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[Redneckerz]

It didnt. It only affected its release dates. The game's code or lack of didnt suffer due to war lmao.

If anything this is one of the takeiest takes i have seen on GAF. GSC had the same issue as 4A Games had when they made their games - What with them being bombed and all. For 4A, it affected them significantly.

And here you are hard claiming it didn't for GSC - When, just like 4A, suffered real losses on the battlefield.

The reason why this take is so shit is that you are literally arguing against reality. Staff from these studios are literally out there defending their home turf and/or getting killed in the process. But here we have random forum user on the internet telling us that the game isn't affected by the war effort.

 

[winjer]

I forgot to put, "in Europe".

 

[Radical_3d]

If anything this is one of the takeiest takes i have seen on GAF. GSC had the same issue as 4A Games had when they made their games - What with them being bombed and all. For 4A, it affected them significantly.

And here you are hard claiming it didn't for GSC - When, just like 4A, suffered real losses on the battlefield.

The reason why this take is so shit is that you are literally arguing against reality. Staff from these studios are literally out there defending their home turf and/or getting killed in the process. But here we have random forum user on the internet telling us that the game isn't affected by the war effort.

Some people have their heads very up certain world leader’s asses to see anything. I say we award him with a personalised tag.

 

[clarky]

It didnt. It only affected its release dates. The game's code or lack of didnt suffer due to war lmao. Don't be ridiculous. Morals are down, but they received a ton of support, money, and time to finish the game.


That has nothing to do with the games development.


Don't be ridiculous. None of the devs claimed were emotionally impacted outside of one of their coworker dying in the war. If that were true, they'd stop developing the game completely if they were depressed or impacted by what was going on in the war.

What a bellend

 

[Kupfer]

Op, just imagine how good the game might already be when some people are enjoying it as it already is, yeah.. it is that good.

Not saying the game is bad per se and people shouldn't enjoy it, I'm saying it is way behind its potential and is missing promised features, which suggests that it is a downgrade.
Bugs on top, but that's to be expected from a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game, so that's not the issue.

 

[semiconscious]

I forgot to put, "in Europe".

certainly changes things a bit...

 

[Fess]

Honestly, I can't understand, even though I would like to claim the opposite, why the game is being received so positively.

I haven't played S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 myself

Not much else to add as far as I’m concerned. The game is currently stomping up my GOTY list, can’t stop playing

 

[Arsic]

Just to make clear, I'm a huge S.T.A.L.K.E.R. fan, I even write S.T.A.L.K.E.R. the right way everytime I mention it here.

 

[Jormatar]

I have sympathy for the devs due to the war going on in their homeland but at this point it's just a pattern with Xbox exclusives where their games get heavily downgraded from trailers to actual release.

It's just pathetic false marketing at this point and it makes consumers not trust anything they see in Xbox shows.

 

[Arsic]

I have sympathy for the devs due to the war going on in their homeland but at this point it's just a pattern with Xbox exclusives where their games get heavily downgraded from trailers to actual release.

It's just pathetic false marketing at this point and it makes consumers not trust anything they see in Xbox shows.

I think Hellblade 2 is a trash “game” but it looks exactly as advertised.

 

[mitch1971]

Dude, they did not develop the game in Ukraine lol. They were safe in Prague with Microsoft's backing.

So, MS paid for all their extended family to move away from the war as well?

 

[ProtoByte]

I interpret it as the "charm" cope people used to peddle about Bethesda games before they ran out of charm or got rid of the worst bugs, where the poor systems and gameplay mechanics that were excused before are laid bare.

Obviously, shoutout to the devs for developing at all given the circumstances. But the game is clearly unfinished. It would've been perfectly appropriate to just not release this until such a time that the war was over.

It shouldn't have been put out in this state. It's embarrassing how many people rushed to play a broken game, again.

