Legitimately, I do not think people (yourself included) who are making these complaints have even looked at what vanilla STALKER is like in years, if they ever have. People are so Anomaly-brained that they've forgotten how simple and slick the original games were, un-bogged down by tons of item bloat and tedious mechanics.
After watching your playthrough on vods.... i got about an hour through where I knew this game just wasnt for me. It does seem kinda like its not done cooking. Might pick it up next summer or something when its on sale for half price and fixed. Did the same with Cyberpunk and its one of my fav games now. Thanks for this Doodles. See ya in 1008p soon!
literally every cutscene for me either crashes or i get 10-20 frames (going from 100 ish btw for those of you clowns that are gonna reply telling me its my pc)
Holy cow, thank you for the TSR tip! The game looks so much sharper and my performance with frame generation is solid. GPU - RTX 2070 Cpu - Amd Ryzen 7 3700
If memory and optimization are the problem with implementing the A-Life feature, why not release an A-Life edition/DLC for people with better gaming rigs? Maybe like STALKER 2: Faction Wars Edition or something. And as hardware improves/costs less, people might buy or revisit the game in the future.
I think the biggest problem is that the release was rushed. You can see that with certain parts of the game very well. For example that one Side Mission where you're supposed to defend a village. They have put the enemy group and defenders into the same main building that is also a safezone. They have done this so that those two groups don't kill eachother when you are approaching and basically end the fight before you even get there. So once you're approach they are suppose to come out and start fighting. First problem is with the door which is just locked so they never come out and you can't get in. But even if that works it is extremly messy since as soon as they are out of the door and out of the safezone they start shooting eachother leaving a pile of corpses in the entrance. This is just one example of how they hacked together something in a rush before release just to get the game out. Obviously they are fixing some stuff now but I don't believe they are going to change the core structure of the mentioned mission above. Because someone (the Money givers) who have rushed them to release the game in such a state, will not allow them to burn further money with really really fixing it. I unfortuanetly think that this won't be a redemption Ark like with No Man's Sky. But I'm happy to be wrong here and be suprised otherwhise Edit: I hate to say it @DeadlySlob but getting a suit or gas mask was actually a bug that they have fixed now.
I agree with your comments on the game. The crashes are the deal breaker for me. Every 10 to 15 minutes CTD. I consider this an early access game and will continue to check in after each patch. But the developers have a lot to fix. But if Gamma and Anomaly were based on Call of Pripyat, imagine the work the modders can do with this base game.
If you're using upscaler + framegen, try playing around with different upscalers and their presets. I'm using FSR framegen and with DLSS on quality I am getting constant crashes. With DLSS on balanced I get one every couple of hours. On performance I don't think I've ever got a single crash. Some XeSS presets also work really well.
@@_erom_ I've been playing around with optimizing my pc for weeks. I've always used DLSS on performance. The problem is DEFINITELY on GSC's end. I've played many games the past year and a quick optimization on my pc always gets them working well because the games were ready to be released. Stalker 2 is NOT ready to be released. Usually I wait a couple of months before buying a new game.
Given the Broken A-Life system i Stuck completely with Ward ending. I think its worth it since its trying to get rid of the zone instead of preserving it and Killing off the Zone and what not. The pseudo dogs need to have a max cap they are insane!
Did the earlier stalker games really have better weapon modification than that? It's been a while since my last replay of the series but I really don't remember it being better than that? Please do correct me if I'm wrong!
No, it's exactly the same. I don't know what Deadly is on about. You didn't have tons of attachments or anything, you couldn't even repair and upgrade guns in the first game. You pretty much just had a couple scopes, suppressors, and some guns could have a grenade launcher. Upgrades were done at Technicians, just like in HoC. I love Deadly but he is *absolutely* looking at the game through a STALKER Anomaly lens. Anomaly is a free "game" based on a mod for Call of Pripyat called Call of Chernobyl, which is a mod that adds all of the playable maps from all 3 games into a big open story-free sandbox. Anomaly is Call of Chernobyl with a bunch of "hardcore" gameplay stuff added in and tons of weapons and other stuff. The problem is that Anomaly barely plays like the original STALKER games, it's a big sandbox survival game and not a narrative focused game like the OG's, but it's free and runs well on modern hardware so tons of people play it instead of the OG's. This has led to a lot of people saying STALKER 2 is "missing features" from the originals when the things they talk about are elements from the *mods*, not the original games.
@@Haitch_Kaytrue but it does make sense that they would add more content to a new release rather than less and the game is missing a few things that previous games had at this point. Feel like they could have taken inspiration from some of those mods seeing as a large portion of their fanbase enjoyed some of the additions made.
@miguelcanizares7522 They didn't add less. At all. This is not the reality that the game exists in. I guarantee you that what you think is missing is something added by mods. The only thing it lacks right now is a more fleshed out and fully working A-Life, which is a valid criticism. And honestly, I'm glad they didn't make it like Anomaly. Because Anomaly is *barely* a STALKER game. Heart of Chornobyl *is* a STALKER game. It's borderline Call of Pripyat 2.
@@miguelcanizares7522nobody in this thread has made any opposite argument, we're talking about something else, the accuracy of Deadly's memory and review
@@Haitch_Kayso what’s with all the junk items from the OG games, the NVGs, the binocs, the random pda chatter, joining factions, looting mutants, standing still to evade poltergeists and proper a-life with true offline sim?
I have put in 90 hours just exploring and hunting stashes. I can saly they boosted the sales prices to help off set costs. Before artifacts for barmen were like 4k, now they are 10k. Most weapons sale for 2-3 times their price. Artifacts them selves were 1400, 2500 and 4500 from common to ledgendary. Now they start at 2070, 3415ish, and 6 or 7k legendary. On average i have found 5 legendaries over my game time.
@@papanutt5484 I was running 1080p, on gtx 1070ti, 16 gb ram. I had slow loads, I did have some stuttering but it recovered within 30 seconds. I ran it on medium with a Ryzen 7 1700X. I would have pop-in, and delayed asset loads but it didn't make the game unplayable. I never died because of stuttering. I just upgraded to Ryzen 9 7950X3D, 32 gb ram, and RX7900 XTX. I am running it on epic with some asset popin but better than before. Now its using 24gb of my ram and my card is running at 85% or more. I should note that I am running it at 1440p on a widescreen right now.
@@papanutt5484 after looking up your card. @plusixty8992 is correct. Remember that laptop graphics cards are always 3-4 year lag in tech and power because it takes that long to miniaturize the hardware and optimize it enough so it runs but doesn't overheat. Compared to a discrete graphics card which has its own cooling system and is not sharing with all the components.
I love this game, played 6 hours yesterday for the first time and i really enjoy it. Ill be wandering and exploring everything i can in the world. I havent had any issues yet on xbox series x except maybe some weird audio sometimes.
Ive played about 20 hours and have loved, i encountered one game breaking bug, that i had to use console commands to fix, its disappointing but its hard to be angry at developers in an active war zone.
Made in the middle of a war would have been a nice start lol It’s hard to satisfy new stalker players. OG stalker players know the dogs are supposed to keep spawning till you kill the right one. A lot of people didn’t even know what stalker was till stalker 2 yet alone play it. This is a 10/10 game. Still launched with less bugs than AAA devs as a AA developer in the middle of a war while actively loosing devs to the war… comparing this to a MOD, gamma is nuts. Gamma you Taylor the game how you want with the mods you want. This game was made for stalker fans and they did a great job.
