Great video but yeah this caught me kinda offguard. :I Pretty sure you can add text over video in the video manager even after uploaded, that might be a good call.
Yeah its bloody golden m8 I'm convinced u need to play the mods. For immersion considering sleep and the other things u said l early in vid.. maybe Anomaly or gamma? Definitely winds of time and other obscure ukr/Russian mods theres one enkereda zynoy or something been translated into English since for ever go nuts. I have never been more immersed in video games. Played the original when it came out tho so
I bought the trilogy about half a year ago and couldn't believe I'd slept on it for so long. As others have said elsewhere, this is what a lot of us were trying to mod Fallout 4 into, not even knowing a game like that already existed. So at this point, I don't see myself playing much Bethesda any time soon, sorry Todd.
That was exactly my experience. I played 3 hrs of Heart only to think to myself im missing out on so much lore and characters plus locale you won't appreciate as much as you would if you play the og games.
@@bardoflyhm I'd played all the Stalker series on disc when they came out, so the first time I played Fallout 3 I thought I was getting a Stalker inspired game or clone. I was soooooo disappointed.
They say it only takes roughly 40 hrs to complete the main story, but I got 125 hrs atm and just finished Subtle Matter. There's so much to do in this game, it's awesome.
I finished the game today at 175h. Cleared half of the map, the other half left with minor stashes, every side quest finished, and 2-3 final locations are not fully explored. But it is what it is. 120-200h - realistic paytime to fully experience the game
Currently finishing Extreme Simplicity just under 275 hours. I've got music and HUD turned completely off and have been going in for full immersion, so this game is a S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s paradise.
I rarely use energy drinks and I still don't get the sleep debuff. I think maybe the advanced medkits or something is resetting it as well, because the last time I saw a sleep debuff, I got into a firefight and the debuff disappeared. Maybe getting shot wakes you up 😂😂
@@maxstr the only times I've gotten the rest thing was every time I had done an arena fight in Rostok for the quest. other than that in my 2 playthroughs I haven't seen it at all
No the system is just broken. It only really works for the arena and after you finish the arena the sleep system doesn't appear again. Been over 100 hrs with no energy drinks or sleeping and sleep debuff never appears.
I only had the sleep debuff during the arena, now what I think happens is you can skip time on a chair for the next round, i think it doesn't count as sleeping even though it looks like skif takes a nap
And about radio songs in Stalker 2, some of them I often heard years before game was announced. For example, I came back to the Terricon and hear “Бджоли”, my instant reaction was like: “Hey, this is that song from every wedding!”
The enemies are actually deadly in Stalker 2, fallout 4 was fun to explore but you never had to fight for your life like you have to in stalker, ur plan can be quickly turned on its head and you’re forced into a scramble to make decisions on your next move in order to survive, stalker waste no time in killing you and forcing you back to the drawing board which is something I really love in stalker. Victories are earned and fallout just feels like EZ mode when compared to stalkers difficulty.
i just love that kinda paranoid feeling of "am i ready to head out" after looking at my supplies at a settlement then going to the border of the settlement and deciding i need to change a few things real quick lol. or maybe i need a little more. or maybe i should sell or stash some of my inventory even though some of those items are pretty much everywhere. i didnt pay attention to my med kits or bandages and when i finally did i had to tell myself "you dont need 58 bandages because when you die you dont even use 5" lol
lorewise pseudogiant is just a meat monster with an incredibly thick skull, and chimera has incredibly thick and tough hide and internal organs doubled, to kill them a bit quicker you need a good armor penetration and yeah, a lot of ammo
Im a big time stalker fan but to say stalker 2 sh*ts on new vegas is rubbish. This game is mediocre at best and would be the worst in the series if clear sky didnt exist
Its good to see that not only people coming from the old games are enjoying Stalker 2 despite all the bugs and weird stuff, everybody is able to appreciate how inmersive and different from other games it is.
STALKER 2 is a true STALKER game with all its signature pros and cons. And I fckn love it. It gives me a lot of emotions, good and bad. There is so much to love and a bit to hate, too 😅. Overall, it's my love and passion to gaming manifested in one product. This is AWESOME.
Woke up the day after Christmas and this video is doing better than I ever could have hoped! Thank you all for taking time to listen, and thank you to the awesome community of STALKERS for the warm welcomes!
Also crazy to think, regardless of all it's problems, GSC Game World made one of the most popular games whilst they were being invaded and in wartime. Some of the employees are fighting right now, some have been killed. They had to move their studio several times as the the invasion pushed closer and closer and they still managed to make one of the most solid AAA games. That's honestly beyond impressive.
yes its crazy to think, regardless of all it's problems, GSC Game World made one of the most popular games whilst they were being invaded and in wartime. Some of the employees are fighting right now, some have been killed. They had to move their studio several times as the the invasion pushed closer and closer and they still managed to make one of the most solid AAA games. That's honestly beyond impressive.
these employees were freelancers, they worked on many games, for example, the Ukrainian game 'Sherlock Holmes The Awakened' was released - where these people also worked
GSC moved to czech quite long time ago.. the ones who wanted to stay and fight got what they asked for 🤡 The games is far away from solid, its buggy and already neede/had several big patches, but this is gsc, which always had some kind of trouble or problems while developing a game, not because of war or whatever.
probably because he's saying something so broken and shit is special Games flagship feature doesn't even work hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha I cried too, that so many people are giving this broken buggy incomplete mess a free pass,it proved to me we are all doomed and taking is only gonna get worse and more broken as you drones will pick and choose what gets fairly greater and what gets a free pass instead of having standards you apply across the board No wonder the industry is so screwed up,YOU people are as damaging as the Publishers and their greed
I think its safe to say people will love this game for as long as people have enjoyed the trilogy. The gameplay loop is so satisfying. There isnt feature bloat. The Zone could maybe use a radio? Could be modded in. When it gets dialed in further this game will be a staple in everyone's library. That's my 5 year prediction. I love this game. The vibes are perfect. Absolutely love that this is just the vanilla experience. GSC made something special. It's got that intangible charm that great games have. I think it's the fact GSC made such an ambitious project work. It's a small miracle honestly.
Obviously there isn't a feature bloat genius when the core features literally don't fiction in any way hahahahahahahahahhahaha Game is objectively bad and broken her it still gets a free pass And you people wonder why games release broken and unfinished, is because you smoothbrained drones will make excuses and buy the slop anyway You lose the right to complain at other games for being broken when you ignore the blatantly obvious trashheap in front of you Gamers are a bunch of hypocritical Muppets mane, no wonder the industry is so broken and predatory
STALKER 2's release brought me to STALKER GAMMA and I am hooked. Heard about it over the years and the suspense/horror thing was never for me. But when I found out how intricate and demanding the mechanics of GAMMA were I had to go for it. SO looking forward to STALKER 2 getting it's mod treatments over the years!
@@donatopirrod it is damn close, name the beter game, for me S2 is on the level of the Elden Ring, Metaphor, RDR 2, FF XVI, KCD, Yakuza 0, Yakuza 6, Like a Dragon, Persona 5, Persona 4 - among all the games i've played in the past 10 years those i remember fondly and Stalker 2 would be among them, also its one of the few games i have multiple playthroughs of
just to be clear, GSC are not an indie developer, they have 300+ people on their team, and they're backed by a major publisher (Microsoft). they were also not small when they were making the original trilogy.
I have yet to encounter any game breaking bugs in stalker 2 (*edit* granted I've only played past 1.1.2) and it's my game of the year so far. It's quintessentially Stalker and has 100% of the soul that the old stalker games have. It's just as immersive, AND it packs on a pretty neat story! It runs a bit crap on PC but that will be ironed out over time. I voted for it GOTY on steam 2024 awards. For a smaller Ukrainian dev team, they did an absolute top job, and are QUICKLY addressing bugs and issues. Hoping to stream it soon but I keep running into huge updates pretty often lol.
Same here. As for the oc optimization. I’m afraid it may not be as optimized as we hope given UE has issues, I’m not happy with fsr/dlss and frame generation being recommended for games, this encourages developers to not bother lol. Meanwhile I load up zero dawn, forbidden west, god of war, made for ps4/5 optimized for pc and I don’t need an upscale running on a 6900xt with a 2.7k panel. This though? I’m worried….. maybe I’m the crazy one?
@@BrianSkinny-n5f yeah i have a 6950xt and a 5700x3d before the optimization i had 50-60 fps (mostly mid 50s rarely 60) on a 3440x1440p display with fsr quality. i had only 2 settings not on max though one was shadows on high and i'm not sure about the second. so plenty room to improve. i also wasn't using an optimization mod. i did run framegen though and i have to say compare to other games it's pretty good. in black myth wukong i disabled it because the impact on visuals were bad, in stalker i didn't notice them (i wasn't trying to find them though bc if i don't notice them while playing the impact can be neglected) maybe people getting tired of higher system requirements while still having to use upscaling and threat interactive will have an impact on quality and performance at least related to ue5 (some hope at least).
Thats just really uncanny i definately have bugs that are game breaking and i have to actively manage, namely repeatable quest givers can break and not give quests, and artifacts can get themselves stuck underground and one they are there it essentially bricks that anomalous area and you cant get artifacts there anymore. Only way to prevent this is to save before every artifact is rolled and reload if the artifact gets stuck. Same for quest givers gotta save before you turn in the quest but i had a guy break anyway too so ive lost most of my quest givers. Game and atmosphere are fantastic but i do hope for a few more layers added for example they added a splash sound to throwing bolts in water, this was very disappointing because this is the level of detail expected the environment reacts to and exists with or without the player so they will need to add a bit more of those things and optimize and enhance a life so hopefully these things will come with time but we will see.
