Stalker 2

[Stg-Flame]

Getting closer and closer to the game's release it seems.

That means they'll probably have to release another Trailer. You know, just to be sure that they have another Trailer, to announce the Trailer which themselves announced the Trailers of the Trailers. We'll probably also need reviews because we haven't seen enough of the game from the Trailers yet.

Don't forget the inevitable announcement for the release date getting pushed back to 2025.

 

[Igo69]

Damn i really want to play this game right now but have to wait till next year for new GPUs to come out so i can finally build new system.

I hope it turn out to be an excellent game like the 1st

 

[Artorias]

I've not heard good things so far about game performance. The embargo lifts on day of release. Safe to say I need a new rig.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

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

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl reviews, pros and cons. Liked: One of the most immersive games ever created Excellent mix of FPS, survival and horror elements Disliked: Riddled with bugs that range from immersion-busting to game-breaking

www.techspot.com

There is a review aggregation of STALKER 2.

Looks like the game has about 6 months and another dozen patches in the oven before its ready for primetime, but at least the heart of a great game is there, just badly marred by technical issues.

Hope the team is able to get it pulled together relatively quickly.

 

[sze5003]

I usually like to get this guy's opinion before I buy any titles. He also has a weekly podcast that is entertaining. He rates it very fun and magical when things work the way they are supposed to. Didn't have any major game breaking bugs but overall he is saying because the game doesn't hold your hand and due to the way it plays out, it needs to be technically sound otherwise players will wonder if something that is happening is a bug or part of the actual gameplay loop.
Current rating of wait for a sale.

I've been looking forward to it so I'm going to buy it and check it out for myself. According to the Discord the dev team is actively fixing bugs and planning to push out hot fixes.

 

[WelshBloke]

Its on gamepass so one of you must have tried it! I'm downloading it but with my rural internet it'll be ready some time next week I'd guess!

 

[EXCellR8]

Managed to squeeze in a little bit of play time after a long work day, redeeming my preorder key, downloading the beast, and then compiling shaders. I was exhausted but I've been waiting a long time so I just had to fire it up haha

RX 6900XT struggling with the massive resolution, but I may play around with some AA and scaling settings. Max FOV on triple wide is also a bit wonky, but that'll get fixed in time. Going to do a CPU swap today or tomorrow, and if I can't manage at least 60fps I'll shop for a card.

I only played around 25 minutes after the opening, but I think this game is going to be awesome. Loved the originals, and now that it's not on a proprietary engine I'm hoping the experience will be smoother across the board. Although I am going to miss that omnipresent possibility that the game will crash at any given moment. Makes the tense sections even more so

 

[WelshBloke]

So I fired it up and it did the shaders thing for a bit. Game started, checked the settings and it had defaulted to epic everything with a bit of upscaling (which I turned off) and I started the game properly.
I was never a massive fan of the grungy Stalker visuals and these are the same in the cut scene that starts but it does suit the game.
As the cut scene progressed I felt weird, really nauseous. Game started properly and I jumped the fence.
Felt really nauseous looking around. Had to turn it off!

This game literally make me want to throw up! Its bizarre. I'll try again later and see if its the FOV but I need my stomach to settle first!

Never experienced this before!

 

[sze5003]

Managed to squeeze in a little bit of play time after a long work day, redeeming my preorder key, downloading the beast, and then compiling shaders. I was exhausted but I've been waiting a long time so I just had to fire it up haha

RX 6900XT struggling with the massive resolution, but I may play around with some AA and scaling settings. Max FOV on triple wide is also a bit wonky, but that'll get fixed in time. Going to do a CPU swap today or tomorrow, and if I can't manage at least 60fps I'll shop for a card.

I only played around 25 minutes after the opening, but I think this game is going to be awesome. Loved the originals, and now that it's not on a proprietary engine I'm hoping the experience will be smoother across the board. Although I am going to miss that omnipresent possibility that the game will crash at any given moment. Makes the tense sections even more so

Haven't had a chance to play it yet but I'm in the official discord and the devs have stated they are working on fixing Ai Life 2.0 because it either wasn't included or it broke with the day one update. This is the engine that gives "life" to the zone and the NPC's in it.