As an old stalker player myself.. So many "old stalker" players have so much copium going on.. stalker 2 is a good game.. but it is also only a good game. It might be the middle of a war and that is horrible.. but we look at this with Corpo eyes.. I payed a full price for this game.. I expect the game working according to the promise made.. The game does not. Hell not even close...10/10 is perfection... It's a full game of that feeling you had the first time you played through witcher 3, and RDRD2. skyrim, fallout new vegas. The highs on all those games into one, and then every second of the game is like that..Stalker 2 isn't even close in that regard...What it delivers is something many other companies has already done. 7/10.. If i Must put on my stalker fan cap.. I can give it a 8,5/10. but anything other than that is copium. That's not opinion..That's a fact.
As much as i agree with most of the points discussed by Deadly, could we please stop comparing stalker 2 with gamma/anomaly/other MODS? Those are fan made (and often a clusterf...), tailored to their creators "needs" and far different in gameplay than original stalker trilogy.
Yea I used to be pretty neutral towards Anomaly and GAMMA but holy shit have they massively warped peoples perceptions of the series. I've seen people complaining about HoC "missing stuff from the originals" and then list off stuff that never existed in the OG's, but was introduced in Anomaly/GAMMA.
If you are struggling with coupons... play different. I carry Hercules and energy drinks whenever i go out and think ill be looting. If i stop near a tech, i fix EVERYTHING broken or not, keeping costs low. I feel like the economy was done harshly for the game to feel harsh and greedy. Its very "gimme ya shit"
You say it’s a disappointment to have bugs and glitches in stalker but the original trilogy would never have gained a cult following without the feel of the game and bugs adding to the feel of the zone
@ajuiceboxxx no shot but plenty games where perfectly fleshed out back then aswell and we had quite high standards then in fact e had higher standards back then, the gaming community killed games off because of bugs back then, these days people make excuses for everything, shadow of chernobyl and infact all the stalker games got a much lower ratings than stalker 2 and yet those older games where acctually less buggy atleast in my experience
Despite of valid (though, partially outdated) criticism here, this is the only game I did not regret pre-ordering this year. A few more patches came out, the Devs indeed are busy. Alife isn't fixed yet, the game needs to be polished first. And no, there is no mod to fix it, we'll have to wait a bit longer. Personally I'll make vanilla first play thru, though that "photorealistic mod" looks really yummy. However, with the way the Devs handle "troubleshooting" in general, I don't think I'll have to wait for long. Shame that you lost your spark for this game, that's why I always lower my expectations for new releases. I hope it will get reignited, especially when the real Alife comes. This game is a raw greatness.
It's like Tarkov in both the best ways and the worst ways. I'm 40 hours in and still enjoying my time a lot, with of course complaining about the slavjank here and there when it hits you in the face :)
Privet, i love the look of stalker2 it looks so amazing. I hope they put the love into it to make it into what it deserves to be! Thanks for the info slobbly, and stay safe stalkers!
Triple A games will never be like they were, I remember buying a game back in the day and it had to be 100% which meant you were waiting for ages and had to watch teasers of this game knowing how good it was going to be! Now it’s a years project, has some sort of flawed AI and isn’t enjoyable day 1. Needs loads of updates, patches and so on with the expectation of it becoming GOTY. Making games was an art back in the day with every game being so different and enjoyable in their own way. Now it’s a business with one goal in mind and that’s taking as much money from the consumer as possible with crap content and digital gifts that are just SSD/HD JUNK. I was pretty keen to buy this game as I thought it was going to be a blast but honestly the reviews are pushing me back to old pieces of art created by people who love gaming.
Actually I agree with the environment part, the world is done very well, beautiful and has proper story telling. However the biggest disappointment now is the A-Life 2.0 that is cut down because the game was not yet optimized well enough to pull out what they wanted. I believe they had to rush the release to please the publishers already, the game has solid potential and is very close to that STALKER experience, the atmosphere is there. The economy and overall balance is not an issue because it can be adjusted later, the optimization however is indeed, as they will have to make place for the demanding AI system that will put a heavy burden on the CPU/memory to account for all the AI in the active/passive radius, right now the world feels kind of empty and not that alive. Still I bought because I know in a couple of years the modders will make candy out of this game. People saying it lacks features, probably forgot how original stalker was... it didn't have extensive weapon modification and it was similar to what we have now, survival aspects where also minimal, we had no vaulting, variety of items, consumables, parts, etc. What this STALKER 2 lacks is A-Life, Mutant Parts, and proper faction identification and relationships, also traders in Stalker 2 seem... useless, no use of buying anything from them and the stock they offer is not changing much. Everything more hardcore, detailed, complex you compare... we had in Anomaly MOD. But I believe that the vanilla game itself offers a nice entry experience for newcomers to get a grasp of what is STALKER universe, when devs will fix A-Life system they will be able to enjoy the true nature of it. And it's just enough for old timers to enjoy a modern STALKER experience.
If you wanna play it see if you can get a gamepass trial for 14days. My trial just ended i fun but I'm waiting 3 months or till it's at actual release quality until I buy it ans jump back in
This is by far my favorite game I've played in a while. It has some bugs , yes, but it is 100% playable in its current state. I mean, the devs made the game while under attack from Russia, so we gotta give them some slack. They'll iron the game out and get A-Life online here soon. Gonna catch shit for this take, but it's my game of the year, and I hope you give it a try if you're considering it.
Interesting to hear the perspective that the story is kinda the best part of the game. I personally think it’s overacted, forced and poorly paced. Plus the main protagonist being as interesting and well written as a cardboard cutout. I honestly could do without a story entirely. Exploration and dynamic encounters are what drives the fun for me. Hence why A-Life like in the old games is so essential. I prefer a stalker world that exists outside of my FOV and really doesn’t give a shit about my existence whatsoever.
pseudo-dogs fucking casuals experience with the game since the beginning of time never gets old to see. Also it's kind of frustrating how much people complain about the economy of the game. My guy, if you want to be overpowered in 15 min of gameplay...go play Fallout 4...
2:18 so you installed a mod that made the already extremely tedious gunfights with mutants.. More drawn out and bland..Making the enemies swallow 300 rounds -__-
STALKER 2 is. Unreal Engine's Lumen and Nanite systems make the game 100% CPU bound, meaning it barely uses any of your nice 20x0/30x0/40x0 NVIDIA cards. It also uses software-ray-tracing, despite most people owning an NVIDIA RTX card. Unreal themselves claim they will be making all their graphical features GPU bound by 2026, I am not waiting another 12 months for a patch that 'might' fix the game's abysmal performance issues. I'd rather go back and play the original three games with mods and just get 120fps at 1440p.
I'm doing a second playthrough while using (almost) pump shotgun with slugs and (almost) not using the map. Combat is visceral, and exploring is even nicer when I decide where to go just with what I see and notice. Yeah it's kinda walking simulator between landmarks, but I actually love it. The ambiance is amazing!
Avid fan of STALKER since the original Shadow of Chernobyl released. It is not worth playing if you like STALKER, it's just Far Cry 3/4/5 with a coat of STALKER paint. The entire game engine is CPU bound and uses none of your GPU because of the Unreal Engine Nanite and Lumen systems instead of your raytracing chips.
