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Stalker 2 is possibly the best experience of a shooting focused RPG in a long while. Modernizing what was clunky with its predecessors whilst making the zone more beautiful and mysterious than ever before. While it does still (at the time of writing this) suffer from some occasional performance issues, none of these (baring one exception) have made the experience any less enjoyable.

For those not familiar with the series, STALKER is a sudo modern alternate reality where the Chornobyl power plants explosion occurred, scientists moved into the exclusion zone in order to perform experiments out of eyesight, then due to their meddling with the noosphere (basically an alternate plane of reality based on humankinds collective morality/emotion) cause a second explosion that warps and twists the reality of the zone.

It is into this setting that you are thrown into, and while fans of the series will recognize mechanics updated and refined from the previous games, STALKER 2 does a great job at introducing these mechanics to a newcomer at a reasonable pace to get them up to speed. The story does not require that the player have experienced the previous titles, but certain scenes , locations, and characters hit harder if you did.

The Zone is massive. truly dwarfing the size of previous games by combining functionally all previous maps, expanding the areas those maps comprised of in all instances, and adding entirely new regions on top of that. Plus regions that were previously "fudged" to make the story work have been updated to reflect their real world counterparts more closely. Exploring has never felt better.

The games limited survival aspects still feel mostly "tacked on". Eating food ends up being more of a "light heal" than it ever is for avoiding hunger. Sleep (newly added) does occasionally force you to rest and I suspect is a clever way the game allows certain areas to "reset" alongside emissions.

Ive seen some people criticize the implementation of the worlds ALife 2.0. For those unaware, Alife was functionally AI programming that made NPCs go out and act on their own accord with their own objectives. After playing through all 3 of the previous games, I can safely say that I think Alife was blown slightly out of proportion for how good it was via nostalgia. The reality is that previous games in the series either had functionally no AI (shadow of Chernobyl) or extremely trigger based ones that created the illusion of a smarter AI. This was most notable in Clear Sky where factions were actively at war and effectively fighting over predetermined places on the map. The Ai would send a squad to capture these points and radio calls could go out alerting the player to these attempts (both defending or attacking a point). This led to the world feeling more alive and active (if you ignored the seemingly endless manpower all the factions had). STALKER 2 does not have the faction wars in this sense and has reverted to SoC/CoPs "spawn AI at predetermined locations". where the AI will fight rivals they might encounter, but these are functionally scripted events. STALKER 2s initial problem was that the AI could spawn in so close to the player, the immersion of running into these fights was lost. While I do think it would be cool to implement some kind of faction war, I think the community at large is fooling themselves as to what "A-life" actually was.

STALKER 2 bills itself as a non-linear story and that is a half-truth. The game has 4 distinct endings, and 2 "faction paths" based on who the player aligns with during the campaign. these diverting mission paths do add some replay value, but it doesn't change the outcome and the story isnt as freeform as a traditional RPG game or even previous entries in its own franchise (CoP had endings that varied based on who you sided with and what quests you followed through on in the fashion of fallout new vegas end slides). Here, based on a very obvious binary tree, you get your ending choice. Nothing you've done prior, is brought up or made relevant, which feels like a huge miss for the wealth of side quests and chains the game has.

Despite these minor complaints, the sheer scope of the zone and its inhabitants simply make just wandering and exploration a treat. The comparable bethesda games pale in comparison with each location, despite being a collective of eastern European abandoned factories, warhouses, apartments, and so on, feel so real compared to the same copy and paste settlements of fallout 4. While the story is linear, its also the best presented in the stalker series by far, especially in the character department.

TL:DR
If you've never played a Stalker game, this is a great one to start with.

I want to start off by making it clear that I want to recommend this game. Most of the names working on it are people who I I know can make a good solid game.

I think someone nailed the problems with "Roblox Starcraft/Warcraft". To a degree, that makes sense. The people who are working on this game made those games, and therefor I would expect some influence and maybe a few cheeky nods to their previous works.

