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

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is a hybrid of an FPS, an immersive sim and a survival horror game, and at the same time a full-fledged second installment of the series started in 2007 by the game STALKER: Shadow of Chornobyl. The combination of an interesting plot with excellent, though very demanding gameplay brought the creators of the original financial success. Despite this, we had to wait a very long time for the official continuation. The sequel, just like the original, was created by the Ukrainian studio GSC Game World.

Plot

The story in STALKER 2 once again takes players to the dark corners of the Zone - a vast area around the Chornobyl nuclear power plant, the failure of which in 1986 resulted in one of the greatest ecological disasters in history. The developer, however, decided to slightly distort the true appearance of the Zone, which arouses both horror and fascination, enriching its territory with warring factions, murderous mutants, and deadly dangerous anomalies. The roots of these changes can be found in Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's famous novel Roadside Picnic, as well as in its unofficial film adaptation - Andrei Tarkovsky's film Stalker.

In the game, we play as a hero named Skif. After another explosion occurred in the Chornobyl reactor in 2006, a powerful energy source appeared in the center of the Zone. The protagonist crosses the border of the Zone as a lone stalker to unravel the mystery of a mysterious power. How this expedition will affect him depends on our actions. The story told here has a non-linear structure, and the choices we make during the game affect its course and ending.

It is worth adding that the plot of STALKER 2 is not directly related to the stories presented in previous games under this banner.

Gameplay

In STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl we observe the action from a first-person perspective (FPP). The authors provided us with a vast open world. It includes both the densely overgrown, wild areas surrounding the power plant, as well as cities (including Pripyat and Chornobyl-2). While exploring it, we carry out quests that push the plot forward, as well as undertake various missions and side activities.

The Zone is deadly, yet it is supposed to give the impression of a living ecosystem. The mutated forms of life residing there, hostile people, omnipresent radiation, and anomalies bending the laws of physics, force the stalkers traversing it to be constantly vigilant.

For this reason, we often have to make proper use of several dozen types of weapons (rifles, pistols, shotguns or one of the slightly more futuristic murder tools; each of them can be modified and improved), as well as screws and the so-called gilki (branches in Ukrainian; one of the gadgets helping in detecting anomalies).

As we progress, we also come across various artifacts, with the rarest ones hidden in the most dangerous places. One of them is jelly - a blue substance that restores the protagonist's depleted strength.

The A-Life 2.0 system is responsible for the realistic behavior of the mutants and people inhabiting world, thanks to which the Exclusion Zone is subject to constant changes, including those that the player cannot witness.

Unreal Engine 5

Unlike the previous installments of the series, STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl uses Unreal Engine 5 technology. The change was dictated not only by the decision to increase the number of hardware platforms, but also by the technical problems often caused by the resource-hungry and error-prone X-Ray Engine. The game can boast high-quality graphics and uses modern technologies, led by ray tracing.

Game Pass

STALKER 2 was made available at launch on the PC Game Pass and Xbox Game Pass subscription services.

Change of the game title

Initially, the game carried the subtitle Heart of Chernobyl, but in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the creators from GSC Game World changed the spelling of the city to Chornobyl in a symbolic gesture to match the transliteration from the Ukrainian language.

Last updated on 16 January 2024