Disagree with the first half. Fan since 2015 and have recently played far cry to kill the time before release. It’s nothing like it, prob the most breath of fresh air for the open world/exploration style of games in a long time
I really enjoy the game overall and think in time it will be great. Especially the future modding scene. But the game is definitely being held together with duct tape and spit
I completly stopped playing the game as well. I played like 26 hours and just couldnt deal with it anymore. No A-life is a game killer for me if im playing a stalker game. The stashes are always just meds and ammo. Were did all these grenades come from and why does evey enemy have pin point accuracy and will spot you from a 100 yards away through heavy brush and woods? Its immersion breaking. I would absolutley love this game if it worked like the original stalker and i could plan out attacks with my binoculrs. The world doesnt seem alive, it feels like a poorly run AI trying to figure its life out. Ukraine got jealous with the russians getting money for space marine 2 so they released thier game way too early so they can get money as well. Ukraine has been extremely cringe in this matter trying to sqeeze money out of america.
"Is it worth it?" If you enjoyed the original 3 games and want a story focused game with good gunplay but not bogged down with a ton of extra mechanics? Yes absolutely. Also, don't know why you called it and RPG at all? It's not. Guns and armor have stats, but that's it. There's no XP system, no leveling, no perks/skills, none of that. I also don't know why you'd think that the guns and weapon customization would be like Anomaly or GAMMA. Anomaly isn't representative at all of the original STALKER experience and people shouldn't have been expecting 2 to be like it at all.
@maximilianoalcaraz7351 RPG is a genre with defined elements. STALKER 2 doesn't have any of those elements. By this logic, literally any video game where you play a character is an RPG.
The biggest upside to Stalker 2 was the fact that you could try it for $1 or nothing via the high seas, but as for people that paid $70+ for this game oof. Even ignoring the older Stalker games and just comparing it to modern games its maybe a 5/10 without A-Life and the massive performance issues. If they manage to get the A-life working fix performance including the terrible upscaling ghosting it will be an easy 8/10.
the pseudo mobs and psi effects are so fuckin annoying. the pseudo-fausts is such like a dumb idea and pissed me off so hard fighting him lol i love the game otherwise but that faust fight erked me bro
Full torrent mode (if i bought it legally, i would be 30min over refund window and had it since 21 NOV)... So not paying before proper AI, caliber balance, proper flashlight, nvg and binos and world feel is fixed with along launch of modding dev kit. Until then stalker 2 can kick rocks.
This review was 100% done wayy before the patches which is unfortunate, because the game is significantly better after the big updates it got. With that said, id say this is a solid 7.5/10 from me, could definitely move up or down for me as i havent completed it yet but i think its pretty good. If they can implement the A-Life system it will be awesome, but i dont think its going to happen.
Agree with you... Only thing id say is 6/10 game for me. Got the torrented version, and took me just over two hours (refund period) to realize this game was hollow at its core. But i have they get AI fixed PROPERLY, not fake fixes or light workarounds along with the modding dev kit, ill buy it.
Patches currently are only a bandaid on some gigantic issues with the game. Even with it all working properly the last 40% of the game feels super rushed with obvious missing content.
The game was wildly unfinished. Yeah the atmosphere was great. Every single other aspect of the game was half baked, shallow, missing, or incomplete. Game needed another year.
1. If you can't make a game, don't make a game. 2. If you have to defend your country, defend your country. (ukraine) 3. If you can't finish the game, because of the war, don't sell your game unfinished. 4. If you sell you game unfinished, be honest about it. Gameplay embargo...lies and fraud 5. If you're called out by the fact, that you game is unfinished, has huge and many problems, because you pulled a cyberpunk 2077 fraud move, don't be suprised. 6. Defending your game with bullsh_t, aaaah our country is at war, and this is the excuse we hide behind, while real people die on the battlefield, and we the whole company hide in Prague... now that's real (LEFTIST FAKE VIRTUE SIGNALLLING) empathy folks. Great empathy! If that's what empathy is, I don't want it.
Its not a bad game but its painfully stuck in early 2000. everything feels dated, graphics,combat,narrative,exploration,motivations. you can walk for hour without encountering anything interesting 99% loot is food/med packs/ammo. Every Main story mission is "OH YOU WANNA GO A? well i will show you how to get to A but you must go to B first. you get to B oooooo you wanna B sure bud no prob but you need to go C" so naturally i killed every fk main character took his PDA and moved on. There is very little to be played sadly, you will spend 95% of the time walking around,4% talking to NPCs and 1% in combat... which is basic asf and mostly waste of the time, since you can AND YOU WILL lose more resources than you will get back from it, esp killing mutants is utterly pointless. This game is fallout 4 for kids. no skill points, no traits, no perks, no companions and nothing interesting to see. where fallout have 20 different mutants which are scary asf, here you have 3 basics mutants and one is invisible.
A-Life 2.0 apparently took up a TON of resources to run in game. Like, more than the game already takes up in terms of memory. If I'm not wrong on this, in a recent announcement they mentioned they are working out how to include it, because it simply can't be run on console or even a lot of the PC market (like it or not, most people aren't running a 4080 with a 9800x3D and 64gb of ram).
Right now the game's shit performance is tied to the Lumen and Nanite systems (Lighting and Level of Detail) Lumen should not be used for big games like this, it is CPU bound extremely (it is software rastered ray tracing, very very slow when we have access to NVIDIA RTX cores and raytracing chips on AMD) I spent an hour tweaking INI files and was able to get my game to go from stock 1-2% usage of my 2070 Super to 20%~ and I was going from 70-80 fps with frame gen up to 100-110 (not quite my refresh rate still) Most of my tweaks were input related and adjusting the Lumen settings to make it less intense. THe guys at GSC have no idea what they are doing in UE5, it's clear.
No idea what you’re taking about with the economy. Go do a few missions get all the yellow guns go sell them repair for half the profit upgrade for the other half. Do I want to see it deeper? Sure, however it’s Nothing like you described.
*WAIT* *WAIT* *WAIT* EVERY MAIN MISSION AFTER SIRCAA (50% OF THE GAME) IS ABSOLUTELY BROKEN DOGSHIT! ALSO A-LIFE 2.0 DOESN'T EVEN EXIST SO RIGHT NOW THIS SIMPLY ISN'T A STALKER GAME.
I like the game, I enjoy it, truly. But the cope at the end of review was unnecessary. We paid full price for the full game (I bought ultimate physical edition) and received half baked product with non-working A-Life, plethora of bugs, issues, scripted side quests which can get stuck based on what you go for first, and performance problems. Some systems are just a limited version of they should be (like weapon modding), economy is messed up and don't even try to save/load game when carrying a body. Developers knew what they were doing withstanding the reviews until very last minute. They did not alert us to experience the problems and now they act like it's all good and we should just expect fixes. It's not fixes, it's bringing game to 1.0 version. And... the loot. Somehow I feel more compensated when I find Screws or a GPU in Tarkov, then I feel when looting bodies of enemies and bosses. Even if I did the quest at Poppy Fields and chose to get the "fully custom weapon-you won't find anything like that in the zone" as a reward it was half broken piece of ass and I got so angry I killed the guy for lying to me. I then reloaded my save, killed the guy, looted his whole shack and the weapon was nowhere to be found, so I guess he kinda pulled it from his butt. It's just so inconsistent and just annoying. Not perfected, at least. But anyway. I installed couple of mods, learned how to combine mods myself by unpacking, modifying and repacking them and I enjoy MY version of this game.
This is full priced game for beta testers! Also its very empty lifeless walking simulator with empty buildings some of which repeating design. I refund it and will wait for fixing,expansion,discount and better mods, but at this stage its not worth the price!