But as it stands, while the multiplayer seems relatively well balanced to start, the other elements of the game are struggling to escape its Starcraft DNA. From the "B.O.B.s quoting an almost identical voice lines, to the story having the exact same story arc as Warcraft 3 (except crammed into 6, honestly very small missions vs the 9 of Warcraft 3s human campaign) The dialogue isn't terrible but its extremely derivative. Like the choice was consciously made to be so in order to either invoke nostalgia or because of an unwillingness to write something new. It doesn't help that, as much as I think hes a good voice actor and chill dude, Chris Metzens Thrall voice immediately breaks any new immersion. The game Features an item inventory in the style of Warcraft 3, including half the icons literally looking like they should belong in Warcraft 3.

The co-op, likewise, feels like very early Starcraft 2 co-op. its the same system of "Pick a hero to get slight variations on the faction, grind to actually get to use those differences". Starcraft 2 started here but has long since evolved into very different and unique commanders vs the "minor tweaks to base game" factions they started with.

No in game tutorial, especially given how diverse the differences are between the factions, feels like a huge miss. The campaign preview does onboard you with the extreme basics of the most RTS familiar faction, but the lack of even just a "Meet the infernal host" in game rundown of "What does this faction do differently" would be massive considering just how different the factions play (especially the Celestial Host). No in game viewable tech-tree as far as I can tell. So you just have to kind of "Know" what techs will go to what.

No ability to manually save during single player or even restart a mission (requiring going the long way of quitting back to the menu and restarting there) are FUNDAMENTALS. Im sure theyll be included in the long run but it just really tells to me that the focus has been almost exclusively the multiplayer component when this core system isnt even implemented.

It just comes off as this very weird vibe where the developers are unapologetic about making a "Totally not Warcraft/Starcraft" sequel, but the amount of effort thus far (at least for the single player/co-op content) only comes up to about what I would call a really well developed Starcraft 2 custom map and while Starcraft 2 is now getting old its not like its gone, its still very much there to be compared and contrasted to. And while I would like to say that Stormgate could claim "Well, there have been no competitive RTS games so that'll be our marketing window" Age of Empires has been going strong, Northgard and Dune have been going strong, there are other RTS games with better content out there, and they didn't have a 40+ million dollar budget.

I'm still hopeful it can get there, and its early access so clearly they realize it needs more time too, but right now its "I can't believe its not Starfcraft"

"Community-generated inspiration
Victors and Vanquished features 14 scenarios inspired by the most popular community-generated content and 5 exclusive new scenarios. Each scenario has been updated and polished with full, professional voice acting, music, rebalancing, bugfixes, achievements, and quality of life improvements."

Microsoft is trying so hard here to not say that they copy pasted 14 scenarios from the workshop as paid DLC. they're doing this so hard they contradict themselves with these "Inspired" scenarios somehow being updated in order to make them the quality of other DLC scenarios, seemly trying to justify the copy paste but without calling it copy paste.

furthermore, it is factually untrue that "Each" scenario has been updated in the way described. All of them did receive voice acting (Clap please) but next to none of them received rebalancing, quality of life improvements, achievements, bugfixes, so on. Next to nothing was done. The effort was as minimal as possible.

This lack of effort is extremely notable in the 5 NEW scenarios. All have bugged AI tweaked to the highest difficulty despite the game difficulty being lower. The "Polish" on Otto is so bad the AI will tribute the resources you gave to them right back, allowing you to effectively cheese the mechanic, but you basically HAVE to do this because the rate that your allies drop is ludicrous compared to how many things you have to kill to push the clock up. You do, mercifully, get one of the few voice overs warning you when loyalty is low, but lack of voice overs announcing events (a standard of other campaigns) hammers home the theme of "minimal effort" for these NEW scenarios. Charlamagne is no better for a common fault with Phillys designs being "explore everything", literally locking you out of being able to complete unless you either cheat ahead to reveal the HUGE map and find the hard to spot 4 monks you need to get to the imperial age... all the while being attacked by an imperial age AI Berbers, its not a fun mechanic, you don't get any voice over telling you you've found them again, as with any of the other mechanics in the scenario other than your brothers death, which gives it, once again, an extremely rushed and untested feel. Robert at least has a limited voice over when mechanics are firing, but once again we have a slate of poorly tested and unrefined mechanics where other dukes make super alliances that cascade into 5v1s... unless you just play economy simulator and bribe them all to win, fairly easy given the 20+ relics on the map. After eliminating the Norse, there isn't any threat, these alliances are defensive pacts, and the ai seems incapable of declaring war. Nobunaga is perhaps the most boring where again, minimal in game voice events and mechanics that amount to "chose your uniques". Just to really drive home my point of "Low Effort". "Fetih", the last of the NEW scenarios, is literally a role reversal of "Constantine" where you besiege constantinople rather than defend it... on the exact same copy pasted map. Ironically this NEW scenario is the best fit for the advertised "Inspired by" as there are obviously massive differences in how it plays. Ultimately the copy pasted map underscores that the effort to make it was minimized.