@JackDaniels-ex9mf interesting! I appreciate you sharing. What platform are you on? My system is a PC with an AM4 socket AMD Ryzen 5700X3D and an RX 5700, maybe stalker doesn't play ball as well with other hardware? Hopefully your experience smooths out soon, I've noticed significant changes each update. Hopefully the issues you're having aren't a problem anymore soon.
The last hours of the game were really amazing. I got the skiff ending and i really felt like it concluded everything so amazingly. With the fights against korshunov strelok and scar. Saying goodbye to Richter. Accomplishing the doctor's last wish. There's very few games that nail an endgame like this. This one will definitely stuck with me
Yooo I forgot to mention the Korshunov fight! I was also impressed by the end game, so many titles have a hard time wrapping things up, but this game really did end beautifully.
I got strilok ending today. I get what I chose. It is what it is. I will replay from earlier save to make a few other decisions and will see how it turns
Once you're done with the trilogy, Stalker:Anomaly welcomes you with open arms (it's also free). Stalker:Gamma (modded anomaly) is arguably the most complete Stalker experience thanks to years of modding. Goude huntingue Stalqueur
On the subject of immersion, the campfires where you’re able to sit are the bee knees. I love to light up like I’m actually there with the freedom faction.
One very big reason some of us love the STALKER games is that you have to make hard choices. You cannot carry everything, so you have to plan for your trips around the Zone. In the earlier games, this would mean pre-positioning supplies and that could take several trips just to get everything you wanted and then there would be side missions so you could keep some cashflow to afford the items you were pre-positioning. In other words, you had to think about what you were doing - the game is not the typical "wish fulfilment power fantasy". You make your choices and you live or die by them but ultimately, when the "plan comes together" and you pull off that win, you know you really earned it. Because you had to put some hard work into earning that win, the sense of accomplishment is so much more significant. There's no "participation awards" in STALKER, just hard choices and hard work because the Zone is quite happy to kill you off at any opportunity. "This is the way it is with the Zone: if you come back with swag -- it’s a miracle; if you come back alive -- it’s a success; if the patrol bullets miss you -- it’s a stroke of luck. And as for anything else -- that’s fate. It's just another day in the Zone.
A-life is important not because it gives you more enemies to shoot at, but because it simulates what the ecosystem of the Zone is like. Stalkers go out and look for artifacts, they get into fights with bandits along the way, mutants rest and travel and eat, they have lairs, you can follow a random patrol and it's like they have actual goals and intentions in the Zone. It was by far one of the best features in the older games, especially CoP
if you want to fall even further down the rabbit hole check out the modded (and free) versions of Stalker. Stalker: Anomaly and Stalker: Anomaly GAMMA. It has alot of those survival elements you mentioned, but it is really much harder then any of the games combined.
@@SpooofGaming Gamma is a sub-mod/modpack for Anomaly that improves a bunch of things and is very customizable, so you’re good just checking out Gamma if you want since it includes all Anomaly content as well. There are other great Anomaly modpacks out there like EFP, but they’re all pretty similar so just picking one is fine (and Gamma is often considered to be the best). It’s amazing what the modding community accomplished for these games, Gamma could be its own full price release! It’s especially perfect if the deep survival mechanics are what you like. Like last update even added base building
the thing i love Lore wise with the STALKER series is the fact that aside from the blind dogs, flesh and boar all the mutants are not a result of the event that created the zone. They're all man made within the labs that litter the zone and the only reason for their escape is the result of the first emmision that created the zone. you could very much argue that the main character of the STALKER series is the zone and that you are simply fulfilling a role as an NPC in the environment (though i feel this is less strong in stalker 2) whilst the zone is it's own living breathing entity. Hey man, you need to take a look at your capture settings, there are a lot of compression artifacts when there is movement on screen which suddlen makes the quality of the video tank. (overall a very good and informative video though)
I’m on the tail end of my first playthrough, about 5 days game time and I’ve had an absolute blast. Really enjoyed my time with this despite its short comings. Cant wait for the games future
The food pyramid for your typical eastern block country is bread at the botttom, followed by sausage and condensed milk, with vodka and “meat” can at the top. It’s actually super realistic.
The radio playlist is really something special, few of the first songs I did not recognize in the radio were from Jonych, pretty energetic yet folky, best example being the song Бананів нема (I do not have bananas), another thing that cought my ear was The ВЙО (The Vyo), from whom I found not only great songs, but also one music vid with great plot twist Падаю у небо (I'm falling into the sky). and another cool discovery for me was punk & reggae mixing Fontaliza. The music I got connected with Sultansk/Skadovsk are the songs full of swearing by Пирятин (Pyriatyn), which really paint the criminal / bandit ambience. In garbage I mostly heard dark country/folk of Zwyntar and out of the heavier stuff are certainly worth mentioning IGNEA & The Hardkiss. One of my favourite songs which I have already heard earlier in ETS2 radio: Ukiez - Не віддавай своїх темряві (Do not give yours to the darkness) and I still recall how I was finger drumming it into the steering wheel. The biggest thing in Stalker 2 is probably the Post-Punk, and its great represention with Sudno, SadSvit, DK Energetyk & others. Also some cool rap by Yarmak, Паліндром (Palindrom) & хейтспіч (hatespeech). By the eurodance you probably mean stuff like ВАН ГОГ (Van Gog), Фантом-2, with so memetic 90s vibe, that it kinda manages to overcome the cringe it may bring at first. And since it probably doesnt have any better place to fit in, its worth it, to give honorable mention to Анатолій Матвійчук - НЛО (Anatoliy Matviychuk - NLO=UFO) which has kinda similar vibe even tho its already from 2000. And from the really folk stuff, there is bunch of songs that feel bit too folky, but then come songs like Піккардійська Терція - Гей, пливе кача (Pikkardiyska Terciya - Hey, plyve kacha), which just give me the chills, by how epic they are, or the songs by Пиріг і Батіг (Pyrih i Batih / Pie & Whip) which feel more like something new & big in world music, rather than just something local, and that point being just amplified by their take on the OG ukrainian version of Carol of the Bells - Щедрик (Shchedryk). But what really made my day was the inclusion of songs by my favourite ukrainian singer Христина Соловій (Khrystyna Soloviy).
"S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 is S.P.E.C.I.A.L." Brilliant! Quote of the year! Needs to go on a T-shirt. 29:15 FYI Col Korshunov was voiced by the same actor who voiced Hermann the Ratay Executioner in KCD. Stalker 2 has quite a handful of the KCD voice actors. So far, I've also heard the following voice actors from KCD in Stalker 2: Runt, Alex, Nightingale, Fritz, Rapota, Sir Divish, Godwin, Blacksmith of Samopesh, Konrad Hagen, Ginger, Master Engraver, Sir Kuno, Ratay Bailiff, Fresco Artist, Capt Bernard, and a Talmberg Guard (the one who is on the bridge between the outer bailey and the castle after Sigismund's army leaves). Bonus: I'm not certain, but I think Wade from GTA5 is "Base" a voice on a PDA titled "A note from a dead ISPF soldier's PDA at the ribs. Sorry, I rather like recognizing actors and actresses in other works. Kinda a hobby so to speak.
Dawg I’ve been playing since launch and to think you beat it and started 2 other stalker games has me amazed. I had to restart after a soft lock and after getting past that point again on my second Save, I still feel like I have so much to do
The only thing I am kind of missing is the X-Ray engine jank. STALKER was always that one game that was so close to home as an Eastern European. Every abandoned barn or substation looked exactly like those dilapidated pieces of crap I'd seen so many times when driving along the highways. Remnants from the soviet occupation, but places I spent my youth exploring and playing airsoft or hide and seek. The X-Ray engine had that certain feel to it that can't be put into words, pure soul. Return to Castle Wolfenstein gives me the same kind of feel. It's far from perfect, but it's perfect in it's own zeitgeist. Maybe it's just dumb nostalgia, but it has it's charm. Anyways I would suggest anyone from the collective West watch the making of documentary. It hopefully somewhat explains what the reality of every neighbor of r*ssia is. We hope to wake up in a peaceful world, but it's still the very same one with r*ssia existing across our border. The one where our grandparents were deported, murdered and oppressed by the r*ssian elite. And the cycle continues and repeats.
I don’t think it’s nostalgia, because I can feel the charm of the X-Ray engine while playing SOC for the first time in 2024. I would love to see a modern X-Ray engine. Unreal engine is beautiful to look at, but can make a video game feel like…a video game. Thank you for sharing your story of exploring and having fun as a child, and thank you for sharing some insight on what life with your unfortunate neighbor is like. I truly appreciate it.
I think part of the bandage and stim abundance is also part of like every stash having em, also I agree ammo on controller is a struggle, especially with how much you flinch when enemies shoot you
if a crate spawned in a location that you can't get stuff out of it - hit it again one or two times more, the crate will break completely and you can pick up the loot off the ground
you sound just like me lol. I never played stalker but had always been interested because I played tarkov. I played stalker 2, got the strelok ending and was like "okay, I gotta learn more about this story" and bought the og trilogy, downloaded some mods and went radio silent for a bout a week. i was loving it, i loved soc so much I played it twice just to get the cannon ending even though the sarcophagus mission had just nearly made me have an aneurism. I think I gotta go back and replay stalker 2 now that theyve done some updates to a life and now that I understand the back story of the world and characters. after that I think its on to anomaly.