I played about 10 hours in the first 2 days and realized I couldn't enjoy the game in it's current state, so I left it alone and waited for the bug fixes. It's much better now, but I think I'll give the mod community a little time to cook so I can really get the experience I want before spooling too much of the game for myself.
i have 100 hours sin game and this has exceeded my expectations - its so well balanced etc . im loving every minute of game play . i waited 2.5 years for this release .. yes s2 has a few issues , but i am confident that they will fix it all and s2 will have a long life !"
You live in a different reality to all of us. This game is massively CPU bound, a massive flaw. There's no reason I get less than 60 fps with a 4.6ghz CPU and 12 cores to go with that, while my GPU is barely getting 1-2% usage. This is a mess, I'd rather go back and play the original three games from over 10 years ago.
6:58. Its not a bug, its a pseudo-dog, it spawns copies of itself to confuse you as to which one is the real one.
yeah did encounter one my self, granades x 15 = win
@@KazeonGaming the trick is to see which one bleeds from shots and focus on him, others just poofs out of existence.
many new players who just jump on the bandwagon.
@@KenzoTan1942 yeah. I love every second of Stalker 2! Once I'm done ima play another playthrough of gamma on the big difficulty :P!
@@lenoobpwner why? i just focused on which one every other dog spawned from 🤣
the pseudo-dogs arent a bug holy shit
Even I know this and I'm new to stalker
We know but the amount of clones that spawn are outrageous. Especially since you can’t reload while sprinting like the old games, they’re a nightmare to fight. I reckon the devs need to tone down how many clones spawn at one time. My first encounter with them I just ran away as it wasn’t worth the ammo and you can’t loot any type of trophy from mutants like you can in the old games.
i have a problem with you saying its tripple A. GSC is for sure a AA devoloper. In some ways i think its good to say it because it shows that a AA devoloper made something that easily sitens next to AAA, but then i have a problem because AAA comes with certain expectations.
Dude, it's a triple a title. It took 100 million to develop
@@jordancomeaux6888I feel like we should be using AAA like we do with beef though. I feel like a triple AAA game is basically a 9/10 -10/10 game. If you’ve seen other game falls under a 8 it can no longer be considered triple AAA. I know that’s not the definition but we should change the definition of what a triple AAA game really is.
When a developer puts a "full price tag" on their game, it comes with expectations, that in a very, very long time amongst "All full price games" haven't been met. And that is a full 100% finished and working game...
Some armors can have "leaded" pockets that block all radiation from the artifact put into that slot. I got one with 2 leaded slots, so I can toss a max radiation artifact into each no problem.
Don’t wanna leave negativity but that editing just doesn’t fit Deadly. It feels overdone, tactless and takes away from the content rather than adding to it.
Yeah same. Feels like somethink you would find on tiktok
Yeah whoever you hired to edit this needs to watch some of your content and understand your vibe better
I was gonna say something similar about the music choice, wth is that even?
Agreed , feels very over edited but maybe this is what the algorithm likes?
It's been like this for a while on this channel, it's awful, I'm guessing he hired somebody with a strong CV but turns out that was for zoomer content. Or he's trying to diversify by hiring them, get zoomer viewers, Idk. I hate the reality that eventually products all converges on the same "optimal" goo that is the most profitable formula
The Room cut had me rolling. I agree wholeheartedly with your review -- it needs work. The looting is so boring that it kills exploration, which is really a big problem for a game that has such a big world. The weapon modding was a let down...honestly, playing Stalker 2 made me want to just play Tarkov, but after 900 hours into Tarkov I feel pretty jaded about BSG and doubt that that game will ever get better. Stalker 2 has the foundation of a great game, and with dev updates and mods I think it'll be fantastic.
If any developer still deserves our support after a release like this one, it is them. I cant imagine trying to do my day job with a literal war going on outside.
Should have labelled it 'early access' then people would know.
They are not in ukraine. They moved their company to Prague
Bohemia Interactive let them use a studio in Prague. They aren’t in Ukraine.
But that’s still wild. The people they love and their home is under constant attack. I couldn’t even imagine juggling that along with releasing a large game like stalker.
For the last goddamn time they AREN'T IN FKN UKRAINE
@@riptors9777 not all of them are in prague. Some stayed in ukraine and kept on working on the game while also working in different positions to support the ongoing struggle
I was glad they have already been tuning the mutant health pool. Those early bloodsuckers were driving me nuts until that first patch.
6:49 how did a core part of how a certain enemy functions get mistaken for a bug? And how was that not caught before uploading?
A lot of people confuse poltergeist with a bug lol. Idk man looks like hating stalker 2 is a new "current thing". Stalker 2 is a good game. In my 50h I crushed only 2 times, dont have fps problems. And encounter bug only once (nothing critical, just needed to do some workaround) my obly criticism would be in mutant balance. Fighting them feels not as fun as it was in the old games. Bloodsuckers are too frequent, dogs are to annoying (in previous games they could be scared easily) and i could be wrong, but I think in previous games phantoms of pseudo dog didn't deal damage to you, at least I didn't remember that it was this painful. But all of it can be changed with updates, I am having a lot if fun, this is a very good game. Better in a lot of aspects than any other AAA game
Because Deadly, as much as I like him, is a tourist. He played GAMMA, which is a super Westernized version of STALKER that is super removed from the original games.
How? By having a lot of bugs. It's about trust and if you don't trust a game because it has a lot of bugs, you start to see them even if it's a enemy function.
@@potato_mash121 dude what the actual heck? Stalker has less bugs then cyberpunk, less then kingdom come, less then Skyrim when these games were on release. I remember getting game breaking bugs in Skyrim that were preventing me from finishing quests. And in my 50h in stalker 2 I got only one bug in one quest that has easy workaround without mods and console commands. I also got some visual bugs, but that were fixed in the first update. I literally can't understand why people say that stalker 2 is a buggy mess when IT'S NOT. You clearly didn't play the game and repeat what you heard, good job 👍
@@potato_mash121 and yeah how can I forgot games like divinity original sin 2, pathfinder l, rogue trader and you know baldurs gate 3 ? These games had bugs on release and still they were great and they had FAAAAR more serious problems then stalker
Spawn point (like on a militarry base) are a thing that needs to be fixed (some of them already), but pseeudo-dog illusions are endless by design. You can't fight that mutant by sittin in the corner passively.
i won't blindly defend SHoC, theres issues but there's a lot of unreasonable example of new players that don't know basic shit as the psuedo dog at 6:46 does that to confuse the player
The A life isn't there right now. I booted up COP again just to try and refresh my memory instantly I see a group of stalkers I pull out of the binoculars and I can see dogs, fleshes, bandits etc. all with their own unique pathing. I can talk to the random stalkers and even join them on whatever quest they are pursuing. Stalker 2 is amazing right now but the world is dead and enemies don't drop real loot.
Lmao, sorry guys, the game we literally just chose to release doesn't work the way we wanted it to..... And there was def nothing we could do to fix it, you know, before you paid us for the game
😂 deceitful developers man. I thought stalker devs were gonna be able to escape all the corporation bullshit.
Great vid, I agree with pretty much all your takes. Probably my biggest disappointment in the game is the hidden stashes. Trek for ages, burn through all your ammo, deplete your guns and armor health by 50% (which will cost you all of your savings, and then some, to repair) and get to the stash to reveal you've earned a piece of bread, a sausage, 12 rounds of 9x18 ammo and a grenade....and that's 70% of the hidden stashes....no cap. Kinda crazy there aren't even coupons (the in game currency) in any of the stashes....ever.
so 1 out of every 3 stashes has great loot? thats not bad at all.
