GSC Recreation World is a grasp of riveting, cruel open-world video games. Stalker 2 is not any completely different. The long-awaited new entry within the acclaimed survival horror FPS sequence is shaping as much as be a haunting fever dream, stuffed with terrors that may’t wait to cut back my pores and skin to ashes. Nevertheless, the sport’s most difficult risk is usually the one I can’t see on display: myself.
The unique Stalker video games wholeheartedly deserve their spots among the many greatest FPS video games ever made, every of them engrained with a tangible sense of authorship. Stalker 2 instantly replicates its predecessors’ depth, as my preview inside GSC Recreation World’s appropriately titled ‘Pripyat’ playtest room begins. This construct options episodes one and two, inserting me knee-deep into Stalker 2’s early hours. Shadows swallow up the setting with a darkness that raises the hairs on my arms, as my first order of enterprise is to assemble knowledge on some close by radioactive exercise.
It shortly turns into obvious I’m not alone. Wind pushes the sport’s beautiful foliage apart with a delicate caress, refusing to outright reveal no matter lingers within the distance. Then it hits me – a bullet to the chest. I’m not the one one making an attempt to outlive in The Zone, as bursts of enemy gunfire pierce the air. I’m in grave hazard with no simple manner out, and worry and panic quickly set in. Whether or not it was the Agroprom Underground or the Darkish Valley within the earlier video games, GSC Recreation World’s model of horror highlights the perils of uncertainty.
After coping with these foes, issues naturally go much more awry, and I’m quickly left for lifeless within the lovely blue hues of the night time. Making my manner into Stalker 2’s huge map, it doesn’t take lengthy for the sport to unnerve me additional nonetheless. I counted simply over 20 completely different areas to discover, and this primary biome that includes run-down farmhouses and brutalist navy bases was sufficient to whittle away at my remaining confidence.
Discovering weapons is the straightforward half, however maintaining them stocked up with bullets is decidedly trickier. I discovered myself in encounters the place as soon as these valuable bullets had depleted, my loss of life was an authorized assure. You by no means fairly know the place the following well being useful resource or important key to survival will come from. Stalker 2 is endlessly merciless, and I wouldn’t have it another manner.
Fight largely sheds the jank of its predecessors, however Stalker 2’s stock and UI are strongly geared towards its avid PC viewers, which means it’s not greatest performed with a controller. I alternated between mouse and keyboard and an Xbox controller throughout my preview. Controller gameplay isn’t dangerous, however it feels serviceable at greatest. Transferring gadgets round is extra of a trouble than it must be, and the myriad menus don’t really feel as shortly accessible with a gamepad in hand.
However, the weapons really feel hefty no matter your chosen management methodology. Assault rifles and SMGs, just like the trusty AK-74u, rip by flesh with a satisfying punch. Till my weapon jams, that’s. All of a sudden, the world closes in round me, the stress mounting with every failed try and take away the spherical lodged in my weapon’s chamber. It isn’t simply merciless for the sake of it, although. Stalker video games have all the time pushed gamers to innovate and experiment on the fly, discovering new methods to overcome the worst that the Exclusion Zone has to supply.
I spent portion of my playthrough save scumming to experiment with its methods, typically testing the boundaries of NPCs, foes, and the explorable areas. One among Stalker 2’s most shocking and intense options is how NPCs react to your outwardly inoffensive choices. In another recreation, saying no or rejecting an NPC’s request would merely finish that quest chain. Straightforward stuff, proper? However Stalker 2’s NPCs simply don’t give a fuck. I caught a bullet to the pinnacle just a few occasions for refusing to, as I noticed it, waste my time discovering packages for ragtag wanderers of the wasteland. Anybody and everyone seems to be prepared to place you within the floor, reiterating that nowhere is actually protected. Each motion has a consequence, and it may take hours for the result of my choices to rear their typically ugly heads.
But I by no means felt like Stalker 2’s world revolved round me. Skirmishes within the distance between rogue factions and mutants sign a continuing combat for territory. It skillfully weaves into quest design, leaving me to ponder what occurs in my absence. I particularly felt this fashion throughout a quest the place I found a spiritual fanatic hiding in an deserted cottage, warning me {that a} group of bandits have been on the best way to assert his head. Mentioned bandits arrived, providing me the choice to group up with them and slaughter my new ‘friend’. I merely determined to stroll away, the screams of a firefight fading away within the distance. What had I achieved? Then, I used to be alone once more.
Stalker 2’s method recollects the minimalist scares of horror recreation legends like Silent Hill 2 or the thrills of being hunted down in Resident Evil. There’s no reliance on bounce scares. The world itself is the scare, much like the brilliance of The Darkish Place in Alan Wake 2. Regardless of the intense circumstances that led to the Exclusion Zone’s formation, Stalker 2’s world is beautiful. In fact, a lot of that’s backed by the heft of Unreal Engine 5 and the developer’s painstaking recreations of real-life environments.
I can see the paint strip away from the remnants of farms; I can see the proof of a battle throughout the map’s blood-curdling underground bunkers. Corpses inform a narrative, with their entrails main me to assets or hazard. One aspect quest has me wandering by a poppy subject match for a postcard, however the recreation’s deal with managing my sleep, starvation, and illness is emphasised right here greater than ever.
A pale moon illuminates the sphere. I get lulled right into a false sense of safety, and shortly sufficient my character begins feeling woozy. Echoes of violence float by the air, enhanced by supreme sound design that ripples by my headset. The grim show calls again to the grotesque splatters of horror legends like Lucio Fulci, whereas the twisted ambiance nestles below my pores and skin like the most effective of John Carpenter’s works. This sequence is great, and if that is solely a fraction of what GSC Recreation World has cooked up for the early locales, then Stalker 2 would be the studio’s most horrifying recreation but.
Ultimately, regardless of all of the abhorrent issues I’d seen and tackled, the true enemy was nonetheless standing. Stalker 2 efficiently walks the road between making me really feel competent in battle whereas additionally cultivating the type of worry and uncertainty that makes me a real hazard to myself. This world doesn’t care about me, and if I’m not cautious, it’ll depart me bleeding at the hours of darkness.