If you want survival, then Stalker GAMMA would blow your mind :) A collection of hundreds of mods, which has grown into a separate game, with the main idea of Survival. The map is a combination of locations from the original trilogy. More complex medicine, cooking food from mutants, more interesting artifacts with the ability to craft, simply incredible crafting in itself, the ability to make your own base, random quests from NPCs, interesting progression and economy (weapons cannot be bought, but only found and repaired by parts), working A-Life. Stalker 2 still needs a lot of refinement, so I played a little and am waiting for better times to make the first playthrough as enjoyable as possible.
I found this game to be really replayable cause right after I finished the story I started a new game just to see how other choices effect the story (and to take it a bit more slowly). I also didn't find out that the game had a fast travel system until the very end where it becomes sort of mandatory lmao
Nice video man. Long time Stalker fan and Fallout fan here also. I play on pc and have had very few problems. I loved Fallout 4, but mods made it so much better. Can't wait to what happens with Stalker 2 in future updates and the modding takes off.
I started playing just before New Years. Stalker 2 is everything Fallout 4 is NOT. I love it so much. There are no easy enemies. Rat swarms that you either have a grenade for, or you waste a ton of shotgun ammo or have to just run away. Running away is a viable tactic in Stalker 2. There is no experience gain from fighting every enemy. You will use up your ammo, add wear and tear on your equipment and be forced to pay for huge repairs. I love the Controllers and the Mole men and the Bloodsuckers. Every enemy is awesome. Some are bullet sponges and others are speedsters and invisible most of the time. The zones are awesome. (except the poppy field) Buy it, you won't regret it.
Nice video👍🏻 Regarding the Faust fight, i think it would be much more enjoyable if the frames weren't so bad. Aiming gets harder when it dips THAT low. (Playing on series X)
Welcome to the Zone, Stalker. Glad you've decided to stay. As a long time stalker fan, it makes me nothing but happy to see more people coming to this wonderful world
Just wanted to say my wife and I were having a deep discussion the other night about how crazy life works sometimes in regards to things like the 1986 disaster. A horrible event happens in real life that cost people their lives and homes. Years later we get one the most immersive and perfect settings for an open world game because of that disaster. Life and it's movements are truly an uncanny mystery sometimes.
Your anomaly counter when off when I was playing insurgency: sandstorm and for a couple of seconds I was looking for an anomaly in a modern war sim🤣 scared the piss out of me
So glad to hear new people who are loving the STALKER universe. I’ve got over 700 hours in the original trilogy and never expected to get another iteration of the game. I’ve not had much time to play, but it’s been worth the wait.
Pc player here, at first I was immensely fusterated with the performance of STALKER 2, getting 30-60 fps with high latency but with each update and with some patches I was getting 70~100+ fps depending where I was. I finished the game with only one crash and that was my fault (I dropped 100 bandages 70 breads and the rest of my entire inventory and just threw a grenade at the stack to see what would happen.) Anyways I had a GREAT FANTASTIC TIME WITH THE GAME so I recommended it to my friend, a casual gamer who has never touched a STALKER game, I wanted to see his initial reaction so he live streamed it from hisXbox, and I was amazed at how well it ran with such graphics settings! He also loves the game and is having fun learning that you can't play this game like fallout just standing around mag dumping folks, you actually have to plan and CANT take every fight. I love this game, currently doing my NG+ playthrough
This game is all I can think about lol. I feel the same way I played it the night it dropped and sadly to say out loud I have over three days of game time. I get off work and just rush home to play this game. I am genuinely enjoying it
So it's the day after Christmas and I believe there's been three updates in the last two weeks to stalker 2 on the Xbox and it's running pretty damn smooth. Yeah it still got some funny glitches as well as some frustrating ones but I noticed a massive uptick in the performance in the last two patches. Even on day one this game still had less issues than any Bethesda game or cyberpunk 2077 on launch. The world and the content within to explore is second to none and definitely a worthy sequel that was worth the wait.
The next gen patch for Fallout 4 felt so malicious with Fallout London coming out, and them not even fixing half of the problems they introduced with that update, on top of all the great mods that were ultimately lost because of it. Fast forward, and now there's whispers of an Oblivion Remake coming out, right when that huge Oblivion mod is nearing completion. It's just crazy how often they secretly step on their own communities toes, especially when that comminuty is one of the main reasons that people still play their games.
yeah post patch my voice audio is busted sounds echoy and synthetic like robotic. i’ve checked settings idk what happened sounds so erry man. im still gonna play tho.
8:43 there is a mod that adds more items that can be looted , and that mod also adds some consumable like more pills and some healing items that are balanced with effects like drunkenness, etc . Its called Project itemization
Completely agree about the bandages and med packs. I always seemed to return to base with several times more than I had left with, no matter how many fights I had been in. As 95% of the loot in the game is not particularly exciting, I also think they should cut down the frequency of it all to make it more impactful when you actually find it. Smashing open a create to find a loaf of bread to add to the 100 already in your inventory is significantly less satisfying than it would be if you're on the brink of starvation and it's first morsel of food you've seen in an hour.
Things I think stalker 2 needed or should have had: 1.A skill tree to increase things like health, movement speed, jump height, stealth, and carry weight. (Exp would provide a reason to sleep in the game because sleeping would give you an exp boost while well rested.) 2.More variation to the effects and buffs that artifacts provide so they are more than defences stat sticks. Stuff like low gravity jumps, or environmental effects like being shocked heals you type of stuff. (Really disappointed with the artifacts system. So much wasted potential here. This is my main gripe with the game.) 3. Improved worth from stashes or less stashes that have just loot I would get off a random npc I killed. Stashes that don't provide an upgrade USB or unique gun/gunpart should have an item worth selling in them. like a Matryoshka doll that actually sells for the price listed on the item and not at 30% of the items price to vendors. 4. More unique items to find in the world such as Experimental Sircaa tech. New scanners, weapons, Maybe even long lasting stim shots in science labs that you can debate on selling or using for yourself to give yourself mutant like abilities. Cloaking, telekenisis, no fall damage, regeneration etc. 5. Upgrades to certain helmets or 1 piece suits to have nightvision or thermal vision. 6. The functionality to pay an npc or two to accompany you for a short period of time for added protection. 7. Portable Radio. I am not sitting near a radio to RP listening to music. I am on the go. walking for 18 miles trying to slug around my loot that has me over encumbered to the next town or personal stash. A little background music wouldn't hurt. 8. Vaulting or ledge grabbing. Some difficult to reach stashes seem like this should have been part of the game. That and just for general terrain traversal. I am not finished with the game. Maybe some of the things I listed are already there and I have not found them. Even so, I am really hoping the modding community goes crazy with this game and adds a whole bunch of new and interesting things. I am not wise to the lore of the stalker world in general but it feels like the zone should have more to it. More creative and mind boggling things to find due to it's anomalous nature. Sorry if this was a little all over the place but I hope some people get what I am trying to explain and agree with me.
Lots of good Quality of Life here, especially the artifacts and stash loot. I found artifacts to be a bit to similar to one another, and the loot from stashes can be really upsetting at times. And of course, WE NEED NIGHT VISION! Adding it to a helmet is a good idea, I think.
I love the series, i remember finding this game at gamestop not knowing that i would fall in love with the series. I love that STALKER 2 has breathed a new life into the series and draw in so many new people. I really hope that we dont have to wait over a decade for the next game in the series though. Also i could be wrong, but i am pretty sure GSC went to the actual site where you can and took pictures and the like to recreate it.
6:45 Most of my ingame money goes to keeping my gear in working order, ammo and then Upgrading Equipment. I just keep a small stockpile of looted foods and medicines in the 'stash' box to replenish my own needs selling off excesses... A good stalker knows that Enough Dead Bandits= a number of spare medkits, bandaids and foodstuffs. This is not a complaint, this is ingame resoursefullness
By the way, on 23 November 2022 the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSS RF) have reported that an attempt of diversion in Voronezh Oblast was prevented. FSS RF say that three members of Ukrainian nationalist forces were killed because they showed armed resistance. FSS RF showed a video with guns and identification signs (insignia) of this armed group. But it turns out that the identification signs (insignia) are really from the video games. In particular from Call of Duty and Freedom (Svoboda) group from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. And the guns from the video are obviously the Airsoft guns. So basically Russian Security killed three people just because they played Call of Duty and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
The problem with buying a new weapon instead of repairing is you loose all your mod upgrades. Some mods increase the weapon resilience. Also there is a mod to reduce the weight of the weapon significantly, allowing you to carry more loot, which makes you better able to afford repairs
The overabundance of med kits and bandages on bodies when looting is pretty much how i got through the game. I suffered a bug 75% through the game where I'd constantly get psi damage. When I finally looked into it to see if it was a bug or a feature, it was too late. I was already like 4 hours past that point. Saved the few psi blockers for important events, otherwise my Skif kept healing with med kits like a junkie. I enjoyed the game. It just bothers me that they chose to fix glitches like infinite sprint and higher carrying weight over story breaking glitches.
One time, I played this game after work for about 4 hours. And when I turned it off, I caught myself thinking-I hadn’t completed a single mission. Not one. I played for nearly 4 hours, not because I was grinding, but because it was genuinely fun. This is the first game that managed to do that.
