After over a decade of waiting (probably because it was), STALKER 2 has officially been released. The game's developer, GSC Game World, overcame a global pandemic and the need to leave their native Ukraine following the (still ongoing) invasion by neighboring Russia.
The fact that we have a game that basically works is a miracle in itself, and this seems to be a sentiment shared by most Steam players.
iGamesNews
Following yesterday's release, “Stalker 2” quickly climbed to the top of Steam's most popular games rankings. The game's concurrent player count peaked at 113,587 (via SteamDB), making it one of Steam's biggest launches of 2024. It's even possible that these numbers will increase again over the weekend.
There's no doubt that these numbers are orders of magnitude higher than any of the earlier S.T.A.L.K.E. games, although given their history it would be pretty impressive if a Heart of Chernobyl game came close to that number. People are disappointed.
In our review, Connor Macca gave STALKER 2 four stars, calling it “an excellent piece of work about struggle and loneliness, even if it's plagued by mistakes.” This sentiment is reflected in other Of all the reviews, many of them were more critical of the game, resulting in the game having an average score of 77 on OpenCritic.
While a large number of user reviews on Steam acknowledge various critical and technical issues, the overall rating is “Very Positive” as over 81% of user reviews are positive. Generally speaking, everyone seems to be enjoying their time while they wait for the inevitable mods to add features and fix some of the more glaring issues in the release version.
Whether you're excited to get into the zone now or you're waiting for a few patches and mods before dedicating some time to the experience, our STALKER 2 guide will be your loyal companion. You should definitely learn early on how to increase your carrying capacity, what artifacts are and where to find them, and how to handle exceptions. You should probably also learn how to repair your weapons (since they often jam) and how to upgrade them.
