Preface to the Review with my history of where this Review comes from:

Lemme preface this by saying regardless of what my steam profile says I've been playing Stalker for about 2 decades now. I got a pirated copy of the alpha back in the day and had my friends join a baseline server (IT WAS SO SMALL RAN SO SMOOTH) and was amazed at that broken mess at the time and even considering how much of a mess it was, how jacked up clear sky was trying to be the promise STALKER SOC was supposed to be. Then when STALKER CAP came out it was finally a little more stable but not what was promised.

Then the modding community took the ♥♥♥♥ over, MISERY, CALL OF CHERNOBYL, CALL OF THE ZONE, DEAD SKY, DEAD AIR, COMPLETE 2009, OGSR, NLC 7, LOST ALPHA, and honestly ANOMALY, and finally ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ G.A.M.M.A.
G.A.M.M.A. was THE game changer A single modder named Grok through sheer will programmed a launcher that pulls from MODDB 444 (at this time of writing) mods together from hundreds of different modders work, insuring it gets the most up to date mods, and slaps those ON TOP of ANOMALY. Grok myself stands on top as the sheer effort he's put into organizing the best of the best the SKYRIM community or any other community should really study this because the STALKER community and Him alone FOR FREE MIND YOU is a testament to what a game with moddability and the support of the developers AFTER SHUTTERING THEIR DOORS, was able to make this in all honestly rival Stalker 2's graphics alone.

This to me though it's set in the future is exactly what was promised from the first STALKER. Sure I have a 5950 Ryzen and a 4080 and 32gigs of ram so take that into account on why I feel such a way and I'm not going to be someone complaining because I'm trying to run this game at 60fps with a gtx 1070 expecting the GSC team to have the same coders as ID does to make DOOM run smooth on any s h I t box machine.

Next f u c k i n g level, shaders are well done and god rays/moon rays what have you, aren't over saturated.
To me feels alive when it does and then desolate when it needs to as well giving you a sense of great immersion and paranoia when you hear shots in the background or an anomaly activating nearby. The fact that when you get drunk to get rid of radiation but once you start to eat some bread and sausage you sober up is a *chefs kiss* nice touch. The game almost feels like they took the entire game and just put a new texture pack on it at time, the running of the dogs and patterns is the same, the boars, everything is just like the Trilogy.
AMAZING, when you have rad poisoning, hit by a grenade, losing consciousness all are considered when the work, yourself, anything is happening. TOP NOTCH JOB. Music comes in when needed leaves when not.
Distinct lack of CYKA and lack of CHEEKI BREEKI is noted. I play on Local Vocals and English subtitles.
There humans, do a decent job of using tactics and that appears at least to reflect whatever factor you’re facing, bandits have light armor and sawed off shotguns so distance they are trash, the military/SIRCAA/Monolith/MERCS are a force to deal with and comes with heavy guns, heavy numbers, heavy armor.
I got the deluxe edition and pre-ordered (FOR SHAME I KNOW!) Kinda felt a little ripped off because I got it exclusively to start the game off with better gear, but that’s not really spelled out or just given from your first task master you have to find on your own, which....you’ll find soon trying to ID X specific DELUXE PRESALE STALKER STASH isn’t really labeled and probably would be immersion breaking. So I felt a little burned on that but, regardless in the end I don’t feel to let down even though with the delays because of...you know THE WAR...AND ALL. I wanted to support a studio that much like the Zone itself, endures no matter what.
Sound

I can live with a light ruck sack so I don't get fatigued but trying to upgrade your gear is not going to happen until you start finding the exact artifacts people are looking for and you will be dealing with just having broken guns for a while. Seriously the economy as it is makes no sense $17k is what your stuff is worth at 100% but sells at max for $2k, med kits $144. It forces you to be a pauper and well fix your situation in other ways.

Mutants/Animals: GSC learned a little and made sure to stop people from being lil babies and made almost EVERY THING THAT’S A TRUCK OR ABOVE GROUND be full of radiation, this forces you off the truck or rock what have you to engage the enemy, however the enemy is built like a Komatsu D355A and you’ll learn how to run better because of this ORRRRR if you happen to get above ground the AI now instead of running around now has been programed to just hide behind a fence, run into buildings, or hide behind trees. I like this dynamic to a degree but then their sheer ability to just NO that you’ve jump off the tire and come running out the gates make the tactics used kind of irrelevant to me. Nice touch for people who wont notice but....ehhh I understand.
not so much, they’ll come literally like zombies to their own deaths at time forgetting their literally walking on their buddies backs instead of just trying to through grenades through the windows. That and some also have 100% accuracy at 500 yards for guns that once taken HAVE NO SCOPES so.... immersion breaking.

Literally Grok the dude I mentioned before within 24 HOURS RELEASED A MOD TO OFFSET THE BLOODSUCKER/POLTERGEIST so that you could actually kill them, then a hey let my gun not become garbage after 10 shots then costing $10k to repair, then a mod to lessen ALL ENEMIES lives, more lethal guns, THE ABILITY TO SELL BROKEN GEAR. These mods have kept me coming to the game and as of this writing 243 deaths on veteran with these mods loaded. GSC will continue to work on this and the next most important mod I think would be a HEY LETS FIX THE TRADERS PIECE OF THIS.
8/10 Solid game with the bag for buck so far 59 hours as of this writing so $1.34 an hour I’ve played and to me that’s totally worth it. Mind you this is STALKER 2 AT ITS WORST. It will only get MORE REFINED, MORE OPTIMIZED, MORE MODDED. 2 Decades past and the OG trilogy has an INSANE cult following, this game is a love letter to that community and the fact that even with the teams literally struggles after the studio literally closed down 12 years ago and came back this is an epic win for the gaming community at a whole to have a game this large, this beautiful, and having the ability to have mods literally day 1 able to install and rock and roll.

You owe it to yourself to play this and enjoy truly one of the now great FPS’s of this generation in my opinion.