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S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl ⚠️|☢︎T|⚠️ Don't Be a Menace to Bloodsucker While Trying to Catch an Olive in The Zone

Crackly audio on series x opening cut scene and first couple minutes of gameplay. After seeing other posters having multiple issues will give this a few more patches yet before playing. Shame was looking forward to playing tonight
 
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rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Yeah probably best to just wait a few months
15 years of dev didn't fix this game and neither few months will.
Just play it if you want to play it.
It's stalker. of course it's broken mess. That's the stalker for you. How could anyone who played the first game expect something else?
For me, I don't want to play love letter to ukraine or anything even remotely reminding me of real life war and politics.... but I should probably put it aside and try it.
 

Zuzu

Member
The motion blur setting on the Series X seems to be broken. When I try to change it to anything else other than "Low" it seems to reset back to "Low" when I open up the options again. It's not running anywhere close to a consistent 60fps. Rather it's mostly fluctuating from 50-60fps.
 

BigLee74

Member
Playing on the XSX. It’s Stalker alright, and the map looks very big.

But this is not 60fps. It’s right in that zone that will give me a headache if I play it for too long!

Graphics also particularly underwhelming so far, but I’m just in the initial swampy area.
 
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GymWolf

Member
It's an unforgiving game, but the moment-to-moment play isn't strong enough to make you want to persevere. Even when weapons work, combat underwhelms because of damage inconsistency and subpar enemy AI. Remember when three guys spawned out of another guy? That's because they're a hive mind, and they all have the same ideas and pathing, so they often end up in the exact same spot as they move and shoot.


If you climb to the top of a tower during a fight, enemies will eventually bunch up at the base of the tower and throw grenades at themselves, which is a great way to conserve your limited ammo. If one does land a grenade next to you, there's no warning indicator, so good luck with that. On the flip side, they will shout, "I'm hiding here" when they're trying to hide from you, which is nice of them.


Any feedback on enemy ia and how broken it is? That's the deal breaker for me, even more than some bugs here and there.
 

Gonzito

Gold Member
Guys is it me or the controls are weird? They feel unresponsive and there is some sort of input lag

I am using a controller on pc, something doesn't feel right
 
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Puscifer

Member
Wow, the game sounds straight up broken.

  • Performance is terrible, even with a 4090 using DLSS Performance
  • Awful texture pop-in.warping
  • Lighting is regularly busted
  • Reflections are glitchy
  • Light sources often don't work correctly (many areas that are clearly supposed to be properly lit are just black as if there's no light on)
  • NPCs and objects often glitch and just float in mid-air
  • UI elements flicker in and out for no apparent reason
  • NPCs will regularly stand on top of eachother during cutscenes
  • Weapon audio cuts out regularly and just straight up doesn't make any sound
  • Positional audio is completely borked and is completely inaccurate
  • Enemy AI is poor
  • When you complete an objective, it oftentimes won't update in the UI so you are unable to see that it's actually been completed
  • Map markers are regularly inaccurate (such as where stashes are, etc..), leading you to completely inaccurate locations
  • Stealth is totally busted; enemies can see you through walls
Mind you there was a massive patch Day 1, I'm curious if it alleviated much of this, if any. Guess I'll figure out after work? Can anyone ITT comment on current performance?
 

GymWolf

Member
Guys is it me or the controls are weird? They feel unresponsive and there is some sort of input lag

I am using a controller on pc, something doesn't feel right
Acg said that he had to fiddle with the controller settings to get it right, someone asked to him top ost his settings so we can copy them.

Hopefully he is gonna post his settings.
 

Kvally

Member
And I died.

jorma taccone i hate this game GIF by The Orchard Films
 

Luipadre

Gold Member
You cant change the deadzone and its incredibly low by default which i prefer, but if you have a slight drift on your controller it shows and my xbox controller has it.

Also



Hopefully they will patch in more controller options. Deadzone settings are a must
 
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clarky

Gold Member
Anyone got decent controller setting on PC? First impressions are actually decent but holly molly at dat input lag.
 

Gonzito

Gold Member
Yeah I cant play like this. My character moves as if he was drunk or something.

The controls are absolutely abysmal
 
As expected, I'm gonna need a new rig for this one. Doesn't feel smooth at all on either the Xbox SX or my PC. I'll have to pick this up in a few years once I've got funds for the upgrades.
 

clarky

Gold Member
Yeah I cant play like this. My character moves as if he was drunk or something.

The controls are absolutely abysmal
Doesn't feel good at all does it?

First impressions rapidly going down hill. Getting 20+ second freezes every now and again. I was expecting jank but this is another level. Shame as the underlying game seem right up my street. I'll not refund it but its getting one more session in the morning to gt better then its probably on the back burner for 6 months.
 