Since i have seen you hit boxes with your gun in this video here a quick tip: Hitting things with your gun makes them take durability damage (some guns lose 1% after just 4-5 hits even). So always switch to your knife for hitting boxes open.
As a big fan of the originals, Stalker 2 has done everything I could have wanted and more, the end section of the video hit a bit hard as I bought the ultimate edition and even playing through release and beating the game just before the A-life update hit, I still partially regret not having the money set aside for the reprint of the physical ultimate edition even if it was $400~ish USD. It's a buggy mess and ive encouraged people to wait for some further updates but even then its perfect for everything I could have wanted out of it. I'd highly encourage taking a look at the map that came with it, few fun tidbits on it that are interesting. Also, after getting your enjoyment from the originals taking a look at what the modding community did over the past years. There's a good few conversion mods for the originals, Misery being a notable one but also Anomaly, which is stand alone all in one conversion that was made with approval from GSC with the story elements removed or rewritten and being a community update to the engine to help modernize it a touch with its own mods. At which point GAMMA is a great experience that pushes just being "Someone in The Zone just trying to get by." Good hunting stalker. . Side Note, I'd also recommend watching "Why STALKER Matters" by Ephemera if you're interested a bit in the history before and around the release of the original games, and some talk on the inspirations backing the games, as watching it just after the War Games documentary made it hit just a little bit more.
I’m about to finish Call Of Pripryat for like the tenth time this week, last completion date? Last night. I’m that ready to jump in again. Visually I adore stalker 2 already because it’s more the color palette of COP my favorite. The one thing I will say I LOVE about this series is how emergent the gameplay gets. Some things I do out of necessity or otherwise end up feeling as good and cinematic as the more structured cousin the metro games. MOVING THRU THE ZONE FEELS DAMN GOOD.
The thing about tanky mutants or any NPC in the game that MOST of the time you don't have to kill them if you don't have strict mission to do so. There are no XP points and you barely loot the same you spent on killing. The game wants you to run and even awards you once. You are not the main character but the Zone is. She existed before you and will last after.
A life still not working correctly on Xbox brother 😂 I'm late in the main story and I see groups of 5 to 8 random faction exo stalkers spawning like 20 feet away from me
I regret my wording there. I should’ve said it’s “working”, but not perfectly. I definitely noticed a change in A-Life, and I saw the ZoneSlug videos following stalkers and bandits around, but I never tested it on Xbox and only played for 3 hours. I’ll eventually make a list of corrections in the pinned comment.
Oh my fellow Stalker beginner, you wanna play Stalker G.A.M.M.A and trust me, it's gonna blow your mind. I wouldnt say it's better than 2, but man does it bring some much-needed systems that i wish the sequel gets later on. Whats more, gamma is completely free.
Ignore the bots & the people saying you suck at the game. I’m good at games and feel awful at accuracy on Stalker 2 😂 great video dude. You hit a lot of the nails on the head
OG Fallout was Bleak, Depraved, Ominous, and Immersive! Bethesdas Fallout is Bright Colors, Bubblegum, Rainbows, and 3 Stooges humor! It’s fucking pathetic
I think that’s why I liked Fallout 3 more, because even though it was GREEN AS HELL, it wasn’t Fallout 4 levels of absurdity. Why is there a damn near functional theme park in my nuclear apocalypse?
This game respects what came before it and understands the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. vibes so well. GSC will get it patched up and once A-Life is made right completely the game will be incredible. I think they nailed the immersion very well and legitimately care about this game. Give us binos lol.
I have never held a gun in my live, but even I can assemble the AK from that scene. It's just a hand full of parts xD I had pens with more parts. I expected Skif to ask "If you struggle with this little pieces, how do you plan to solve bigger puzzles?"
I so agree with your feeling of this game, ain't gonna give any example a chance to be a better one than the other, i just love this game all over ! Nice footage, i'm only half way though
it's super nice that you've had a nice experience but for my play through Korshenov has had two seperate bugs where he straight up teleports away after a cutscene which makes the game unable to progress. To fix this I had to mod the game to use console commands and force the game to work after a lot of googling. A-Life is nice, the extra fast loading is nice, the enemies spawning in from further away is nice but I kinda wish I could just finish the story. (All of these are after the big patch too :/)
Stalker trilogy players had a long time to play the old games, so we all have our own ideas on what's "Correct" on how enemies should be balanced. While this isn't fair on 2, it still proves a valid perspective. 2 has a problem with bullet sponges. Mutants only feel challenging until you get the hang of their patterns and attacks, at which point it just feels like a boring 5 minute slog emptying your resources and weapon condition Bloodsuckers for example; they *should* be glass cannons, because their whole concept is based around stealth and "backstabbing". They do good damage, hard to spot and even harder to hit. They do not ALSO need to take a whole box of ammo to kill on top of that, because it draws the fights out for way too long. Counter point to myself: Mutants don't give rewards, and are spongy. This makes it feel like game is actively discouraging players from fighting, but to actually pick your fights and avoid them. I agree with this to a degree, and see it a valid design point. But it's also not a very engaging way to play, in my personal opinion. I have guns, there are monsters. I wanna shoot them And if the game wants to encourage me to avoid enemies; make it because they are actually dangerous. Not because I can't be arsed holding down LMB long enough :(
For boss fights I was using different weapons, for Faust - F-1 grenades (after I destroyed emitters), for Korshunov - RPG-7 and machinegun for close combat, for Strilets - M203 grenades, for Scar - Kharod for some mutants to need to keep tempo and fill them with lead non-stop, I suspect they can also recovering with time I like the playing of all of the characters, Richter, Scar, Korshunov, Strilets, Faust, etc - I believe them, I understand them
Many also dont know the meaning behind the word Stalker A Journey alone thro a dangerously unknown area that is being explored. This indeed is the better or Fallout that Everyone wanted. And even the Old ones I played once more to update before playing Stalker 2 Kind of wish we had more Survival elements like from Stalker Gamma Mod.
SPOILER SECTION IS 25:25 - 28:45! I forgot to add it in the video, pinning so others can see. Sorry about that!
Great Video, none the less... 😅🤷🏻
Great video but yeah this caught me kinda offguard. :I
Pretty sure you can add text over video in the video manager even after uploaded, that might be a good call.
It's beyond heartwarming seeing people discover this series so late into it's life and immediately going back and playing the originals
Yeah its bloody golden m8 I'm convinced u need to play the mods. For immersion considering sleep and the other things u said l early in vid.. maybe Anomaly or gamma? Definitely winds of time and other obscure ukr/Russian mods theres one enkereda zynoy or something been translated into English since for ever go nuts. I have never been more immersed in video games. Played the original when it came out tho so
That’s me… man did I miss out holy shit
I bought the trilogy about half a year ago and couldn't believe I'd slept on it for so long. As others have said elsewhere, this is what a lot of us were trying to mod Fallout 4 into, not even knowing a game like that already existed. So at this point, I don't see myself playing much Bethesda any time soon, sorry Todd.
That was exactly my experience. I played 3 hrs of Heart only to think to myself im missing out on so much lore and characters plus locale you won't appreciate as much as you would if you play the og games.
@@bardoflyhm I'd played all the Stalker series on disc when they came out, so the first time I played Fallout 3 I thought I was getting a Stalker inspired game or clone. I was soooooo disappointed.
They say it only takes roughly 40 hrs to complete the main story, but I got 125 hrs atm and just finished Subtle Matter. There's so much to do in this game, it's awesome.
I finished the game today at 175h. Cleared half of the map, the other half left with minor stashes, every side quest finished, and 2-3 final locations are not fully explored. But it is what it is. 120-200h - realistic paytime to fully experience the game
I finished at 206 hrs 🫣
and it was awesome 😎
Currently finishing Extreme Simplicity just under 275 hours. I've got music and HUD turned completely off and have been going in for full immersion, so this game is a S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s paradise.
I think i speedruned the game, it only took 117h for me😭
I like to sit at the campfires when stalkers are playing the guitar and telling jokes. So yeah my hours invested is a ridiculous number
The reason you didnt sleep often was because of the energy drinks. They help reset the sleep bar
I rarely use energy drinks and I still don't get the sleep debuff. I think maybe the advanced medkits or something is resetting it as well, because the last time I saw a sleep debuff, I got into a firefight and the debuff disappeared. Maybe getting shot wakes you up 😂😂
@@maxstr the only times I've gotten the rest thing was every time I had done an arena fight in Rostok for the quest. other than that in my 2 playthroughs I haven't seen it at all
Hmm…Maybe I should check Skif’s heart health, just in case…
No the system is just broken. It only really works for the arena and after you finish the arena the sleep system doesn't appear again. Been over 100 hrs with no energy drinks or sleeping and sleep debuff never appears.
I only had the sleep debuff during the arena, now what I think happens is you can skip time on a chair for the next round, i think it doesn't count as sleeping even though it looks like skif takes a nap
And about radio songs in Stalker 2, some of them I often heard years before game was announced. For example, I came back to the Terricon and hear “Бджоли”, my instant reaction was like: “Hey, this is that song from every wedding!”
не удивительно, что на украине играют русафобские песни прямиком на свадьбах.
@omarbradley9897 Я от не знаю де там русофобія, чи ти переплутав пісню «Бджоли» і «Ой ви, бджоли, - ого!»?
@@omarbradley9897 так, не дивно. А де мінуси? Чи ти хочеш сказати немає на то причин?