 

[Kupfer]

Not much else to add as far as I’m concerned. The game is currently stomping up my GOTY list, can’t stop playing

I understand your point that, from your perspective, I am not able to judge the game. I'm fine with agreeing on that. However, that doesn't change the fact that the missing features mentioned in the OP are still absent, features that are deeply embedded in the DNA of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and made the game what it is. It can't be that the 17-year-old predecessor does things like flashlight shadows or life simulations in the game world better.

Your avatar is the second funniest I've seen on GAF so far

 

[poppabk]

Indeed.
I can't even imagine what it means for the developers to release this game right now, while perhaps friends, acquaintances, family, and colleagues are fighting and dying at the real front. One definitely wouldn't want to trade places with them.
The game was so heavily marketed, with promises made that were not kept, and as a possible customer of a product, I am put off by the state of the game.



Which improvements exactly have a positive impact on the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. franchise?
I mean, walking around and shooting random NPCs/animals/mutants? Ok. You also see cutscenes and scripted events now, but those were never important or defining for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
Lighting and shadows don't work, A-Life doesn't work, the voice acting doesn't work, controllersupport doesn't work properly and the AI in general is criticized.
Honestly, I can't really see much that the game does really well in terms of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series.


I'm not a programmer, but the OP from the reddit post claims there is no such thing like A-Life in the game if I understand the text correctly.


But that was absolutely clear when GSC decided to go with UE5, I just don't understand that.

You are not a programmer and have not played the game. So basically you are just spamming reddit posts.

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

It's been pretty common practice for a long time, which is unfortunate. I still like how the game looks overall, though... but yeah, they really need to add shadow cast lights back in, because that was a huge contributor to the atmosphere in the original games.

 

[phant0m]

I’m also a stalker fan, people are hyper fixating on these things and ignoring the plethora of improvements. Even with these issues it’s the best fps I’ve played in a decade. Too many people repeating criticism from reddit instead of trying the game themself. Still I would like to see patches and GSC is communicating pretty openly about things they want to address.

100% this. I certainly hope A-life improvements come but the combat alone is still 1000x better than the OG trilogy. I've got 8 hours played and really haven't had any game-breaking bugs. It crashed once, I've seen/heard some weird glitches but nothing that prevented or hampered progress. World is a billion times more interesting and full of content than anything else we've gotten from western devs in the last 2 years.

 

[Kupfer]

You are not a programmer and have not played the game. So basically you are just spamming reddit posts.

Pretty presumptuous of you to assume that I’m not allowed to gather information from various sources, compare them, draw conclusions, and then put those conclusions up for discussion, isn’t it? There have been many good and helpful responses in this thread, and players of the game have shared their perspectives, which I’m happy to include in my conclusion. But it doesn’t change the fact that the game is missing features that were previously advertised.

On Steam, the previously advertised A-Life 2 system was even removed from the feature description.


14th of November :

15th of November :

 

[phant0m]

We've got to talk.... about how good S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is!

you new? we don't talk positively about games here.

 

[Kupfer]

you new? we don't talk positively about games here.

We do here as well, but in a thread about proven downgrades, you can’t assume that the flawed product will be blindly defended here.
I myself wish for a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 that lives up to its promises, but as of now, that simply doesn’t exist.

EDIT
Just to make it clear: I’m not denying anyone the right to enjoy the game. Please don’t misinterpret the purpose of this thread.
But the game is not what it was supposed to be. Whether it will become that in the future, after updates, remains to be seen. I sincerely hope so.

 

[phant0m]

We do here as well, but in a thread about proven downgrades, you can’t assume that the flawed product will be blindly defended here.
I myself wish for a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 that lives up to its promises, but as of now, that simply doesn’t exist.

Wasn't talking about just STALKER man, GAF has been negative as fuck about almost everything for the last 8-12 months.

 

[Denton]

Some light sources not casting shadows is indeed a bad downgrade and I hope it will get added at least into the PC version,

but other than that, the game is (visually) very faithful to the trailers and not downgraded at all.

A-Life is another matter, hopefully it will get fixed, or at least the respawn system will get tuned to provide decent illusion of it.