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Played for roughly two hours on mostly epic graphics settings; DLSS quality, frame gen set to auto. Running great so far (avg 120fps). Playing on m&k as God intended, no input lag to report.

My first few minutes of playtime were awful. I had some insane graphics flickering going on. Luckily, a restart solved it and haven't seen that since.

LOVING the atmosphere. They've exceeded my expectations. I'm still too early to properly judge the gameplay. Only thing I can say is that combat feels super rough, but it's Stalker, so it's probably just due to weak starter gear. I'm thinking hard about upgrading to the ultimate edition.

My specs for those curious: 4090, 64gb ram, i7 13700k
 
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amigastar

Member
Played for roughly two hours on mostly epic graphics settings; DLSS quality, frame gen set to auto. Running great so far (avg 120fps). Playing on m&k as God intended, no input lag to report.

My first few minutes of playtime were awful. I had some insane graphics flickering going on. Luckily, a restart solved it and haven't seen that since.

LOVING the atmosphere. They've exceeded my expectations. I'm still too early to properly judge the gameplay. Only thing I can say is that combat feels super rough, but it's Stalker, so it's probably just due to weak starter gear. I'm thinking hard about upgrading to the ultimate edition.

My specs for those curious: 4090, 60gb ram, i7 13700k
Don't you mean 64gb of ram?
 

Dice King

Neo Member
Makes sense as to why they made the review embargo this late. A lot of these reviews are just saying to play the game at a later time lol.
 

Gonzito

Gold Member
I have fixed the controller sensitivity by using DS4 windows and increasing the default deadzone to around 0.50 on the left stick

Maybe this information help some of you
 
Makes sense as to why they made the review embargo this late. A lot of these reviews are just saying to play the game at a later time lol.

Yeah, I think it'll be similar to the Cyberpunk release. Those who had solid gaming rigs were able to play through it without many issues. Everyone else was in struggle city.
 
I only had a few moments to play the very beginning at lunch but..... am I missing something..... the first interior you run to is PITCH BLACK and I dont have a flashlight. how the hell am I to navigate here?
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Some SX pics and impressions.

- Controls are definitely very floaty, they need to change or add deadzone settings in the options.
- The night segment the game drops you in is so fucking dark. The flashlight barely covers 5ft in front of you.
- Running into combat at night is fucking hard, lol.
- Frame rate is wobbly at the starts but seems better in the actual open zone.
- The image quality is surprisingly very good even in Performance mode. If you change between Quality and Performance, you can see the entire world drop out and re-render in front of you lol, it's very trippy.
- I guess if someone doesn't have a VRR display, playing in Quality would make more sense cause it seems very 'stable' at 30, but it's a shooter so I'm sticking with VRR-60.


S-T-A-L-K-E-R-2-Heart-of-Chornobyl-Windows-Edition-2024-11-20-19-43-13.png


S-T-A-L-K-E-R-2-Heart-of-Chornobyl-Windows-Edition-2024-11-20-19-43-44.png


S-T-A-L-K-E-R-2-Heart-of-Chornobyl-Windows-Edition-2024-11-20-19-49-12.png


S-T-A-L-K-E-R-2-Heart-of-Chornobyl-Windows-Edition-2024-11-20-19-30-10.png
 
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Bry0

Member
Some SX pics and impressions.

- Controls are definitely very floaty, they need to change or add deadzone settings in the options.
- The night segment the game drops you in is so fucking dark. The flashlight barely covers 5ft in front of you.
- Running into combat at night is fucking hard, lol.
- Frame rate is wobbly at the starts but seems better in the actual open zone.
- The image quality is surprisingly very good even in Performance mode. If you change between Quality and Performance, you can see the entire world drop out and re-render in front of you lol, it's very trippy.
- I guess if someone doesn't have a VRR display, playing in Quality would make more sense cause it seems very 'stable' at 30, but it's a shooter so I'm sticking with VRR-60.


S-T-A-L-K-E-R-2-Heart-of-Chornobyl-Windows-Edition-2024-11-20-19-43-13.png


S-T-A-L-K-E-R-2-Heart-of-Chornobyl-Windows-Edition-2024-11-20-19-43-44.png


S-T-A-L-K-E-R-2-Heart-of-Chornobyl-Windows-Edition-2024-11-20-19-49-12.png


S-T-A-L-K-E-R-2-Heart-of-Chornobyl-Windows-Edition-2024-11-20-19-30-10.png
“Another one lost to the zone”

😂 I love it.
 

kittoo

Cretinously credulous
I am definitely interested in it but will wait a few days. Seems like an amazing game hidden beneath the bugs. Let them cook a bit more.
 

SJRB

Gold Member
Bro I cannot get over the US and UK accents. Why did they do this?

The player character sounds like the biggest douchebag they could find. I hate this.
 
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