@@omarbradley9897imagine respect someone that cant even put correct preposition word to a country. Ur country is “на” swamp my guy
@@omarbradley9897 не дивно що в русака моэок атрофований
The enemies are actually deadly in Stalker 2, fallout 4 was fun to explore but you never had to fight for your life like you have to in stalker, ur plan can be quickly turned on its head and you’re forced into a scramble to make decisions on your next move in order to survive, stalker waste no time in killing you and forcing you back to the drawing board which is something I really love in stalker. Victories are earned and fallout just feels like EZ mode when compared to stalkers difficulty.
i just love that kinda paranoid feeling of "am i ready to head out" after looking at my supplies at a settlement then going to the border of the settlement and deciding i need to change a few things real quick lol. or maybe i need a little more. or maybe i should sell or stash some of my inventory even though some of those items are pretty much everywhere. i didnt pay attention to my med kits or bandages and when i finally did i had to tell myself "you dont need 58 bandages because when you die you dont even use 5" lol
@@deceaseda7x22 right?! I’d much rather struggle against enemies than be able to blast through even a legendary enemy.
As an long time Stalker player (still actively doing GAMMA Ironman runs). The enemies are only midly difficult on Veteran... Thank God for mods!
@@theangrydanimal4933 yeah Stalker 2 was too easy on veteran for my taste too! But other than that I enjoyed it A LOT
Lol I guess Stalker 2 is just an ultra modded Fallout 4 mod list😂
lorewise pseudogiant is just a meat monster with an incredibly thick skull, and chimera has incredibly thick and tough hide and internal organs doubled, to kill them a bit quicker you need a good armor penetration and yeah, a lot of ammo
Thick skull = armor piercing rounds, love it. Keep that meat monster 1km away from me at all times plz 🙏🏻
"This is a fallout 4 hit-piece" had me in fucking tears lmao. Great video!
Stalker 2 is everything all of the fallout series wish they could be
STALKER 2 makes Power Armour kinda pointless and dumb. The ZONE Laughs at "PoWeR aRmOuR"...😄😅😂🤣
ONE Anomaly and your SPECIAL Armour is KAPUT! 😂
100%
Im a big time stalker fan but to say stalker 2 sh*ts on new vegas is rubbish. This game is mediocre at best and would be the worst in the series if clear sky didnt exist
@@ImNotFine44 Are you russian?
@@Roman0x australian
Its good to see that not only people coming from the old games are enjoying Stalker 2 despite all the bugs and weird stuff, everybody is able to appreciate how inmersive and different from other games it is.
STALKER 2 is a true STALKER game with all its signature pros and cons. And I fckn love it. It gives me a lot of emotions, good and bad. There is so much to love and a bit to hate, too 😅. Overall, it's my love and passion to gaming manifested in one product. This is AWESOME.
It's peak Slavjank honk honk nice fucking model
There are no bugs only anomalies
Woke up the day after Christmas and this video is doing better than I ever could have hoped! Thank you all for taking time to listen, and thank you to the awesome community of STALKERS for the warm welcomes!
Thank you for your video.
Also crazy to think, regardless of all it's problems, GSC Game World made one of the most popular games whilst they were being invaded and in wartime. Some of the employees are fighting right now, some have been killed. They had to move their studio several times as the the invasion pushed closer and closer and they still managed to make one of the most solid AAA games. That's honestly beyond impressive.
@@ImReallyRaw absolutely! What they pulled off in their scenario is nothing short of a miracle.
yes its crazy to think, regardless of all it's problems, GSC Game World made one of the most popular games whilst they were being invaded and in wartime. Some of the employees are fighting right now, some have been killed. They had to move their studio several times as the the invasion pushed closer and closer and they still managed to make one of the most solid AAA games. That's honestly beyond impressive.
these employees were freelancers, they worked on many games, for example, the Ukrainian game 'Sherlock Holmes The Awakened' was released - where these people also worked
@@OlegSimonenko a lot of them also worked on the metro games which you can kinda see the similarity
GSC moved to czech quite long time ago.. the ones who wanted to stay and fight got what they asked for 🤡
The games is far away from solid, its buggy and already neede/had several big patches, but this is gsc, which always had some kind of trouble or problems while developing a game, not because of war or whatever.
I almost dropped a tear in the end of the video. I really don't understand why you have so few subscribers cause you create good quality content.
The algorithm was good to him today
probably because he's saying something so broken and shit is special
Games flagship feature doesn't even work hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
I cried too, that so many people are giving this broken buggy incomplete mess a free pass,it proved to me we are all doomed and taking is only gonna get worse and more broken as you drones will pick and choose what gets fairly greater and what gets a free pass instead of having standards you apply across the board
No wonder the industry is so screwed up,YOU people are as damaging as the Publishers and their greed
I think its safe to say people will love this game for as long as people have enjoyed the trilogy. The gameplay loop is so satisfying. There isnt feature bloat. The Zone could maybe use a radio? Could be modded in. When it gets dialed in further this game will be a staple in everyone's library. That's my 5 year prediction.
I love this game. The vibes are perfect. Absolutely love that this is just the vanilla experience. GSC made something special. It's got that intangible charm that great games have. I think it's the fact GSC made such an ambitious project work. It's a small miracle honestly.
Obviously there isn't a feature bloat genius when the core features literally don't fiction in any way hahahahahahahahahhahaha
Game is objectively bad and broken her it still gets a free pass
And you people wonder why games release broken and unfinished, is because you smoothbrained drones will make excuses and buy the slop anyway
You lose the right to complain at other games for being broken when you ignore the blatantly obvious trashheap in front of you
Gamers are a bunch of hypocritical Muppets mane, no wonder the industry is so broken and predatory
there is already a portable radio mod
I need a mod that lets me easily swap in my own music cause I just love doing that in games
STALKER 2's release brought me to STALKER GAMMA and I am hooked. Heard about it over the years and the suspense/horror thing was never for me. But when I found out how intricate and demanding the mechanics of GAMMA were I had to go for it. SO looking forward to STALKER 2 getting it's mod treatments over the years!
Yes, this is best single player game for last 10years.
lol game more.
Dude thats literally what i say. Not even close
@@donatopirrod it is damn close, name the beter game, for me S2 is on the level of the Elden Ring, Metaphor, RDR 2, FF XVI, KCD, Yakuza 0, Yakuza 6, Like a Dragon, Persona 5, Persona 4 - among all the games i've played in the past 10 years those i remember fondly and Stalker 2 would be among them, also its one of the few games i have multiple playthroughs of
Best FPS certainly
@@MattCarvinyou’re the type of person that will say cyberpunk bad story but think fallout 4 hit u in the feels after you nuke ur dad at the end of
just to be clear, GSC are not an indie developer, they have 300+ people on their team, and they're backed by a major publisher (Microsoft). they were also not small when they were making the original trilogy.
Lots of discussion around this, and I think you’re right. They don’t seem to be indie, just not Bethesda sized. Thanks for the comment!
Welcome to the zone, Stalker. Good hunting.
I have yet to encounter any game breaking bugs in stalker 2 (*edit* granted I've only played past 1.1.2) and it's my game of the year so far. It's quintessentially Stalker and has 100% of the soul that the old stalker games have. It's just as immersive, AND it packs on a pretty neat story! It runs a bit crap on PC but that will be ironed out over time.
I voted for it GOTY on steam 2024 awards. For a smaller Ukrainian dev team, they did an absolute top job, and are QUICKLY addressing bugs and issues. Hoping to stream it soon but I keep running into huge updates pretty often lol.
Same here. As for the oc optimization. I’m afraid it may not be as optimized as we hope given UE has issues, I’m not happy with fsr/dlss and frame generation being recommended for games, this encourages developers to not bother lol. Meanwhile I load up zero dawn, forbidden west, god of war, made for ps4/5 optimized for pc and I don’t need an upscale running on a 6900xt with a 2.7k panel. This though? I’m worried….. maybe I’m the crazy one?
I fucking hate ue5
@@BrianSkinny-n5f yeah i have a 6950xt and a 5700x3d before the optimization i had 50-60 fps (mostly mid 50s rarely 60) on a 3440x1440p display with fsr quality. i had only 2 settings not on max though one was shadows on high and i'm not sure about the second. so plenty room to improve. i also wasn't using an optimization mod. i did run framegen though and i have to say compare to other games it's pretty good. in black myth wukong i disabled it because the impact on visuals were bad, in stalker i didn't notice them (i wasn't trying to find them though bc if i don't notice them while playing the impact can be neglected)
maybe people getting tired of higher system requirements while still having to use upscaling and threat interactive will have an impact on quality and performance at least related to ue5 (some hope at least).
Thats just really uncanny i definately have bugs that are game breaking and i have to actively manage, namely repeatable quest givers can break and not give quests, and artifacts can get themselves stuck underground and one they are there it essentially bricks that anomalous area and you cant get artifacts there anymore. Only way to prevent this is to save before every artifact is rolled and reload if the artifact gets stuck. Same for quest givers gotta save before you turn in the quest but i had a guy break anyway too so ive lost most of my quest givers. Game and atmosphere are fantastic but i do hope for a few more layers added for example they added a splash sound to throwing bolts in water, this was very disappointing because this is the level of detail expected the environment reacts to and exists with or without the player so they will need to add a bit more of those things and optimize and enhance a life so hopefully these things will come with time but we will see.
@JackDaniels-ex9mf interesting! I appreciate you sharing. What platform are you on? My system is a PC with an AM4 socket AMD Ryzen 5700X3D and an RX 5700, maybe stalker doesn't play ball as well with other hardware? Hopefully your experience smooths out soon, I've noticed significant changes each update. Hopefully the issues you're having aren't a problem anymore soon.