 

[mayham2199]

I’m also a stalker fan, people are hyper fixating on these things and ignoring the plethora of improvements. Even with these issues it’s the best fps I’ve played in a decade. Too many people repeating criticism from reddit instead of trying the game themself. Still I would like to see patches and GSC is communicating pretty openly about things they want to address.

I haven’t played it by I agree with this. The OPs complaints are real and I do get it but if the rest of the game is fun a lot of that stuff can become trivial.

Its like path tracing in CP2077 looks incredible but I still love the game even without it.

 

[Esca]

I count it as a small miracle we even got the game considering the war. I'm willing to cut them some slack. They'll fix a lot of it I have no doubt. They have a lot of goodwill imo and people want to support them with everything going on

 

[R3TRODYCE]

The current game is dogshit.

Hopefully it’ll be good in a year.

 

[nemiroff]

It delayed the development time due to relocation and thats about it. They were safe to continue after. Nothing changed. The game would've come out the same even if there was no war.

 

[TintoConCasera]

I'm just happy to see a slavjank game doing so well.

Hope they keep patching it. Any word on mod tools? If not by them, I'm sure the community could fix a lot of the issues.

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

Just don't get bombed by Putin. Not that difficult, is it?

I do it everyday without even trying.

 

[ozz ex machina]

I'm just happy to see a slavjank game doing so well.

Hope they keep patching it. Any word on mod tools? If not by them, I'm sure the community could fix a lot of the issues.

There are already a LOT of mods. Lots just tweaking balance but some claiming to improve performance. I love stalker and put a lot of hours in gamma recently too. I'm gonna give it a month/few weeks and I suspect mods and dev patches will put this game in a much better state.

The one thing I think will be a long fix is the A-life being implemented/added. Which I suspect will be a big task.

 

[DaciaJC]

The issue with A-life seemingly not functioning is indeed quite disappointing - that system was one of the main draws of the original trilogy, after all. I knew full well the launch product would be replete with bugs and performance issues, that's to be expected from this series, but entire mechanics or features being absent or poorly implemented is something different altogether. I'm not able to start playing the game until later next week, but I'm wondering if perhaps it would be best if I held off for a few months instead.

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

What is A-Life? Haven’t started playing either yet.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Every stalker discussions :

It delayed the development time due to relocation and thats about it. They were safe to continue after. Nothing changed. The game would've come out the same even if there was no war.

 

[Edgelord79]

They had no issues making it nor any excuse outside of being forced to nuter a game to run on a weak console.

I hate it when they nuter games. No excuse for nuttering them.

 

[DaciaJC]

What is A-Life? Haven’t started playing either yet.

It's their AI system that governs the player-independent behavior of NPCs and wildlife in the open world. In the older games, for example, characters from opposing factions would get into firefights with each other and loot corpses, mutants would attack humans or other creatures, stalkers could explore anomalies (and get killed by them) or get caught out during an emission and return zombified - all of this happening in the background outside the player's influence, you could happen upon these events occurring in real-time or just the aftermath. You might encounter the body of a stalker you'd seen in town a few hours before lying in a field, shredded by a pack of pseudodogs - RIP!

Pretty presumptuous of you to assume that I’m not allowed to gather information from various sources, compare them, draw conclusions, and then put those conclusions up for discussion, isn’t it? There have been many good and helpful responses in this thread, and players of the game have shared their perspectives, which I’m happy to include in my conclusion. But it doesn’t change the fact that the game is missing features that were previously advertised.

On Steam, the previously advertised A-Life 2 system was even removed from the feature description.


14th of November :

15th of November :

That they straight up removed the entry for A-life from the store page description does not make me very hopeful that such a system properly exists in the game, and it's not the sort of thing you can exactly implement with just a quick patch or two. Sigh.

 

[unclbenn]

I can't wait to play the game but yeah, it's a big downgrade from that initial trailer 3 years ago. It looks like the software lumen implementation is broken too... Or maybe that's just how software lumen looks.

