S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl's world is fraught with danger and anomalies

The original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. originally went under a lot of radars when it first released, but it quickly became a gem of its era. At the time, GSC Game World was an unknown studio from Ukraine, but the team's first game became a phenomenon in its home country and a beloved hit among the PC gaming world. The highly-anticipated sequel was set to release several years ago, but real life intervened in a number of ways. Following a global pandemic and a hostile foreign invasion, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is finally ready to release and Shacknews recently had the opportunity to check it out.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl takes place in the same setting as the original. Chornobyl is recovering from a second nuclear blast, which has turned it into a nearly uninhabitable region known as the Zone. Players take on the role of an all-new Stalker named Skif, who has taken on a job from an unseen client. This gig takes him close to the heart of the Zone where players must measure the strength of the area's anomalies. The job eventually goes sideways, forcing Skif to try and find his way as a mercenary in a wild and hostile land with few potential friends and a whole lot of people who could become an enemy at any given time.

It's clear before long that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl plays like its predecessor in many ways. It's a first-person shooter with survival elements set in a robust open world. Weaponry and resources are scarce, death will come quickly after taking just a few shots, and the world is covered in nuclear anomalies that can rip any nearby organic matter into atoms within seconds. One thing to note is that while the formula feels similar to the original game, Heart of Chornobyl looks much crisper, thanks to Unreal Engine 5.

When GSC Game World announced that it would restart development on this previously canceled project, the team said it would do so using Epic's game engine, and the results are clear. They're even more noticeable near the end of the prologue, where Skif is tasked with measuring an active anomaly in the middle of a fierce thunderstorm with a supplied scanner. As players wander through the game's crystal clear weather effects, they'll hear the warning signs of heightened radioactivity, something they should expect to hear a lot over the course of this game.

By the end of the prologue, Skif finds out he has been betrayed by a man named Solder, which leaves him in the middle of Heart of Chornobyl's vast open world with no weapons and few leads for where to go next. Survival means scavenging through caches (or corpses) for any kind of supplies, like food, water, weaponry, ammo, bandages, and radiation pills, but such pockets of essentials are few and far between. The first priority would be to find safety, which meant trekking across the world to a colony near the middle of the game's massive map.

Hub towns are filled with helpful characters (so long as you put away your gun first), but they also provide a peek into Heart of Chornobyl's faction system. A military faction known as the Duty is looking to keep order in the town while an underground group of rebels look to operate under their gaze. Upon reaching the town, both share a common goal of finding an escaped Stalker named Squint, but each have their reasons for seeking him out. Players can opt to assist either side in finding Squint, but it's possible that this will make at least one of those factions less friendly in the future. There wasn't quite enough time during our playthrough to see how the faction system plays out, but many people in the town have side quests to offer and can be left disappointed if Skif doesn't deliver.

There was an interesting twist in how I approached this. I had somehow agreed with both the bartender Warlock and the Duty commanding officer that I would bring them Squint. I would imagine that at some point, a choice would need to be made as to who to hand him over to, assuming Squint doesn't end up dead. Of course, the Zone being as unforgiving as it is, this scenario never wound up playing out.

That's because S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl provides a healthy challenge. Part of it is because of the scarce resources, but there's more reason than that why this game will put players to the rest. Enemies in the game are tough as nails, whether they're roving marauders traveling in numbers, highly durable mutants, unkillable zombies, or even simple dogs. Yes, even dogs can be challenging to take down, because their swiftness allows them to dodge bullets with no trouble and when I had so few bullets at the ready, I ran out of ammo quickly.

The other thing to note is that GSC Game World is working with a sophisticated character AI system. Whether it's in any hub world or out in the Zone, every character has a routine that unfolds over the course of the day-night cycle. This means players can learn where to find specific characters during different times of the day. Some characters will even walk and talk, though most of the people I tried this with simply said they weren't interested in chatting at that moment.

That ties back to the game's challenge, as the higher-level AI also extends to combat. As noted earlier, anomalies can tear anything that steps into their vicinity to shreds. The only way to get through them is to toss a bolt, watch the explosion, and run past it before it reactivates. After getting mauled by dogs more than once in my search for Squint, I got an idea where I would run into the camp and lure the dogs into the nearby anomaly, saving precious ammo in the process. The dogs, as it turns out, aren't dumb. They'll give chase, but as soon as they see the anomaly, they'll turn around and go back to their posts in the camp.

Heart of Chornobyl expects players to die and expects them to die a lot. The game will keep an active death counter. Is that to taunt the player? Maybe a little bit, but it's more about motivating the player to try different approaches. After getting mauled by the dogs nearly a dozen times, I finally tried something else, going around and scaling one of the camp's outside walls. This allowed me to finally enter one of the empty buildings to find the person I needed to find. It turns out this person has information on Squint, but also isn't about to let me leave alive. There's an option to pay to walk away peacefully, but I was flat broke, thus necessitating violence. With the few rifle bullets available to me, I was narrowly able to survive 1-on-3 against these hostiles. I was about to fist pump triumphantly until I saw that the noise attracted the attention of the dogs outside, who proceeded to run inside and maul me yet again.

That's the essence of what's going to make S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl so much fun. The potential for water cooler stories is high and with so many possibilities for who to help, who to talk to, who to anger, who to befriend, and such a high number of ways for side quests and missions to go south, it makes Heart of Chornobyl the best kind of video game experience. It's the kind of experience that can be shared with friends and where nearly every story will be different. This is before even discussing aspects of the game I haven't experienced, like the possible weapon combinations and the different varieties of mutants.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is finally ready to tell its story when it releases on PC and Xbox Series X|S on Wednesday, November 20.

This preview is based on an Xbox Series X|S build played at a closed press event in Culver City, CA. The final product is subject to change.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?