The algorithm has blessed you my friend. Good video, keep it up!
The last hours of the game were really amazing. I got the skiff ending and i really felt like it concluded everything so amazingly. With the fights against korshunov strelok and scar. Saying goodbye to Richter. Accomplishing the doctor's last wish. There's very few games that nail an endgame like this. This one will definitely stuck with me
Yooo I forgot to mention the Korshunov fight! I was also impressed by the end game, so many titles have a hard time wrapping things up, but this game really did end beautifully.
I got strilok ending today. I get what I chose. It is what it is. I will replay from earlier save to make a few other decisions and will see how it turns
56 subs...dude you have a bright future ahead. This video was great.
Once you're done with the trilogy, Stalker:Anomaly welcomes you with open arms (it's also free).
Stalker:Gamma (modded anomaly) is arguably the most complete Stalker experience thanks to years of modding.
Goude huntingue Stalqueur
On the subject of immersion, the campfires where you’re able to sit are the bee knees. I love to light up like I’m actually there with the freedom faction.
Hell yes, they are! Great place for a smoke or a beer.
One very big reason some of us love the STALKER games is that you have to make hard choices. You cannot carry everything, so you have to plan for your trips around the Zone. In the earlier games, this would mean pre-positioning supplies and that could take several trips just to get everything you wanted and then there would be side missions so you could keep some cashflow to afford the items you were pre-positioning.
In other words, you had to think about what you were doing - the game is not the typical "wish fulfilment power fantasy". You make your choices and you live or die by them but ultimately, when the "plan comes together" and you pull off that win, you know you really earned it. Because you had to put some hard work into earning that win, the sense of accomplishment is so much more significant. There's no "participation awards" in STALKER, just hard choices and hard work because the Zone is quite happy to kill you off at any opportunity.
"This is the way it is with the Zone:
if you come back with swag -- it’s a miracle;
if you come back alive -- it’s a success;
if the patrol bullets miss you -- it’s a stroke of luck.
And as for anything else -- that’s fate.
It's just another day in the Zone.
A-life is important not because it gives you more enemies to shoot at, but because it simulates what the ecosystem of the Zone is like. Stalkers go out and look for artifacts, they get into fights with bandits along the way, mutants rest and travel and eat, they have lairs, you can follow a random patrol and it's like they have actual goals and intentions in the Zone. It was by far one of the best features in the older games, especially CoP
Oh man, I’m so excited to start COP!
if you want to fall even further down the rabbit hole check out the modded (and free) versions of Stalker. Stalker: Anomaly and Stalker: Anomaly GAMMA. It has alot of those survival elements you mentioned, but it is really much harder then any of the games combined.
Lots of people have been saying GAMMA and Anomaly are great! I’ll be checking those out soon for sure.
@@SpooofGaming it also has the added plus of being totally free. you dont need to own any of the previous stalker games.
@@SpooofGaming Anomaly and Gamma for me is like Slaker 1.5. this is perfect sandbox game.
@@SpooofGaming Gamma is a sub-mod/modpack for Anomaly that improves a bunch of things and is very customizable, so you’re good just checking out Gamma if you want since it includes all Anomaly content as well. There are other great Anomaly modpacks out there like EFP, but they’re all pretty similar so just picking one is fine (and Gamma is often considered to be the best). It’s amazing what the modding community accomplished for these games, Gamma could be its own full price release! It’s especially perfect if the deep survival mechanics are what you like. Like last update even added base building
the thing i love Lore wise with the STALKER series is the fact that aside from the blind dogs, flesh and boar all the mutants are not a result of the event that created the zone. They're all man made within the labs that litter the zone and the only reason for their escape is the result of the first emmision that created the zone.
you could very much argue that the main character of the STALKER series is the zone and that you are simply fulfilling a role as an NPC in the environment (though i feel this is less strong in stalker 2) whilst the zone is it's own living breathing entity.
Hey man, you need to take a look at your capture settings, there are a lot of compression artifacts when there is movement on screen which suddlen makes the quality of the video tank. (overall a very good and informative video though)
I’m on the tail end of my first playthrough, about 5 days game time and I’ve had an absolute blast. Really enjoyed my time with this despite its short comings. Cant wait for the games future
Seems like GSC has a lot in store for this game, I hope it can continue to grow now that they’ve came out and said that it’s turned profit!
The food pyramid for your typical eastern block country is bread at the botttom, followed by sausage and condensed milk, with vodka and “meat” can at the top. It’s actually super realistic.
24:20 there are over 30 normal weapons in this game, plus about 70 more unique variants. Amazing amount of customization.
The radio playlist is really something special,
few of the first songs I did not recognize in the radio were from
Jonych, pretty energetic yet folky, best example being the song Бананів нема (I do not have bananas),
another thing that cought my ear was
The ВЙО (The Vyo), from whom I found not only great songs, but also one music vid with great plot twist Падаю у небо (I'm falling into the sky).
and another cool discovery for me was punk & reggae mixing Fontaliza.
The music I got connected with Sultansk/Skadovsk are the songs full of swearing by Пирятин (Pyriatyn), which really paint the criminal / bandit ambience.
In garbage I mostly heard dark country/folk of Zwyntar and
out of the heavier stuff are certainly worth mentioning IGNEA & The Hardkiss.
One of my favourite songs which I have already heard earlier in ETS2 radio: Ukiez - Не віддавай своїх темряві (Do not give yours to the darkness) and I still recall how I was finger drumming it into the steering wheel.
The biggest thing in Stalker 2 is probably the Post-Punk, and its great represention with Sudno, SadSvit, DK Energetyk & others.
Also some cool rap by Yarmak, Паліндром (Palindrom) & хейтспіч (hatespeech).
By the eurodance you probably mean stuff like ВАН ГОГ (Van Gog), Фантом-2, with so memetic 90s vibe, that it kinda manages to overcome the cringe it may bring at first.
And since it probably doesnt have any better place to fit in, its worth it, to give honorable mention to Анатолій Матвійчук - НЛО (Anatoliy Matviychuk - NLO=UFO) which has kinda similar vibe even tho its already from 2000.
And from the really folk stuff, there is bunch of songs that feel bit too folky, but then come songs like Піккардійська Терція - Гей, пливе кача (Pikkardiyska Terciya - Hey, plyve kacha), which just give me the chills, by how epic they are,
or the songs by Пиріг і Батіг (Pyrih i Batih / Pie & Whip) which feel more like something new & big in world music, rather than just something local, and that point being just amplified by their take on the OG ukrainian version of Carol of the Bells - Щедрик (Shchedryk).
But what really made my day was the inclusion of songs by my favourite ukrainian singer Христина Соловій (Khrystyna Soloviy).
There is only one song in stalker and it's Dirge for the Planet
@@NPazable Sidorovich's bunker theme now :D
Great video essay. Welcome to TH-cam!
OMG that was the best analogy for Fallout and Bethesda games I've ever heard. It really is your party friends from high school that never grew up.
"S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 is S.P.E.C.I.A.L." Brilliant! Quote of the year! Needs to go on a T-shirt.
29:15 FYI Col Korshunov was voiced by the same actor who voiced Hermann the Ratay Executioner in KCD.
Stalker 2 has quite a handful of the KCD voice actors. So far, I've also heard the following voice actors from KCD in Stalker 2:
Runt, Alex, Nightingale, Fritz, Rapota, Sir Divish, Godwin, Blacksmith of Samopesh, Konrad Hagen, Ginger, Master Engraver, Sir Kuno, Ratay Bailiff, Fresco Artist,
Capt Bernard, and a Talmberg Guard (the one who is on the bridge between the outer bailey and the castle after Sigismund's army leaves).
Bonus: I'm not certain, but I think Wade from GTA5 is "Base" a voice on a PDA titled "A note from a dead ISPF soldier's PDA at the ribs.
Sorry, I rather like recognizing actors and actresses in other works. Kinda a hobby so to speak.
Damn, you know your stuff! I thought I knew VA’s when I recognized Steve Blum’s voice in Neon White, but THIS MAN KNOWS VOICE ACTING 👆
@@SpooofGaming LOL Oh, no no no. It's just a hearing thing and a sound bite rolodex in my head. IDK anything. But thanks for the pat on the back.
Devs had to redo all English voices after moving to Chech Republic because the original cast stayed in Ukraine. So they hired locals.
Worst part of Stalker 2 is ME having to unlearn past 20yrs of bad game design habits/coping
I really hope they add co-op multiplayer to this game, I’m not sure many people even want the already promised pvp-style game mode.
I'm glad you mentioned the music on the radio's. It's so good man, just fresh and different.
Welcome brother. We welcome you to The Zone!
Dawg I’ve been playing since launch and to think you beat it and started 2 other stalker games has me amazed. I had to restart after a soft lock and after getting past that point again on my second Save, I still feel like I have so much to do
The only thing I am kind of missing is the X-Ray engine jank. STALKER was always that one game that was so close to home as an Eastern European. Every abandoned barn or substation looked exactly like those dilapidated pieces of crap I'd seen so many times when driving along the highways. Remnants from the soviet occupation, but places I spent my youth exploring and playing airsoft or hide and seek. The X-Ray engine had that certain feel to it that can't be put into words, pure soul. Return to Castle Wolfenstein gives me the same kind of feel. It's far from perfect, but it's perfect in it's own zeitgeist. Maybe it's just dumb nostalgia, but it has it's charm.