As for the other 14 "inspired" scenarios, as workshop experiments that were free, they were ok. Some (Stephen, Komnenos, Mistlav) are actually quite good, but ultimately the others suffer from a desire to have the player explore to find stuff. Which would be fine if the maps weren't all the largest possible size. Travel time =/= fun or engaging, and many of these scenarios would have benefited from being broken down into 3 mission mini campaigns as opposed to time wasted epic trekking simulator. Many also include limited/altered economies which range from ok (Ironside, Ragnar) to just slow (Seljuk, Temujin) to aggravating (Karlselfni) again, waiting simulators are not fun.

TLDR: The new stuff was rushed and the poor quality shows, the old stuff wasn't updated (or at least was bare minimum). I'm fine with campaign content, I'm fine with 1 off scenarios. But for how much is being charged the advertised polish is simply not there and instead it feels like an extremely low effort DLC plagued by bugs and poor quality control.

Arrowhead has released another banger of a co-op game. For 40$ the game is an absolute steal considering how big of a step up it is over it's predecessors.

Who knew a rougelike with Victorian space trains was going to be one of my favorite RPGs this year.

Its taken awhile to get around to it, but Hunt deserves a real breakdown as to why it's so good.

Pros:

The sound design and application has spoiled me. Everything is can be heard by everyone. No noise is "ambient". If you heard something, something made that sound.

Gunplay can be both snappy but also slower paced. Headshots can be kills at almost any range with any gun but bullet speed can radically affect how easy these are to make. outside of headshots the games dedication to non automatic weapons of the time can lead to slower, more strategic fights. Even aggressive plays go at a fraction of the speed that CoD, Val, CSGO, and so forth go at. While some exceptions exist, this leads to more strategy and slower more aimed shots over the spray and pray of some other games.

Strategy can be extremely prevalent when both of the above are true. Learning to track other hunters on the map using sound clues, anticipate there movements, setting ambushes or avoiding conflicts where you can't afford one makes this more than your average Battle Royal.

The community is not normally something I'd comment on as a pro of a game. Most games with open mics my first instinct is to turn them all off to avoid the sewer of alpha chads, closet racists, and screaming children. I can, amazingly, say that the above is almost non existent. compared to every other shooter ive played this year where the first thing I hear is normally racist this is a WONDERFUL breath of fresh air. Voice coms are not only well behaved, but honestly lead to some of the best moments of the game with players negotiating or bantering in good sportsmanship. Chivalry exists in the Bayou.

High risk high reward. Hunts balance isn't in loadouts that air created equal. Rather players spend in game cash on the supplies and weapons they wish to take into a Hunt. these could range from 100$ cheep loadouts with basic low grade ammo or 2000$ loadouts using the "best guns" with the highest stats. But the catch is anyone can pick up the guns dropped by other players, so it's very possible to walk out with more value in gear than you walk in with. This helps highlight the tension already present with the sound design.

An active development team. The games content has continued to ramp up with patches introducing new guns, skins, events, all constantly being iterated on based on feedback and data. The game game has a consistently growing playerbase 4 years after its release which is virtually unheard of in shooter communities (most burn out within a year or two to be replaced by the same game with a new number).