@plusixty8992 not sure how you assume 30% of stashes have *great loot* out of what I said but no that's not correct. Misinterpret that anyway you like though.
yea its because coupons are a relatively digital currency, considering quest givers usually send you coupons
@@GATHUGHDxD a key card or pda with some on it would be nice though i feel.
Stashes that you have the info for are the ones that generally give way more stuff. That's kind of the point. And frankly it's way better than how it used to be, which is if you didn't have the info on the stash it would just straight up have nothing in it.
It’s a game I’ll buy in a year 30% off
Exactly. This hollow "duct tape-as-we-go" game aint worth a lot as of right now.
100% off with torrents
Its worth a game pass subscription imo, im having tonnes of fun and only 1 bug so far. @brutallica2944
already off like 40% via key-stores
I wasn't expecting Stalker Call of Pripyat to have a much better economy, A-life system, and looting experience than its sequel. Did they seriously never realize that every enemy having broken guns and almost no ammo to loot from is extremely frustrating and feels brutally unfair? Repair costs being way too high is an unbelievably stupid mistake; it actively punishes you for doing anything. Mutants being bullet sponges with no rewards punishes you twice over. Bandits having broken guns and no ammo also punishes you twice over. Are they trying to punish you for playing the game? Half of this review is "the modders will have to fix it" which is pretty damning.
Counterpoint: In Call of Pripyat it's comparatively easy to amass a fortune and get really good gear to start with if you know where the stashes are, or you get a lucky zombie veteran. You can leave Zaton loaded and barely need to get a new suit or gun for the entire rest of the game.
I can understand why STALKER 2 would be more stingy with its resources, especially money. There's much more game to do and experience, amassing a big pile of cash and resources early on would make the game too easy or skew the gear curve. I can see how more ammo and reduced mutant health would be useful, though.
not even just that but there is like no fucking items. there is like 3 foods, a water bottle, and an energy drink. like really? 90% of stalker is in the atmosphere and the world just feels empty, it just does not feel like a lived in world. in every other game im struggling because i have a can of peas, but no can opener. I have 4 different kinds of half empty cigs. Porn mags for psy resistance. this game just has none of that. im never worried about if i will have food for the next day, or enough ammo. it feels like stalker flavor fallout with half the detail of fallout.
@@defnotthekgb8362 You sound like your experience with STALKER is Anomaly/Gamma.
@@Haitch_Kay more recently it is yes, but all the original games still have significantly more items in general, there are basically no junk items, repair kits, or anything really besides guns and ammo(and even in that case its less variety) compared to the originals. hell there is even less *tool* items for fucks sake.
@defnotthekgb8362 None of the original games had repair kits or tons of junk items. The originals had pretty much the same set of ammo choices (you usually had a Standard, Armor Piercing, and sometimes you had Hollow Points).
You are literally thinking of things mods added in over time. Seriously, go look back at Call of Pripyat for example. Almost the same exact consumables, almost the same exact ammo selections (HoC has more, though). HoC has more guns and more armors too.
Legitimately, I do not think people (yourself included) who are making these complaints have even looked at what vanilla STALKER is like in years, if they ever have. People are so Anomaly-brained that they've forgotten how simple and slick the original games were, un-bogged down by tons of item bloat and tedious mechanics.
After watching your playthrough on vods.... i got about an hour through where I knew this game just wasnt for me. It does seem kinda like its not done cooking. Might pick it up next summer or something when its on sale for half price and fixed. Did the same with Cyberpunk and its one of my fav games now. Thanks for this Doodles. See ya in 1008p soon!
literally every cutscene for me either crashes or i get 10-20 frames (going from 100 ish btw for those of you clowns that are gonna reply telling me its my pc)
What setting’s did you end up going with deadly?
Holy cow, thank you for the TSR tip! The game looks so much sharper and my performance with frame generation is solid.
GPU - RTX 2070
Cpu - Amd Ryzen 7 3700
If memory and optimization are the problem with implementing the A-Life feature, why not release an A-Life edition/DLC for people with better gaming rigs? Maybe like STALKER 2: Faction Wars Edition or something. And as hardware improves/costs less, people might buy or revisit the game in the future.
I think the biggest problem is that the release was rushed. You can see that with certain parts of the game very well. For example that one Side Mission where you're supposed to defend a village. They have put the enemy group and defenders into the same main building that is also a safezone. They have done this so that those two groups don't kill eachother when you are approaching and basically end the fight before you even get there. So once you're approach they are suppose to come out and start fighting. First problem is with the door which is just locked so they never come out and you can't get in. But even if that works it is extremly messy since as soon as they are out of the door and out of the safezone they start shooting eachother leaving a pile of corpses in the entrance.
This is just one example of how they hacked together something in a rush before release just to get the game out. Obviously they are fixing some stuff now but I don't believe they are going to change the core structure of the mentioned mission above. Because someone (the Money givers) who have rushed them to release the game in such a state, will not allow them to burn further money with really really fixing it.
I unfortuanetly think that this won't be a redemption Ark like with No Man's Sky. But I'm happy to be wrong here and be suprised otherwhise
Edit: I hate to say it @DeadlySlob but getting a suit or gas mask was actually a bug that they have fixed now.
I agree with your comments on the game. The crashes are the deal breaker for me. Every 10 to 15 minutes CTD. I consider this an early access game and will continue to check in after each patch. But the developers have a lot to fix. But if Gamma and Anomaly were based on Call of Pripyat, imagine the work the modders can do with this base game.
If you're using upscaler + framegen, try playing around with different upscalers and their presets.
I'm using FSR framegen and with DLSS on quality I am getting constant crashes. With DLSS on balanced I get one every couple of hours. On performance I don't think I've ever got a single crash. Some XeSS presets also work really well.
@@_erom_ I've been playing around with optimizing my pc for weeks. I've always used DLSS on performance. The problem is DEFINITELY on GSC's end. I've played many games the past year and a quick optimization on my pc always gets them working well because the games were ready to be released. Stalker 2 is NOT ready to be released. Usually I wait a couple of months before buying a new game.
Agree with most points. There's fun to be had, but also a lot of frustration to go along with it, even ignoring bugs.
Given the Broken A-Life system i Stuck completely with Ward ending. I think its worth it since its trying to get rid of the zone instead of preserving it and Killing off the Zone and what not. The pseudo dogs need to have a max cap they are insane!
Did the earlier stalker games really have better weapon modification than that? It's been a while since my last replay of the series but I really don't remember it being better than that? Please do correct me if I'm wrong!
No, it's exactly the same. I don't know what Deadly is on about. You didn't have tons of attachments or anything, you couldn't even repair and upgrade guns in the first game. You pretty much just had a couple scopes, suppressors, and some guns could have a grenade launcher. Upgrades were done at Technicians, just like in HoC.
I love Deadly but he is *absolutely* looking at the game through a STALKER Anomaly lens. Anomaly is a free "game" based on a mod for Call of Pripyat called Call of Chernobyl, which is a mod that adds all of the playable maps from all 3 games into a big open story-free sandbox. Anomaly is Call of Chernobyl with a bunch of "hardcore" gameplay stuff added in and tons of weapons and other stuff. The problem is that Anomaly barely plays like the original STALKER games, it's a big sandbox survival game and not a narrative focused game like the OG's, but it's free and runs well on modern hardware so tons of people play it instead of the OG's. This has led to a lot of people saying STALKER 2 is "missing features" from the originals when the things they talk about are elements from the *mods*, not the original games.
@@Haitch_Kaytrue but it does make sense that they would add more content to a new release rather than less and the game is missing a few things that previous games had at this point. Feel like they could have taken inspiration from some of those mods seeing as a large portion of their fanbase enjoyed some of the additions made.
