HI! It's one of them again. You may have started to see some reviews posted for Stalker 2: Heart of Chernobyl right now, but ours unfortunately won't be among them – at least not yet – so we wanted to let you know where ours was and why we're delaying it.
In short: we need a little more time with this, for two main reasons. The first is that Stalker 2 is a pretty sizable game and we haven't had it in a long time, so we're giving ourselves a little extra breathing room to make sure we've been able to make enough progress for a full review.
The second reason, however, is both more pertinent and more worrying. At the time of writing, the first review build of Stalker 2 sent to us by developer GSC Game World has several pretty major technical issues. We've been assured that a day one patch will launch today alongside the general release of the game, so we want to make sure our rating reflects the version of the game you'll be playing.
Therefore, we are currently aiming to publish our review on Friday 22 Novemberso you can read our full thoughts on Stalker 2.
Technical problems, of course, are often part and parcel of big releases like this, and in the case of Stalker 2 – which let's not forget was developed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine – perhaps that's not entirely surprising.
At the same time, however, it's hard to overlook the scope of some of these bugs. To give you a couple of examples of things we've experienced during our playthrough, we've seen cases where NPCs have gotten caught in anomalous vortices, only to stay there spinning upwards in the sky as it dissipates instead of falling back to the ground. Characters are trapped inside walls, flailing wildly and sometimes not appearing at all, resulting in conversations with floating pairs of headphones. A Stalker we were traveling with also died instantly for no apparent reason.
We also encountered many issues with the game's audio. Lines of dialogue sometimes didn't trigger when they were supposed to, radio voices sounded as clear as if they were standing right next to us (and vice versa), and subtitles occasionally appeared for different lines of dialogue than what was said on screen . We also had a constant problem when firing any of our weapons, with the shots remaining completely silent for long periods of time.
There were also several instances where Stalker 2 bugs affected our mission progression, got us killed, left us confused, and generally made the game difficult.
I should note that our review build was also regularly patched as we played, and that several issues are being actively addressed by GSC Game World. However, until we have more insight into what the day one patch means, we thought it best to delay our verdict so we can investigate further.
In the meantime, I suggest you read Rick Lane's extensive Stalker 2 preview from last month to help set the scene, and you should definitely check out GSC Game World's documentary on the game's development, War Game: The Making of. Stalker 2. You can also make sure your PC is up to scratch by remembering the Stalker 2 PC requirements. Stay tuned for more soon, and thanks again for your patience!