 

[MiguelItUp]

It feels like a lot of studios these days start with something huge and not possible, and then just chip away at it until it becomes something that is more feasible and functional. But GSC went through a whole lot, so, if anyone had any valid excuses, it's them. It's amazing that the game functions as well as it does after all they've been through. At least for some people. I'm sure the game will be in a much better state overall in a year and some change.

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

It's their AI system that governs the player-independent behavior of NPCs and wildlife in the open world. In the older games, for example, characters from opposing factions would get into firefights with each other and loot corpses, mutants would attack humans or other creatures, stalkers could explore anomalies (and get killed by them) or get caught out during an emission and return zombified - all of this happening in the background outside the player's influence, you could happen upon these events occurring in real-time or just the aftermath. You might encounter the body of a stalker you'd seen in town a few hours before lying in a field, shredded by a pack of pseudodogs - RIP!



That they straight up removed the entry for A-life from the store page description does not make me very hopeful that such a system properly exists in the game, and it's not the sort of thing you can exactly implement with just a quick patch or two. Sigh.

Thanks! Sounds like a more expanded system than what’s used in Days Gone. I loved the random stuff that happens organically in Days Gone.

 

[ReyBrujo]

Is it the new generation of console shooter players, people who aren't familiar with the old games

The same could be said about literally any franchise that has seen a reboot, from movies (didn't Spiderman started like 3 times in 20 years?) to anime (Daima? Goku small again?) to obviously games (all these remakes games). You just need to understand that and carry on.

 

[DanielG165]

It should've been a PC-only game and you know why.

Why, when the console build is overall more stable than the PC version is currently?

 

[SABRE220]

I have sympathy for the devs but the fact is they showed bullshit bullshot trailer from the beginning. The build they had for the trailer was never going to be deliverable on these consoles and they knew that.

 

[bundylove]

It's very difficult to make a game, while being bombed by Putin.

They were not in ukraine.
And no one should be after oreshnik attacks will comence that shit is scary.

I watched the reviews and gameplays but this game looks very incomplete.
My guess they just released it as is to save face and they will keep working on it with updates.
They should have just released a trial or beta for a month and then release the full game once ready.

Its sad cuz stalker was one of my favorite games also for nostalgia reasons growing up under russian occupancy.

 

[DavidGzz]

So, the game is a lot of fun. The only time I saw that situation where enemies were spawning after 12 hours of play time is when I attacked a base that was part of the main story line. You're not supposed to survive that shit and I was just fucking around after a quick save before retiring for the night so it didn't in bother me at all.

 

[SlimySnake]

I have sympathy for the devs but the fact is they showed bullshit bullshot trailer from the beginning. The build they had for the trailer was never going to be deliverable on these consoles and they knew that.

its not even on PC. it was a bullshot and i dont care if you have been bombed or nuked, there is no excuse for lying devs creating ubisoft style bullshots 8 months before the war even started!

also, they were touting A-Life in previews just weeks before launch. And it's literally completely broken. There is no way the devs, the publisher (not MS mind you) didnt know about this before launch, and still released the game a week before thanksgiving to take full advantage of black friday holiday rush. it's extremely dishonest and straight up what EA and ubisoft used to pull. Except ubisoft decided to delay their game out of the holiday window and EA shipped their most polished bioware title in history. So when you are literally worse than ubisoft and ea, you dont get to use war as an excuse.

If people dont want to blame the developer then fine, blame the publisher. Oh wait, they self published the game. no one forced them to release the game in this state. Kingdom come developers delayed their game. ubisoft delayed their game. ms delayed avowed. space marine 2 developers delayed their game from last year all the way to september of this year.

 

[Fess]

It can't be that the 17-year-old predecessor does things like flashlight shadows or life simulations in the game world better.

If that’s the case then we can hope they improve on that.