I'm seeing several reports of NPC issues and quests not getting completed as well as enemies randomly spawning near or next to you which ties back to this AI life system they use.

There's also several reports of crashes and corrupted save states, it may just be you didn't play long enough.

I'm hoping to hear more about when the next patch will be out. Seems like the current state the AI is bugged and this affects the gameplay loop in weird ways.

 

[EXCellR8]

That is unfortunate, but yea I would not have played far enough to experience anything too detrimental. The FOV is certainly at the top of things I'd like to see fixed, as it's definitely affecting interaction and perspective. Doesn't make me sick or anything, but I can see why it might for others. I maxed out the FOV and it was still too narrow, but that could just be the resolution across three screens.

Hope it's not another case like CP2077 where the best version of the game is still years away...

 

[WelshBloke]

Is it supposed to be compiling shaders every time it starts?

 

[sze5003]

Yea the shader thing is required to be compiled each time. They should cache them in my opinion. They have metadata from the GPU driver version so a refresh would only need to happen if the drivers update or somehow that cache is invalidated.

 

[Stg-Flame]

I'm avoiding as much as possible to prevent any spoilers but I did catch this on Reddit today about the AI being completely braindead. Seems they're paying attention at least, but this is also on-par with what is to be expected out of a day one big release.

 

[WelshBloke]

Yea the shader thing is required to be compiled each time. They should cache them in my opinion. They have metadata from the GPU driver version so a refresh would only need to happen if the drivers update or somehow that cache is invalidated.

Yeah. This is killing it for me. I'm having to plan when I'll play a game, start it, then wander off to do something else for 20 minutes while the game fafs around.

 

[WelshBloke]

... and now that it's not on a proprietary engine I'm hoping the experience will be smoother across the board. Although I am going to miss that omnipresent possibility that the game will crash at any given moment. Makes the tense sections even more so

I have good news and bad news for you!

 

[sze5003]

Yeah. This is killing it for me. I'm having to plan when I'll play a game, start it, then wander off to do something else for 20 minutes while the game fafs around.

How long the compiler takes will depend on your processor. For other titles the most I've sat around waiting for it to complete was 2-3 whole minutes.

Hopefully they can find a way to cache the shaders that are used most frequently.

 

[sze5003]

Pretty crucial feature to miss out on testing. This could have used a delay. Now they are just saying they are working on it which they might be, but it sure won't be anytime soon to fix the whole A Life AI system.

https://v.redd.it/egcskpmbdg2e1

 

[EXCellR8]

I have good news and bad news for you!

Heh yea, it definitely needs more polish and fixes. Having said that though I am enjoying the game so far, and now that I've got some additional play time (4 hours or so) I do have some better input.

I run 7680x1440 across a few displays, and I was only able to correct the zoomed in FOV using the Unreal Unlocker tool. Changing the values in the CFG file (it's referenced on multiple sites) didn't really do much for me. The game wasn't completely unplayable with the default FOV adjustment, but it was very annoying. Some folks are saying it's the engine, and others are blaming the devs, same old noise with every major release. Hopefully they implement native adjustments in the coming weeks, but without that tool I'd need to run single monitor. No thanks.

On to actual performance, the game is pretty hungry. Some new drivers should help, but for the most part both AMD and NVIDIA flagship users have cited some type of FPS hit when entering certain areas, regardless of settings. For me, I need to run a mix of Low and Medium visual quality settings on my RX 6900 XT in order to manage between 30 and 40 fps. Not great by any means, but it is playable. I know the dev team is actively working on improvements/optimizations.

For now I'll struggle through, but unless you're willing to deal with some bugs and performance hits, I might hold off.

 

[WelshBloke]

Performance has been ok for me. Also increasing the FOV and playing with the lights on seems to sort out the nausea. I can't use the latest drivers for AMD as they are a bit broken for me but the game seems to run fine. I did notice that the GPU did a lot more work when the shaders were compiling when it was on the newest drivers.

It doesn't look that great though. I have everything on the highest settings and it doesn't look like the latest and greatest of games. I get that gameplay is important but I'm finding it hard to make anything out in the murk. Also I seem to be taking damage for no reason at times, not sure if that's a big or not but it's annoying.