@miguelcanizares7522 They didn't add less. At all. This is not the reality that the game exists in. I guarantee you that what you think is missing is something added by mods. The only thing it lacks right now is a more fleshed out and fully working A-Life, which is a valid criticism.
And honestly, I'm glad they didn't make it like Anomaly. Because Anomaly is *barely* a STALKER game. Heart of Chornobyl *is* a STALKER game. It's borderline Call of Pripyat 2.
@@miguelcanizares7522nobody in this thread has made any opposite argument, we're talking about something else, the accuracy of Deadly's memory and review
@@Haitch_Kayso what’s with all the junk items from the OG games, the NVGs, the binocs, the random pda chatter, joining factions, looting mutants, standing still to evade poltergeists and proper a-life with true offline sim?
Bro , carrying a body full with loot is 200iq move 😂
Thanks for TSR tip, so much better for me. Sharper and more responsive than other options
I have put in 90 hours just exploring and hunting stashes. I can saly they boosted the sales prices to help off set costs. Before artifacts for barmen were like 4k, now they are 10k. Most weapons sale for 2-3 times their price. Artifacts them selves were 1400, 2500 and 4500 from common to ledgendary. Now they start at 2070, 3415ish, and 6 or 7k legendary. On average i have found 5 legendaries over my game time.
Just wondering, what’s your pc specs? I have 16gb of ram and 3050ti and I go from 40-60fps to 12-22fps
@@papanutt5484 your gpu isnt up to snuff, not enough vram. even on lower settings it needs quite a bit of Vram.
@@papanutt5484 I was running 1080p, on gtx 1070ti, 16 gb ram. I had slow loads, I did have some stuttering but it recovered within 30 seconds. I ran it on medium with a Ryzen 7 1700X. I would have pop-in, and delayed asset loads but it didn't make the game unplayable. I never died because of stuttering. I just upgraded to Ryzen 9 7950X3D, 32 gb ram, and RX7900 XTX. I am running it on epic with some asset popin but better than before. Now its using 24gb of my ram and my card is running at 85% or more. I should note that I am running it at 1440p on a widescreen right now.
@@papanutt5484 after looking up your card. @plusixty8992 is correct. Remember that laptop graphics cards are always 3-4 year lag in tech and power because it takes that long to miniaturize the hardware and optimize it enough so it runs but doesn't overheat. Compared to a discrete graphics card which has its own cooling system and is not sharing with all the components.
@@papanutt5484 I got 4080, i9 13900, 16gbram and I get 30-60 fps but in combat scenes and in base fall to 12-30 fps the game is poorly optimized
You ok, DS?
Voice sounds like you just woke up. Have some tea w lemon and honey, Brother!
I love this game, played 6 hours yesterday for the first time and i really enjoy it. Ill be wandering and exploring everything i can in the world. I havent had any issues yet on xbox series x except maybe some weird audio sometimes.
It's so hard for GSC to fulfill Stalker 2 player's satisfaction because mods for Stalker 1 is insanely good.
it's also a different company with different people running it. mods have nothing to do with stalker games
DA MOOOSEEE! Love ya buddy hope the fam's doing well!
I suspect faction content will be coming as DLC based on dialog in the game. Duty says your welcome to join but no option to do so.
TSR unlocked the immersion for me too. I can overlook the jank, for now.
Third patch release has dropped and things are improving quickly.
Ive played about 20 hours and have loved, i encountered one game breaking bug, that i had to use console commands to fix, its disappointing but its hard to be angry at developers in an active war zone.
Made in the middle of a war would have been a nice start lol It’s hard to satisfy new stalker players. OG stalker players know the dogs are supposed to keep spawning till you kill the right one. A lot of people didn’t even know what stalker was till stalker 2 yet alone play it. This is a 10/10 game. Still launched with less bugs than AAA devs as a AA developer in the middle of a war while actively loosing devs to the war… comparing this to a MOD, gamma is nuts. Gamma you Taylor the game how you want with the mods you want. This game was made for stalker fans and they did a great job.
As an old stalker player myself.. So many "old stalker" players have so much copium going on.. stalker 2 is a good game.. but it is also only a good game. It might be the middle of a war and that is horrible.. but we look at this with Corpo eyes.. I payed a full price for this game.. I expect the game working according to the promise made.. The game does not. Hell not even close...10/10 is perfection... It's a full game of that feeling you had the first time you played through witcher 3, and RDRD2. skyrim, fallout new vegas. The highs on all those games into one, and then every second of the game is like that..Stalker 2 isn't even close in that regard...What it delivers is something many other companies has already done. 7/10.. If i Must put on my stalker fan cap.. I can give it a 8,5/10. but anything other than that is copium. That's not opinion..That's a fact.
Will mods installed before the newest patch still work?
Depends on the mods, mine still work fine.
i still think you should be able to loot coupons from the bandits you kill
As much as i agree with most of the points discussed by Deadly, could we please stop comparing stalker 2 with gamma/anomaly/other MODS? Those are fan made (and often a clusterf...), tailored to their creators "needs" and far different in gameplay than original stalker trilogy.
Yea I used to be pretty neutral towards Anomaly and GAMMA but holy shit have they massively warped peoples perceptions of the series. I've seen people complaining about HoC "missing stuff from the originals" and then list off stuff that never existed in the OG's, but was introduced in Anomaly/GAMMA.
If you are struggling with coupons... play different. I carry Hercules and energy drinks whenever i go out and think ill be looting. If i stop near a tech, i fix EVERYTHING broken or not, keeping costs low. I feel like the economy was done harshly for the game to feel harsh and greedy. Its very "gimme ya shit"
You say it’s a disappointment to have bugs and glitches in stalker but the original trilogy would never have gained a cult following without the feel of the game and bugs adding to the feel of the zone
It’s not the only issue with the game though. Like the AI is unacceptably bad. It’s worse than a recent far cry game.
it’s not 2007 anymore man, people have higher standards now.
@joshwaterman5526 which they came forward and admitted to why and its getting fixed through patches its already imporved massively in terms of Ai
@ajuiceboxxx no shot but plenty games where perfectly fleshed out back then aswell and we had quite high standards then in fact e had higher standards back then, the gaming community killed games off because of bugs back then, these days people make excuses for everything, shadow of chernobyl and infact all the stalker games got a much lower ratings than stalker 2 and yet those older games where acctually less buggy atleast in my experience
This dude sounds like he's been breathing in the Zone lmao
Despite of valid (though, partially outdated) criticism here, this is the only game I did not regret pre-ordering this year.
A few more patches came out, the Devs indeed are busy. Alife isn't fixed yet, the game needs to be polished first. And no, there is no mod to fix it, we'll have to wait a bit longer. Personally I'll make vanilla first play thru, though that "photorealistic mod" looks really yummy. However, with the way the Devs handle "troubleshooting" in general, I don't think I'll have to wait for long. Shame that you lost your spark for this game, that's why I always lower my expectations for new releases. I hope it will get reignited, especially when the real Alife comes. This game is a raw greatness.
It's like Tarkov in both the best ways and the worst ways. I'm 40 hours in and still enjoying my time a lot, with of course complaining about the slavjank here and there when it hits you in the face :)
Privet, i love the look of stalker2 it looks so amazing. I hope they put the love into it to make it into what it deserves to be! Thanks for the info slobbly, and stay safe stalkers!
It plays pretty well on my series x. How is this possible? Aren't consoles much weaker than a gaming pc?
