Immersive Zone atmosphere
Mentioned in ~1 in 3 positive reviews
“The atmosphere is just insane sometimes you just stop and look at the creepy skies or the rain, and it feels so real.”
Steam review · 159.8 h played ↗
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl
Worth buying? What 300 Steam reviews say.Worth buying? Here’s what 300 Steam reviews actually say.
Very Positive · 81%Very Positive · 81%GSC Game World2024FPS · Survival · Shooter
The verdict
A huge, atmospheric open-world Zone with great gunplay and a solid story, much improved by the 2.0 patch. Skip it if you expect old-school A-Life, or have an AMD GPU prone to crashes.
Great for
Stalker fans and players who love slow, atmospheric exploration, survival and gritty gunplay
Main risk
Dumb, cheating AI, empty world with endless walking, and crashes on some PCs
What players love
Greatly improved by patches and 2.0
Mentioned in ~1 in 4 positive reviews
“If you had problems with the game at launch, [b]Update 2.0 fixed almost everything.[/b]”
Steam review · 175.7 h played ↗
Beautiful graphics and weather
Mentioned in ~1 in 5 positive reviews
“has the best graphics I've ever seen, in any game”
Steam review · 235.9 h played ↗
Engaging story, lore and choices
Mentioned in ~1 in 5 positive reviews
“a great linear story, non linear quests, and multiple endings affected by your choices with factions”
Steam review · 315.9 h played ↗
Huge open world to explore
Mentioned in ~1 in 10 positive reviews
“a gigantic, highly detailed 60+ km² open world”
Steam review · 300 h played ↗
Excellent gunplay and weapon feel
Mentioned in ~1 in 11 positive reviews
“STALKER 2 is probably the best feeling first-person shooter I've ever played.”
Steam review · 158.2 h played ↗
What players complain about
Broken, cheating enemy AI and no real A-Life
Mentioned in ~1 in 4 negative reviews
“The AI is atrociously bad.”
Steam review · 102.5 h played ↗
Poor performance and optimization
Mentioned in ~1 in 4 negative reviews
“Stutters, performance is horrendous. Couldn't even finish the intro.”
Steam review · 1.4 h played ↗
Crashes and technical instability
Mentioned in ~1 in 6 negative reviews
“Game freezing and crashing constantly every 30 minutes or so. Not playable.”
Steam review · 12.3 h played ↗
Repetitive, low-value loot and broken economy
Mentioned in ~1 in 8 negative reviews
“you go out of your way to a stash just to find the same bread, sausage, energy drink and 9x19 ammo you found in the last 5 stashes.”
Steam review · 29.2 h played ↗
Tedious walking across an empty world
Mentioned in ~1 in 8 negative reviews
“more walking than actual gameplay completed a mission? walk 2 kilometers to the next one.”
Steam review · 45.4 h played ↗
Bullet-sponge enemies
Mentioned in ~1 in 13 negative reviews
“the enemies are very bullet spongey, even when I shoot them in the head.”
Steam review · 50.1 h played ↗
System requirements
From the Steam store page
Steam Deck: Unsupported160 GB
Minimum
OSWindows 10 x64 / Windows 11 x64
ProcessorIntel Core i7-7700K / AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
Memory16 GB RAM
GraphicsNvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB / AMD Radeon RX 580 8GB / Intel Arc A750
Storage160 GB available space
Recommended
OSWindows 10 x64 / Windows 11 x64
ProcessorIntel Core i7-11700 / AMD Ryzen 7 5800X
Memory32 GB RAM
GraphicsNvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti / Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 / AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT
Storage160 GB available space
OSWindows 10 x64 / Windows 11 x64
ProcessorIntel Core i7-7700K / AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
Memory16 GB RAM
GraphicsNvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB / AMD Radeon RX 580 8GB / Intel Arc A750
Storage160 GB available space
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