 

[DigDog]

now that it's not on a proprietary engine I'm hoping the experience will be smoother across the board.

..it's not??

 

[Artorias]

Is it using Unreal Engine 5? It's not a great engine performance wise.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Is it using Unreal Engine 5? It's not a great engine performance wise.

-Yep. Another UE5 performance hog.

Honestly feels like the UE5 engine is slowly killing gaming but that's a discussion for another topic.

 

[sze5003]

I'm gonna give the game a try tonight. Probably won't play too far though as there's a patch scheduled next week that should address some of the bugs. The whole A-Life AI suite I feel is going to take a long time to get fixed.


Hello, stalkers.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is getting a new patch during the week to come — both on PC and Xbox.

The game has been out for several days now (it’s still surreal to say that), and we’ve been following your feedback in all possible forms carefully. To the more than one million stalkers in the Zone, thanks for playing — that means the world to us.

We are sure you have things to handle in the Zone, but so do we.

The following update will include:

**Crash Fixes, including:**

Issues and memory allocation failures, which previously caused the game to exit unexpectedly, particularly around rendering, skeletal meshes, and quest-related cutscenes.

**Main Quest Progression Fixes, including:**

Several bugs blocking the main quest progression, NPCs getting stuck in objects, incorrect quest markers, and issues with quest cutscenes.
Revision of the main quests (like Visions of Truth or A Minor Incident) to ensure smooth transitions, avoiding rare cases of players not being able to proceed further.

**Gameplay & Balance Adjustments, including:**

Fixing the price of the weapons with upgrades installed compared to their value without attachments.
NPCs behavior, including the way they act when lacking a shelter during the Emissions.

**Cutscenes & Visual Fixes, including:**

Rarely missing facial animations, misplaced NPCs, and visual inconsistencies like detached heads and clothes clipping.
Quality and stability improvements of the visual effects.

**Softlock Fixes, including:**

Issue where players were unable to close the trade screen after putting ammo in a wrong slot while playing on a gamepad.
User Interface Improvements, including:
Quest notifications now showed correctly during dialogues.
Corrected texts and missing interaction prompts.

**Noted to be addressed in future updates:**

Analogue sticks dead zones bugfixes.
A-Life system bugfixes.

We want to reassure you once more that we will make every effort to constantly improve your S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl experience. We are truly grateful for your feedback and suggestions for improvement.

Your GSC Game World team.

 

[EXCellR8]

The game is still playable with the AI as-is, but I'll admit it needs work.

There have been a few instances where I've seen groups of NPC's spawn out of nowhere (enemy or friendly), which breaks a bit of the immersion. Also, some of the creatures generally lose interest in pursuing you if you head indoors. Handy, but also a little broken.

I have also experienced a couple of random CTD events, each time seeming to occur while exploring indoor or underground sections. A little annoying, and since I need to restart the game and compile shaders again, I'm hoping it gets addressed.

On the upside, 3rd party support for ultrawide has been improved--as Flawless Widescreen software is now supporting the current build of the game! Some of the cutscenes will still break the FOV and resolution settings, but simply switching from windowed mode to EF (and then back), and then applying it fixes it.

Still having fun with it.

 

[sze5003]

I really like the atmosphere. They definitely got the mood right from the beginning. I'm enjoying the gunplay too. I'm not finding any issues with the mouse movement as others have complained about online.

I think the economy needs fixed. Weapons should not require so many coupons to repair.

They also need to tone down the health pools of mutants and boars, etc. Humans are ok as long as you aim for the head.

Haven't ran into any bugs and I am playing on epic settings at 4k DLSS quality. Maintaining 60-80fps.

The spawn system definitely needs addressed and probably my biggest gripe. Twice I've had mutants or enemies spawn behind me randomly while I'm exploring or trying to get loot stashes.

I'm not progressing the story much until this week's patch comes out since it is supposed to help with some quest bugs/soft locks.

Once that patch arrives I'll probably start the game over and play it seriously. But I think the AI spawning thing will be like this for a while unfortunately.