Anyways I would suggest anyone from the collective West watch the making of documentary. It hopefully somewhat explains what the reality of every neighbor of r*ssia is. We hope to wake up in a peaceful world, but it's still the very same one with r*ssia existing across our border. The one where our grandparents were deported, murdered and oppressed by the r*ssian elite. And the cycle continues and repeats.
I don’t think it’s nostalgia, because I can feel the charm of the X-Ray engine while playing SOC for the first time in 2024. I would love to see a modern X-Ray engine. Unreal engine is beautiful to look at, but can make a video game feel like…a video game.
Thank you for sharing your story of exploring and having fun as a child, and thank you for sharing some insight on what life with your unfortunate neighbor is like. I truly appreciate it.
Man, this video was awesome! That analogy of Fallout, being the party friend that never grew up, couldn't have been more perfect.
Repairing scales with your upgrades, so your special personalized gun is more expensive to repair because it's actually worth more.
Side boss, Tyrant from arena (Rustoc) also felt like throwing the goals at the ball.
BRO I never finished the ARENA on STALKER difficulty 😭
I think part of the bandage and stim abundance is also part of like every stash having em, also I agree ammo on controller is a struggle, especially with how much you flinch when enemies shoot you
if a crate spawned in a location that you can't get stuff out of it - hit it again one or two times more, the crate will break completely and you can pick up the loot off the ground
I figured this out WAY to late in the game 😂
you sound just like me lol. I never played stalker but had always been interested because I played tarkov. I played stalker 2, got the strelok ending and was like "okay, I gotta learn more about this story" and bought the og trilogy, downloaded some mods and went radio silent for a bout a week. i was loving it, i loved soc so much I played it twice just to get the cannon ending even though the sarcophagus mission had just nearly made me have an aneurism. I think I gotta go back and replay stalker 2 now that theyve done some updates to a life and now that I understand the back story of the world and characters. after that I think its on to anomaly.
Go straight into Gamma
If you want survival, then Stalker GAMMA would blow your mind :)
A collection of hundreds of mods, which has grown into a separate game, with the main idea of Survival. The map is a combination of locations from the original trilogy. More complex medicine, cooking food from mutants, more interesting artifacts with the ability to craft, simply incredible crafting in itself, the ability to make your own base, random quests from NPCs, interesting progression and economy (weapons cannot be bought, but only found and repaired by parts), working A-Life.
Stalker 2 still needs a lot of refinement, so I played a little and am waiting for better times to make the first playthrough as enjoyable as possible.
Yeah, I saw what you did there . . . “monolithic task.” 🙄🥴🤭
Nice to see a new stalker to the zone, she'll have you under her spell and never let go.
I found this game to be really replayable cause right after I finished the story I started a new game just to see how other choices effect the story (and to take it a bit more slowly).
I also didn't find out that the game had a fast travel system until the very end where it becomes sort of mandatory lmao
The downtime in Stalker is part of what helps build the suspense. You never know when the shits gonna hit the fan!
Shoulda taken your chance to run when the roaming group helped with the pseudo giant, no real reason to waste that much ammo...
Honor.
Nice video man. Long time Stalker fan and Fallout fan here also. I play on pc and have had very few problems. I loved Fallout 4, but mods made it so much better. Can't wait to what happens with Stalker 2 in future updates and the modding takes off.
Double right click on breakable objects to fully destroy them, so you can loot the container items you can't reach
8:43 the reason for only bread canned, food, and sausage being able to found in the zone is lore reasons just read the item description of bread
What does it say?
I started playing just before New Years. Stalker 2 is everything Fallout 4 is NOT. I love it so much. There are no easy enemies. Rat swarms that you either have a grenade for, or you waste a ton of shotgun ammo or have to just run away. Running away is a viable tactic in Stalker 2. There is no experience gain from fighting every enemy. You will use up your ammo, add wear and tear on your equipment and be forced to pay for huge repairs. I love the Controllers and the Mole men and the Bloodsuckers. Every enemy is awesome. Some are bullet sponges and others are speedsters and invisible most of the time. The zones are awesome. (except the poppy field) Buy it, you won't regret it.
Nice video👍🏻 Regarding the Faust fight, i think it would be much more enjoyable if the frames weren't so bad. Aiming gets harder when it dips THAT low. (Playing on series X)
Yeah, haven’t gotten to that part in my second playthrough after the patches, but I really hope they ironed out some FPS issues with that fight.
Welcome to the Zone, Stalker. Glad you've decided to stay. As a long time stalker fan, it makes me nothing but happy to see more people coming to this wonderful world
Big thanks to you and your amazing ability to accurately capture, process, and show the essence of the game.
🇺🇦
Just wanted to say my wife and I were having a deep discussion the other night about how crazy life works sometimes in regards to things like the 1986 disaster. A horrible event happens in real life that cost people their lives and homes. Years later we get one the most immersive and perfect settings for an open world game because of that disaster. Life and it's movements are truly an uncanny mystery sometimes.
Your anomaly counter when off when I was playing insurgency: sandstorm and for a couple of seconds I was looking for an anomaly in a modern war sim🤣 scared the piss out of me
So glad to hear new people who are loving the STALKER universe. I’ve got over 700 hours in the original trilogy and never expected to get another iteration of the game. I’ve not had much time to play, but it’s been worth the wait.
Pc player here, at first I was immensely fusterated with the performance of STALKER 2, getting 30-60 fps with high latency but with each update and with some patches I was getting 70~100+ fps depending where I was. I finished the game with only one crash and that was my fault (I dropped 100 bandages 70 breads and the rest of my entire inventory and just threw a grenade at the stack to see what would happen.) Anyways I had a GREAT FANTASTIC TIME WITH THE GAME so I recommended it to my friend, a casual gamer who has never touched a STALKER game, I wanted to see his initial reaction so he live streamed it from hisXbox, and I was amazed at how well it ran with such graphics settings! He also loves the game and is having fun learning that you can't play this game like fallout just standing around mag dumping folks, you actually have to plan and CANT take every fight. I love this game, currently doing my NG+ playthrough
This game is all I can think about lol. I feel the same way I played it the night it dropped and sadly to say out loud I have over three days of game time. I get off work and just rush home to play this game. I am genuinely enjoying it
Absolutely worth trying to play stalker gamma to get like proper stalker feeling. PC only though
So it's the day after Christmas and I believe there's been three updates in the last two weeks to stalker 2 on the Xbox and it's running pretty damn smooth. Yeah it still got some funny glitches as well as some frustrating ones but I noticed a massive uptick in the performance in the last two patches. Even on day one this game still had less issues than any Bethesda game or cyberpunk 2077 on launch. The world and the content within to explore is second to none and definitely a worthy sequel that was worth the wait.
Also the American version of the old man’s “puzzle” would be reassembling a completely torn down ar15 bcg
The next gen patch for Fallout 4 felt so malicious with Fallout London coming out, and them not even fixing half of the problems they introduced with that update, on top of all the great mods that were ultimately lost because of it. Fast forward, and now there's whispers of an Oblivion Remake coming out, right when that huge Oblivion mod is nearing completion. It's just crazy how often they secretly step on their own communities toes, especially when that comminuty is one of the main reasons that people still play their games.
yeah post patch my voice audio is busted sounds echoy and synthetic like robotic. i’ve checked settings idk what happened sounds so erry man. im still gonna play tho.
8:43 there is a mod that adds more items that can be looted , and that mod also adds some consumable like more pills and some healing items that are balanced with effects like drunkenness, etc . Its called Project itemization
There is also a mod that adds repair bundles that are quite heavy and repair your equipment for around 10-20% ,but they also can cost a bit
Completely agree about the bandages and med packs. I always seemed to return to base with several times more than I had left with, no matter how many fights I had been in. As 95% of the loot in the game is not particularly exciting, I also think they should cut down the frequency of it all to make it more impactful when you actually find it. Smashing open a create to find a loaf of bread to add to the 100 already in your inventory is significantly less satisfying than it would be if you're on the brink of starvation and it's first morsel of food you've seen in an hour.
Things I think stalker 2 needed or should have had:
1.A skill tree to increase things like health, movement speed, jump height, stealth, and carry weight. (Exp would provide a reason to sleep in the game because sleeping would give you an exp boost while well rested.)
2.More variation to the effects and buffs that artifacts provide so they are more than defences stat sticks. Stuff like low gravity jumps, or environmental effects like being shocked heals you type of stuff. (Really disappointed with the artifacts system. So much wasted potential here. This is my main gripe with the game.)
3. Improved worth from stashes or less stashes that have just loot I would get off a random npc I killed. Stashes that don't provide an upgrade USB or unique gun/gunpart should have an item worth selling in them. like a Matryoshka doll that actually sells for the price listed on the item and not at 30% of the items price to vendors.
4. More unique items to find in the world such as Experimental Sircaa tech. New scanners, weapons, Maybe even long lasting stim shots in science labs that you can debate on selling or using for yourself to give yourself mutant like abilities. Cloaking, telekenisis, no fall damage, regeneration etc.
5. Upgrades to certain helmets or 1 piece suits to have nightvision or thermal vision.
6. The functionality to pay an npc or two to accompany you for a short period of time for added protection.
7. Portable Radio. I am not sitting near a radio to RP listening to music. I am on the go. walking for 18 miles trying to slug around my loot that has me over encumbered to the next town or personal stash. A little background music wouldn't hurt.
