Back when it first came out last year, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl had plenty of problems, from performance issues and frame drops, to the franchise’s iconic A-Life system not quite being as good as it was in the original trilogy. With Update 2.0, however, developer GSC Game World has changed a number of things about the game in the hopes of bringing it up to par with its original vision. We’ve decided to take a closer look at S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 with Update 2.0 to see if we’ve finally gotten a game worthy of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. name.
Visual Improvements
First things first, there have been major changes made to the open-world survival shooter’s visuals. At the very basic, the game’s lighting has been overhauled, making the world at large feel more visually pleasing, even with all the death and destruction scattered around the zone. Indoor areas have also gotten a major boost in quality thanks to the lighting changes, with shadows now appearing more realistic, especially if you have the horsepower to back it up.
Back to the world, GSC Game World has also done quite a bit of work to make the foliage and terrain in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 look more realistic. This means that we’ll no longer see artificial-looking rows of trees, and even the models and textures on the foliage have also seen some massive improvements.
Adding on to this, the weather effects throughout S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 have been improved, with rain feeling more realistic, and even simple dust storms being more than enough to make even experienced players twitch. Rain is especially worth mentioning, since it felt strangely artificial prior to the update. And let’s not forget the biggest change; fog has been turned into more than just a visual effect. There are now gameplay implications whenever the fog descends on you, from making you harder to see and hear, to making enemies more difficult to detect as well.
Generally speaking, the overall atmosphere of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl has seen some massive improvements with the update. Improvements to the terrain and foliage aside, the tweaks made by GSC Game World to its lighting systems, and how these changes also play well with the improvements in the weather systems have paid dividends in making the entire survival shooter experience creepier and more tense.
A-Life
While previous versions of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 included the A-Life system, it was in a very basic state (in fact broken at launch), and also had the tendency to add extra strain on the player’s CPU. With Update 2.0, however, there have been some massive improvements made. Chief among these being making gunfights between factions more rare in a believable sense.
The studio has noted that the exclusion zone is meant to be a lonely place, and so previous iterations of A-Life where you’d constantly hear gunfights taking place in the distance started feeling a bit old. The developers have decided to fine-tune the overall gameplay atmosphere of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 by making these random encounters between opposing factions rarer, and as a result, more eventful.
Now, don’t get me wrong, you’re still going to find yourself stumbling into gunfights between opposing factions, or even a lone wounded soldier trying to have a heroic last stand against a pack of mutants. The frequency of these events being reduced also makes them feel more natural, and as a direct consequence, makes the zone feel like a lonelier place.
Some of the more interesting improvements to the system have also made NPC behavior more realistic. Soldiers aren’t simply going to stand around after winning a gunfight to have a conversation with the protagonist now. Rather, they’ll try to find a place to sit down, maybe do a random activity and order their comrades to look for ammo and medicines among the fallen. As an added bonus, dead Stalkers across the zone will now have gear to loot, regardless of if you were around to see them die.
Enemies and Weapons
Update 2.0 has also made scopes much more valuable assets during your adventures in the zone. There are now three types of binoculars available to you that can allow you to better scout your surroundings to identify potential allies and threats. This is part of a larger set of improvements that have also made scoped weapons like sniper rifles a lot more useful. Paired with the new lighting and weather effects, even these smaller additions add up to make the world of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 feel like a living, breathing world where danger can lie behind any bush.
Along with the scopes, there are also a few new weapons to find, like the Fora-230 submachine gun, the GP3A and SKP designated marksman rifle, and the AREV assault rifle. The two DMRs get major benefits from the improvements to scopes, and Western-block weapons also have some new options. Similarly, Eastern-bloc weapons can be more useful in close-quarters combat thanks to a new red dot sight. These new sights also play into the improvements that have been made to offset aiming mode, which allows you to aim without using the sight, and was previously only useful when using night vision goggles.
These additions to the arsenal pay dividends when facing off against the enemies in Update 2.0, since they’re all much smarter. While regular soldiers won’t quite have the gear to stand up to you too often, I’ve noticed them being more adept at using tactical formations, and a couple of them even managed to flank me once. While there are also new mutant subspecies, the changes here are more superficial, better denoting which region the mutant might be from, and has little impact on the general gameplay. It is still interesting to fight different looking Bloodsuckers and Fleshes, however, and removes some of the monotony of taking on hordes of the things.
All of these changes have added up to make combat a more enjoyable part of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 experience; while the base game still had decent-enough gunplay, the smaller tweaks made throughout Update 2.0, paired with the more intelligent enemies, have generally added up to make gunfights more thrilling and tense experiences.
General Gameplay
Update 2.0 has also brought along a few smaller changes to the overall S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 experience, like a new PDA page that lets you track your overall gameplay for the playthrough. While it’s fun to track things like how many bullets you may have shot and what your favorite weapons might be, the more noteworthy changes come when you first start a new game.
The difficulty options have been expanded in a major way. Along with providing presets like Stalker, Veteran and Master, there is now the option to make more granular changes to your experience. If, for instance, you would want a simpler economy to deal with while maintaining a high difficulty for gunfights, there’s an option for you. Similarly, you can also fine-tune the difficulty for enemy types, like turning Mutants into “Terror Incarnates”.
So… is it worth coming back?
GSC Game World has continued to bring improvements to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 since its release, and Update 2.0 makes the strongest argument for not only returning players, but newcomers as well. While many of the updates might seem tiny at first glance, they’ve all added up to present a phenomenal open-world survival experience that sometimes veers into horror territory.
Even by default, gunfights often feel more intense, and watching NPCs living their lives in the exclusion zone can be entertaining even on its own. But paired with the massive improvements made to the lighting and the weather effects, the exploration gameplay feels second to none. The fact that the more realistic lighting, weather, and foliage has also made binoculars and scopes incredibly useful also helps matters, especially for those who might be looking for an experience that pushes the boundaries of your survival skills. The exclusion zone has never really felt as dangerous and atmospheric as it now does.
As for newcomers, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. has a reputation for being a harsh franchise to get into, and Update 2.0 has made S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 the best way to do so. The custom difficulty options give you plenty of ways to tweak your experience.
What’s Left?
That’s not to say that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is the greatest game of all time thanks to Update 2.0 by any stretch. There is still plenty of room for more improvements. A-Life could still use some more work, especially when it comes to the variety of NPC behavior you might encounter. Along with this, there are still quite a few obvious bugs, and I’ve even experienced strange ones, like being unable to loot a mutant corpse because my shotgun blast got it stuck into the textures of a nearby building’s wall.
These smaller adjustments, however, feel like inevitable changes that will likely come with more patches. In the meantime, however, Update 2.0 is definitely S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl at its very best.
