STALKER 2 – Heart of Chornobyl: Gets off to an excellent start despite problems

The shooter STALKER 2, which was only released yesterday, is off to a very good start despite some existing problems. The player numbers look very good straight away.

After many postponements due to the Ukraine War, STALKER 2 – Heart of Chornobyl from GSC Game World is finally available for PC and Xbox since yesterday. The development studio is probably quite satisfied with the interest in the game, but not quite satisfied with the current status. Nevertheless, it should be noted that despite some problems, the first known figures look quite rosy.

STALKER 2 immediately broke the mark of over 100,000 players on Steam at the same time. The peak value in the first 24 hours since the release was 113,587 gamers at the same time – mind you, only on Steam. Other platforms are not even taken into account and since the title is included directly in the PC and Xbox Game Pass, the player numbers should look good here too. STALKER 2 is one of the biggest Steam launches of 2024.

Nevertheless, there is also criticism from the community, which is also expressed in rather average criticism ratings, for example on OpenCritic. There was also some feedback on the developers' social media postings in which players denounced specific problems such as game crashes. There are also some aches and pains when it comes to gaming with a controller.

In another social media post, the creators also confirmed that they are continually evaluating the feedback and working on fixes as quickly as possible. After all, the shooter is literally as big a game as the studio has yet to release.

You can read what we think of the game in our current STALKER 2 review.