Why would you think that?
they shoulda hired grok to make this game
What is he talking about?
Level of Quality?! 😂🤣
The Room bit was so fucking funny LOL
I'll play in 6 months when more bugs are baked out. GAMMA 2 will be coming and I have to prep myself lol
Triple A games will never be like they were, I remember buying a game back in the day and it had to be 100% which meant you were waiting for ages and had to watch teasers of this game knowing how good it was going to be!
Now it’s a years project, has some sort of flawed AI and isn’t enjoyable day 1. Needs loads of updates, patches and so on with the expectation of it becoming GOTY.
Making games was an art back in the day with every game being so different and enjoyable in their own way. Now it’s a business with one goal in mind and that’s taking as much money from the consumer as possible with crap content and digital gifts that are just SSD/HD JUNK.
I was pretty keen to buy this game as I thought it was going to be a blast but honestly the reviews are pushing me back to old pieces of art created by people who love gaming.
Actually I agree with the environment part, the world is done very well, beautiful and has proper story telling. However the biggest disappointment now is the A-Life 2.0 that is cut down because the game was not yet optimized well enough to pull out what they wanted. I believe they had to rush the release to please the publishers already, the game has solid potential and is very close to that STALKER experience, the atmosphere is there. The economy and overall balance is not an issue because it can be adjusted later, the optimization however is indeed, as they will have to make place for the demanding AI system that will put a heavy burden on the CPU/memory to account for all the AI in the active/passive radius, right now the world feels kind of empty and not that alive.
Still I bought because I know in a couple of years the modders will make candy out of this game.
People saying it lacks features, probably forgot how original stalker was... it didn't have extensive weapon modification and it was similar to what we have now, survival aspects where also minimal, we had no vaulting, variety of items, consumables, parts, etc.
What this STALKER 2 lacks is A-Life, Mutant Parts, and proper faction identification and relationships, also traders in Stalker 2 seem... useless, no use of buying anything from them and the stock they offer is not changing much.
Everything more hardcore, detailed, complex you compare... we had in Anomaly MOD. But I believe that the vanilla game itself offers a nice entry experience for newcomers to get a grasp of what is STALKER universe, when devs will fix A-Life system they will be able to enjoy the true nature of it. And it's just enough for old timers to enjoy a modern STALKER experience.
If you wanna play it see if you can get a gamepass trial for 14days. My trial just ended i fun but I'm waiting 3 months or till it's at actual release quality until I buy it ans jump back in
1:46 - graphics is not great, if everything is ghosting like crazy.
This is by far my favorite game I've played in a while. It has some bugs , yes, but it is 100% playable in its current state. I mean, the devs made the game while under attack from Russia, so we gotta give them some slack. They'll iron the game out and get A-Life online here soon. Gonna catch shit for this take, but it's my game of the year, and I hope you give it a try if you're considering it.
I will buy the game if they add the AKM :) I cant believe the devs have 762x39mm in the game without the AKM/47 or SKS.
Slapped some QOL mods on and its the best experience I've had since the Witcher 3 and Fallout 3 release.
I have no problem having a-life even if I have to play it at 30fps instead of 60
no
STALKER 2 superb, unique game of the year and of the world!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m absolutely loving it
The idiot fighting the Pseudo-dog should def NOT play Stalker games
The christmas/weird music is... well Weird for this video.
Interesting to hear the perspective that the story is kinda the best part of the game.
I personally think it’s overacted, forced and poorly paced. Plus the main protagonist being as interesting and well written as a cardboard cutout.
I honestly could do without a story entirely. Exploration and dynamic encounters are what drives the fun for me. Hence why A-Life like in the old games is so essential. I prefer a stalker world that exists outside of my FOV and really doesn’t give a shit about my existence whatsoever.
pseudo-dogs fucking casuals experience with the game since the beginning of time never gets old to see. Also it's kind of frustrating how much people complain about the economy of the game. My guy, if you want to be overpowered in 15 min of gameplay...go play Fallout 4...
The Christmas music almost made me close the vid lol. Sick of it lol
2:18 so you installed a mod that made the already extremely tedious gunfights with mutants.. More drawn out and bland..Making the enemies swallow 300 rounds -__-
Just wanted to say sorry I have not been subed over the last 4-5 years smh... Much love brother 3
wait on this unfinished game fs
I cant tell if my computer is absolutely busted or if stalker 2 is.
STALKER 2 is. Unreal Engine's Lumen and Nanite systems make the game 100% CPU bound, meaning it barely uses any of your nice 20x0/30x0/40x0 NVIDIA cards. It also uses software-ray-tracing, despite most people owning an NVIDIA RTX card.
Unreal themselves claim they will be making all their graphical features GPU bound by 2026, I am not waiting another 12 months for a patch that 'might' fix the game's abysmal performance issues.
I'd rather go back and play the original three games with mods and just get 120fps at 1440p.
Here we go again with the open-world ''RPG''.
I'm doing a second playthrough while using (almost) pump shotgun with slugs and (almost) not using the map. Combat is visceral, and exploring is even nicer when I decide where to go just with what I see and notice. Yeah it's kinda walking simulator between landmarks, but I actually love it. The ambiance is amazing!
Avid fan of STALKER since the original Shadow of Chernobyl released.
It is not worth playing if you like STALKER, it's just Far Cry 3/4/5 with a coat of STALKER paint.
The entire game engine is CPU bound and uses none of your GPU because of the Unreal Engine Nanite and Lumen systems instead of your raytracing chips.
@Rexhunterj what u talking about im also a original player.. its the same as the original but in unreal 5, that's it basically.
Disagree with the first half. Fan since 2015 and have recently played far cry to kill the time before release. It’s nothing like it, prob the most breath of fresh air for the open world/exploration style of games in a long time
"It plays like Far Cry" dawg it plays just like the original games except open world instead of map-to-map travel.
I really enjoy the game overall and think in time it will be great. Especially the future modding scene. But the game is definitely being held together with duct tape and spit
I completly stopped playing the game as well. I played like 26 hours and just couldnt deal with it anymore. No A-life is a game killer for me if im playing a stalker game. The stashes are always just meds and ammo. Were did all these grenades come from and why does evey enemy have pin point accuracy and will spot you from a 100 yards away through heavy brush and woods? Its immersion breaking. I would absolutley love this game if it worked like the original stalker and i could plan out attacks with my binoculrs. The world doesnt seem alive, it feels like a poorly run AI trying to figure its life out. Ukraine got jealous with the russians getting money for space marine 2 so they released thier game way too early so they can get money as well. Ukraine has been extremely cringe in this matter trying to sqeeze money out of america.
Come back in 1 yearv
"Is it worth it?"
If you enjoyed the original 3 games and want a story focused game with good gunplay but not bogged down with a ton of extra mechanics? Yes absolutely.
Also, don't know why you called it and RPG at all? It's not. Guns and armor have stats, but that's it. There's no XP system, no leveling, no perks/skills, none of that.
I also don't know why you'd think that the guns and weapon customization would be like Anomaly or GAMMA. Anomaly isn't representative at all of the original STALKER experience and people shouldn't have been expecting 2 to be like it at all.
well...rpg means role playing game, you are role playing as a stalker...in a game. So yea, technically it is :v
@maximilianoalcaraz7351 RPG is a genre with defined elements. STALKER 2 doesn't have any of those elements. By this logic, literally any video game where you play a character is an RPG.