8. Vaulting or ledge grabbing. Some difficult to reach stashes seem like this should have been part of the game. That and just for general terrain traversal.
I am not finished with the game. Maybe some of the things I listed are already there and I have not found them. Even so, I am really hoping the modding community goes crazy with this game and adds a whole bunch of new and interesting things. I am not wise to the lore of the stalker world in general but it feels like the zone should have more to it. More creative and mind boggling things to find due to it's anomalous nature. Sorry if this was a little all over the place but I hope some people get what I am trying to explain and agree with me.
Lots of good Quality of Life here, especially the artifacts and stash loot. I found artifacts to be a bit to similar to one another, and the loot from stashes can be really upsetting at times. And of course, WE NEED NIGHT VISION! Adding it to a helmet is a good idea, I think.
I love the series, i remember finding this game at gamestop not knowing that i would fall in love with the series. I love that STALKER 2 has breathed a new life into the series and draw in so many new people. I really hope that we dont have to wait over a decade for the next game in the series though. Also i could be wrong, but i am pretty sure GSC went to the actual site where you can and took pictures and the like to recreate it.
6:45
Most of my ingame money goes to keeping my gear in working order, ammo and then Upgrading Equipment.
I just keep a small stockpile of looted foods and medicines in the 'stash' box to replenish my own needs selling off excesses...
A good stalker knows that Enough Dead Bandits= a number of spare medkits, bandaids and foodstuffs.
This is not a complaint, this is ingame resoursefullness
"Silhouette" by Sadsvit has been playing on repeat. It will appear in my 2025 Wrapped lol.
By the way, on 23 November 2022 the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSS RF) have reported that an attempt of diversion in Voronezh Oblast was prevented. FSS RF say that three members of Ukrainian nationalist forces were killed because they showed armed resistance. FSS RF showed a video with guns and identification signs (insignia) of this armed group.
But it turns out that the identification signs (insignia) are really from the video games. In particular from Call of Duty and Freedom (Svoboda) group from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. And the guns from the video are obviously the Airsoft guns.
So basically Russian Security killed three people just because they played Call of Duty and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
The problem with buying a new weapon instead of repairing is you loose all your mod upgrades. Some mods increase the weapon resilience. Also there is a mod to reduce the weight of the weapon significantly, allowing you to carry more loot, which makes you better able to afford repairs
The overabundance of med kits and bandages on bodies when looting is pretty much how i got through the game. I suffered a bug 75% through the game where I'd constantly get psi damage. When I finally looked into it to see if it was a bug or a feature, it was too late. I was already like 4 hours past that point. Saved the few psi blockers for important events, otherwise my Skif kept healing with med kits like a junkie.
I enjoyed the game. It just bothers me that they chose to fix glitches like infinite sprint and higher carrying weight over story breaking glitches.
One time, I played this game after work for about 4 hours. And when I turned it off, I caught myself thinking-I hadn’t completed a single mission. Not one. I played for nearly 4 hours, not because I was grinding, but because it was genuinely fun. This is the first game that managed to do that.
Super high quality content. You nailed the video essay/review format.
Since i have seen you hit boxes with your gun in this video here a quick tip: Hitting things with your gun makes them take durability damage (some guns lose 1% after just 4-5 hits even). So always switch to your knife for hitting boxes open.
Yoo really?! Just learned I can fully destroy boxes, and now this lol. Awesome!
As a big fan of the originals, Stalker 2 has done everything I could have wanted and more, the end section of the video hit a bit hard as I bought the ultimate edition and even playing through release and beating the game just before the A-life update hit, I still partially regret not having the money set aside for the reprint of the physical ultimate edition even if it was $400~ish USD. It's a buggy mess and ive encouraged people to wait for some further updates but even then its perfect for everything I could have wanted out of it. I'd highly encourage taking a look at the map that came with it, few fun tidbits on it that are interesting.
Also, after getting your enjoyment from the originals taking a look at what the modding community did over the past years. There's a good few conversion mods for the originals, Misery being a notable one but also Anomaly, which is stand alone all in one conversion that was made with approval from GSC with the story elements removed or rewritten and being a community update to the engine to help modernize it a touch with its own mods. At which point GAMMA is a great experience that pushes just being "Someone in The Zone just trying to get by." Good hunting stalker.
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Side Note, I'd also recommend watching "Why STALKER Matters" by Ephemera if you're interested a bit in the history before and around the release of the original games, and some talk on the inspirations backing the games, as watching it just after the War Games documentary made it hit just a little bit more.
Stalker 2 is basically fallout if it was actually a good game
I’m about to finish Call Of Pripryat for like the tenth time this week, last completion date? Last night. I’m that ready to jump in again. Visually I adore stalker 2 already because it’s more the color palette of COP my favorite. The one thing I will say I LOVE about this series is how emergent the gameplay gets. Some things I do out of necessity or otherwise end up feeling as good and cinematic as the more structured cousin the metro games. MOVING THRU THE ZONE FEELS DAMN GOOD.
The thing about tanky mutants or any NPC in the game that MOST of the time you don't have to kill them if you don't have strict mission to do so. There are no XP points and you barely loot the same you spent on killing. The game wants you to run and even awards you once. You are not the main character but the Zone is. She existed before you and will last after.
Fitting voice, easy to watch, i like
A life still not working correctly on Xbox brother 😂
I'm late in the main story and I see groups of 5 to 8 random faction exo stalkers spawning like 20 feet away from me
I regret my wording there. I should’ve said it’s “working”, but not perfectly. I definitely noticed a change in A-Life, and I saw the ZoneSlug videos following stalkers and bandits around, but I never tested it on Xbox and only played for 3 hours. I’ll eventually make a list of corrections in the pinned comment.
@SpooofWithThreeOs ats fine brother the thing is for some it work better for some worse.
But main thing is we all enjoy STALKER
Oh my fellow Stalker beginner, you wanna play Stalker G.A.M.M.A and trust me, it's gonna blow your mind. I wouldnt say it's better than 2, but man does it bring some much-needed systems that i wish the sequel gets later on. Whats more, gamma is completely free.
Sweet video, happy you're enjoying the games.
Ignore the bots & the people saying you suck at the game. I’m good at games and feel awful at accuracy on Stalker 2 😂 great video dude. You hit a lot of the nails on the head
OG Fallout was Bleak, Depraved, Ominous, and Immersive! Bethesdas Fallout is Bright Colors, Bubblegum, Rainbows, and 3 Stooges humor! It’s fucking pathetic
I think that’s why I liked Fallout 3 more, because even though it was GREEN AS HELL, it wasn’t Fallout 4 levels of absurdity. Why is there a damn near functional theme park in my nuclear apocalypse?
@ 3 and NV are solid but 4 and 76 are a complete joke
Excellent video my friend, keep it up!
This game respects what came before it and understands the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. vibes so well. GSC will get it patched up and once A-Life is made right completely the game will be incredible. I think they nailed the immersion very well and legitimately care about this game. Give us binos lol.
I have never held a gun in my live, but even I can assemble the AK from that scene. It's just a hand full of parts xD I had pens with more parts. I expected Skif to ask "If you struggle with this little pieces, how do you plan to solve bigger puzzles?"
“The AK is so simple, children can and do use them!”
-I forgot who said this
I so agree with your feeling of this game, ain't gonna give any example a chance to be a better one than the other, i just love this game all over ! Nice footage, i'm only half way though
it's super nice that you've had a nice experience but for my play through Korshenov has had two seperate bugs where he straight up teleports away after a cutscene which makes the game unable to progress. To fix this I had to mod the game to use console commands and force the game to work after a lot of googling. A-Life is nice, the extra fast loading is nice, the enemies spawning in from further away is nice but I kinda wish I could just finish the story. (All of these are after the big patch too :/)
Stalker trilogy players had a long time to play the old games, so we all have our own ideas on what's "Correct" on how enemies should be balanced. While this isn't fair on 2, it still proves a valid perspective.
2 has a problem with bullet sponges. Mutants only feel challenging until you get the hang of their patterns and attacks, at which point it just feels like a boring 5 minute slog emptying your resources and weapon condition
Bloodsuckers for example; they *should* be glass cannons, because their whole concept is based around stealth and "backstabbing". They do good damage, hard to spot and even harder to hit. They do not ALSO need to take a whole box of ammo to kill on top of that, because it draws the fights out for way too long.
Counter point to myself: Mutants don't give rewards, and are spongy. This makes it feel like game is actively discouraging players from fighting, but to actually pick your fights and avoid them.
I agree with this to a degree, and see it a valid design point. But it's also not a very engaging way to play, in my personal opinion. I have guns, there are monsters. I wanna shoot them
And if the game wants to encourage me to avoid enemies; make it because they are actually dangerous. Not because I can't be arsed holding down LMB long enough :(
For boss fights I was using different weapons, for Faust - F-1 grenades (after I destroyed emitters), for Korshunov - RPG-7 and machinegun for close combat, for Strilets - M203 grenades, for Scar - Kharod
for some mutants to need to keep tempo and fill them with lead non-stop, I suspect they can also recovering with time
I like the playing of all of the characters, Richter, Scar, Korshunov, Strilets, Faust, etc - I believe them, I understand them
Many also dont know the meaning behind the word Stalker
A Journey alone thro a dangerously unknown area that is being explored.
This indeed is the better or Fallout that Everyone wanted.
And even the Old ones I played once more to update before playing Stalker 2
Kind of wish we had more Survival elements like from Stalker Gamma Mod.