In the end the game is still fantastic despite those and other flaws. I’m quite blown away tbh, it’s all I’m playing right now, it has completely taken over.

I’m new to the serie and to me it’s a mix of genres, feels like playing a first person shooter variant of Skyrim/Fallout mixed with Elden Ring with some Resident Evil sprinkled on the top. It doesn’t do things perfectly and there is jank but the sum of all things gives you a brilliant and unique gaming experience you really get nowhere else. Except maybe in the older games I guess.

It’s especially great for open world fans, there is so much to see, the hand-crafted structure is superb, and there is so much to do, you get new quests everywhere and they’re mostly good. And even if the new life system is faked, or downgraded, the scenarios and action they throw upon you combined with the weather and area oddities gives a feeling that stuff happens in the game that you can’t control, it can make the simplest loot run interesting/exciting/haunting.

To dig a little deeper on the reception. It seems to have reached many new players and if you’re new you can’t feel the downgrades you talk about. So that can explain why there is so much positivity. And it’s not like all old fans are negative, I see lots of old players saying they absolutely love it as well. Plus old fans likely want their favorite dev to succeed too so might hold back on negativity. And then there is the war thing, the devs deserve a win. And having a big game like this on Gamepass will bring in positivity as well. And no woke nonsense or anything made for the mysterious modern audience that western devs are so focused on targetting even though that group seemingly don’t buy any games anyway.

Sum of all thing;
It’s great! It’s finally out! Enjoy!!

 

[Inviusx]

The removal of the A-Life 2.0 system is a huge downgrade, especially keeping it in the marketing until a week before release. If they weren't able to get it working with the extremely lengthy dev time they've had I can't see them having it ready in the next few weeks. It's either scrapped completely or pushed back to some unknown date in 2025, long after people have wrapped up their time with it.

What a shame.

 

[RPS37]

Bro has zero empathy.

 

[Imtjnotu]

It didnt. It only affected its release dates. The game's code or lack of didnt suffer due to war lmao. Don't be ridiculous. Morals are down, but they received a ton of support, money, and time to finish the game.


That has nothing to do with the games development.


Don't be ridiculous. None of the devs claimed were emotionally impacted outside of one of their coworker dying in the war. If that were true, they'd stop developing the game completely if they were depressed or impacted by what was going on in the war.

 

[Ozriel]

I can't understand who the current satisfied target audience is.

I don't want to ruin the game for anyone, but as a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. fan, I just wonder who is celebrating S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 right now and where the positive reviews are coming from. Is it the new generation of console shooter players, people who aren't familiar with the old games and are just getting a taste of the brilliance of the earlier titles and are now realizing what they've been missing, or is it the old S.T.A.L.K.E.R. fans?

I can't imagine it being the latter.

The only apt response:

You could read the Steam reviews to see positive impressions from longtime fans of the franchise. You could see from initial analysis of the geographical spread of players that a good chunk of players are coming from Eastern Europe where the franchise is popular.

But…”who is this for”?

 

[Ozriel]

It didnt. It only affected its release dates. The game's code or lack of didnt suffer due to war lmao. Don't be ridiculous. Morals are down, but they received a ton of support, money, and time to finish the game.


That has nothing to do with the games development.


Don't be ridiculous. None of the devs claimed were emotionally impacted outside of one of their coworker dying in the war. If that were true, they'd stop developing the game completely if they were depressed or impacted by what was going on in the war.

This may well be the most clueless thing I’ve read here in months. And the bar was fucking low.

Well done.

 

[Jesb]

This game should’ve been delayed again. A lot of people can’t even play it because of problems with controller compatibility. Me included.

 

[hyperbertha]

I’m also a stalker fan, people are hyper fixating on these things and ignoring the plethora of improvements. Even with these issues it’s the best fps I’ve played in a decade. Too many people repeating criticism from reddit instead of trying the game themself. Still I would like to see patches and GSC is communicating pretty openly about things they want to address.

The game is broken. Stop. It needs another 5 months in the oven atleast.