The biggest upside to Stalker 2 was the fact that you could try it for $1 or nothing via the high seas, but as for people that paid $70+ for this game oof. Even ignoring the older Stalker games and just comparing it to modern games its maybe a 5/10 without A-Life and the massive performance issues. If they manage to get the A-life working fix performance including the terrible upscaling ghosting it will be an easy 8/10.
the pseudo mobs and psi effects are so fuckin annoying. the pseudo-fausts is such like a dumb idea and pissed me off so hard fighting him lol i love the game otherwise but that faust fight erked me bro
Full torrent mode (if i bought it legally, i would be 30min over refund window and had it since 21 NOV)... So not paying before proper AI, caliber balance, proper flashlight, nvg and binos and world feel is fixed with along launch of modding dev kit. Until then stalker 2 can kick rocks.
This review was 100% done wayy before the patches which is unfortunate, because the game is significantly better after the big updates it got. With that said, id say this is a solid 7.5/10 from me, could definitely move up or down for me as i havent completed it yet but i think its pretty good. If they can implement the A-Life system it will be awesome, but i dont think its going to happen.
Agree with you... Only thing id say is 6/10 game for me. Got the torrented version, and took me just over two hours (refund period) to realize this game was hollow at its core. But i have they get AI fixed PROPERLY, not fake fixes or light workarounds along with the modding dev kit, ill buy it.
Patches currently are only a bandaid on some gigantic issues with the game. Even with it all working properly the last 40% of the game feels super rushed with obvious missing content.
The game was wildly unfinished. Yeah the atmosphere was great. Every single other aspect of the game was half baked, shallow, missing, or incomplete. Game needed another year.
just work on that pepega aim doodles and you'll be fine - kappa
First b4 teh bots.
So many of these new channels covering stalker 2 and have never played a stalker game.
Brother what? Deadly isn't a new channel. You might like stalker but this one has many issues.
stalker die hards glazing this hot pile of trash game i see
Think I'm gonna wait 12 months for this one. Should be mods to fix most things by then.
1. If you can't make a game, don't make a game.
2. If you have to defend your country, defend your country. (ukraine)
3. If you can't finish the game, because of the war, don't sell your game unfinished.
4. If you sell you game unfinished, be honest about it. Gameplay embargo...lies and fraud
5. If you're called out by the fact, that you game is unfinished, has huge and many problems, because you pulled a cyberpunk 2077 fraud move, don't be suprised.
6. Defending your game with bullsh_t, aaaah our country is at war, and this is the excuse we hide behind, while real people die on the battlefield, and we the whole company hide in Prague... now that's real (LEFTIST FAKE VIRTUE SIGNALLLING) empathy folks. Great empathy! If that's what empathy is, I don't want it.
Its not a bad game but its painfully stuck in early 2000. everything feels dated, graphics,combat,narrative,exploration,motivations. you can walk for hour without encountering anything interesting 99% loot is food/med packs/ammo.
Every Main story mission is "OH YOU WANNA GO A? well i will show you how to get to A but you must go to B first. you get to B oooooo you wanna B sure bud no prob but you need to go C" so naturally i killed every fk main character took his PDA and moved on.
There is very little to be played sadly, you will spend 95% of the time walking around,4% talking to NPCs and 1% in combat... which is basic asf and mostly waste of the time, since you can AND YOU WILL lose more resources than you will get back from it, esp killing mutants is utterly pointless.
This game is fallout 4 for kids. no skill points, no traits, no perks, no companions and nothing interesting to see. where fallout have 20 different mutants which are scary asf, here you have 3 basics mutants and one is invisible.
A-Life 2.0 apparently took up a TON of resources to run in game. Like, more than the game already takes up in terms of memory. If I'm not wrong on this, in a recent announcement they mentioned they are working out how to include it, because it simply can't be run on console or even a lot of the PC market (like it or not, most people aren't running a 4080 with a 9800x3D and 64gb of ram).
Right now the game's shit performance is tied to the Lumen and Nanite systems (Lighting and Level of Detail) Lumen should not be used for big games like this, it is CPU bound extremely (it is software rastered ray tracing, very very slow when we have access to NVIDIA RTX cores and raytracing chips on AMD)
I spent an hour tweaking INI files and was able to get my game to go from stock 1-2% usage of my 2070 Super to 20%~ and I was going from 70-80 fps with frame gen up to 100-110 (not quite my refresh rate still) Most of my tweaks were input related and adjusting the Lumen settings to make it less intense.
THe guys at GSC have no idea what they are doing in UE5, it's clear.
Without a proper A Life system and lets be real, the mods from the modding community, this game is not worth it at its current state.
No idea what you’re taking about with the economy. Go do a few missions get all the yellow guns go sell them repair for half the profit upgrade for the other half. Do I want to see it deeper? Sure, however it’s Nothing like you described.
Runs like crap too unless tou have a NASA pc.
*WAIT* *WAIT* *WAIT*
EVERY MAIN MISSION AFTER SIRCAA (50% OF THE GAME) IS ABSOLUTELY BROKEN DOGSHIT!
ALSO A-LIFE 2.0 DOESN'T EVEN EXIST SO RIGHT NOW THIS SIMPLY ISN'T A STALKER GAME.
waaat you just said stalker is more like a openworld rpg, uh its not a rpg at all very far from it lmao just saying
I like the game, I enjoy it, truly. But the cope at the end of review was unnecessary. We paid full price for the full game (I bought ultimate physical edition) and received half baked product with non-working A-Life, plethora of bugs, issues, scripted side quests which can get stuck based on what you go for first, and performance problems. Some systems are just a limited version of they should be (like weapon modding), economy is messed up and don't even try to save/load game when carrying a body.
Developers knew what they were doing withstanding the reviews until very last minute.
They did not alert us to experience the problems and now they act like it's all good and we should just expect fixes. It's not fixes, it's bringing game to 1.0 version.
And... the loot. Somehow I feel more compensated when I find Screws or a GPU in Tarkov, then I feel when looting bodies of enemies and bosses. Even if I did the quest at Poppy Fields and chose to get the "fully custom weapon-you won't find anything like that in the zone" as a reward it was half broken piece of ass and I got so angry I killed the guy for lying to me. I then reloaded my save, killed the guy, looted his whole shack and the weapon was nowhere to be found, so I guess he kinda pulled it from his butt. It's just so inconsistent and just annoying. Not perfected, at least.
But anyway. I installed couple of mods, learned how to combine mods myself by unpacking, modifying and repacking them and I enjoy MY version of this game.
You sound like you were expecting Tarkov and not a STALKER game.
This is full priced game for beta testers! Also its very empty lifeless walking simulator with empty buildings some of which repeating design. I refund it and will wait for fixing,expansion,discount and better mods, but at this stage its not worth the price!
Complaining about built-in scopes? What's wrong with you? Lol
I played about 10 hours in the first 2 days and realized I couldn't enjoy the game in it's current state, so I left it alone and waited for the bug fixes. It's much better now, but I think I'll give the mod community a little time to cook so I can really get the experience I want before spooling too much of the game for myself.
i have 100 hours sin game and this has exceeded my expectations - its so well balanced etc . im loving every minute of game play . i waited 2.5 years for this release ..
yes s2 has a few issues , but i am confident that they will fix it all and s2 will have a long life !"
You live in a different reality to all of us.
This game is massively CPU bound, a massive flaw.
There's no reason I get less than 60 fps with a 4.6ghz CPU and 12 cores to go with that, while my GPU is barely getting 1-2% usage.
This is a mess, I'd rather go back and play the original three games from over 10 years ago.
It's been "2 weeks" since its release. 2 is not "a few". Just wanted to point that out because details matter.