Matchmaking feels correct. While there are sometimes issues, the different tiers within the ELO system showcase different behaviors that are visible (at least at the 3-5 star ranks in a 1-6 star system). 3 star matches tend to have far extremes with players running and gunning or crouch walking to try and stay hidden. 4 stars has the maps get noticeably quieter as players tend to avoid sound traps and are only loud when making haste or in active combat. 5 stars sees a map become almost silent outside of active combats with players dodging almost all soundtraps and using tools and traits to move silently and quickly across the Bayou. you can feel the skill difference even without encountering another player just by how loud the maps are.

Mid

While Hunts core gameplay loop is addicting, there isn't a lot of "progress" to push for. after grinding your profile to 100 you can prestige for some unique skins. but otherwise the game doesn't have many mechanics that encourage a set number of games a day. No battle passes or loot boxes here. Some first daily win bonuses and weekly rewards for streaks have improved the goals of playing more than once a day. But the daily and weekly "challenges" are horribly tuned (ranging from killing 7 ai mobs to extracting 3 specific boss tokens) and the rewards can feel EXTREMELY lackluster. Given how much more impactful the daily wins feel. The challenges need an overhaul pretty badly, ideally one that has more clear and better rewords.

Events have been coming and going with regular intervals. these are the closest the game has to battle passes from other games and Crytek is clearly still learning how best to implement them. The addition of earning points feels mostly natural within the core gameplay loop but it would be cool to see the developers try and branch OUT of the core gameplay loop and create new and interesting challenges for players to encounter (bosses roaming outside of compounds, multiple bosses, just something a little more daring then "loot the players you were already going to loot")

Cons

A steep learning curve with little (No) tutorial or in game assistance. I once, and would still, joke that Hunts tutorial is not only bad, but actively teaches bad behavior. Outside of your basic "find clues, check your map, find and kill boss, and leave" the tutorial provides NO OTHER INFORMATION. there are 3 different "levels" of tutorial, all of which are exactly the same thing. The rest of the information the game provides is limited to the loading screens coming into a match, some of which are even horribly outdated. The game doesn't teach you about different ammo, different AI mobs, different status effects (poison, bleeding, on fire, choking). It doesn't warn you what sound traps look like and just how audible all the noise is. It doesn't teach you that some guns eject a bullet in the chamber when reloading unless you reload after taking a shot. It doesn't teach you about bullet penetration or velocity. It doesn't teach you that guns share ammunition as long as its the same type. It doesn't teach your that thrown weapons/arrows do damage when retrieved from a living entity. It doesn't teach you about the different damage drop offs. It doesn't teach you about the different damage zones on hunters. Most importantly, because no hunters exist other than you in the tutorial, it doesn't teach you what hunters sound like. Thats a metric TON of information that has to be learned by playing, being taught, or seeking youtube videos from content creators filling the gap left by the lacking tutorial.

Poor in game information. This ties in with the lack of tutorial and only exacerbates the problems. Loadout and store screens contain dreadfully poor information on damage, drop off, penetration, ranges. No explanation for damage on different section of a hunter, special damage, so on and so forth. While a comprehensive tutorial would be a lot of work and development, a more informative store/loadout screen would do a LOT to solve some of this. Vague information such as "this does poison damage" is low quality information. "This poisons the opposing player for 8 seconds, while poisoned a player cannot heal" is high quality information. Hopefully over time this will be implemented as tracking down this information down outside of the game can actually be challenging and inconsistent as its not maintained by developers but by the community.

Single Player is unforgiving. This isn't so much a true Con so much as a warning. Hunts are broken up into 12 player matches with teams ranging from 1-3 players (if trios are allowed). Playing as a Solo offers no benefits other than a small matchmaking drop so often you're fighting uphill. The tension of the high risk high reward gameplay is pushed to the max as you have no way to revive. While playing solo can be fun if you enjoy the challenge, duos and trios are what i would call the default.

Verdict:

Despite its steep learning curve and poor in game tutorials, Hunts core gameplay loop is addicting. Even without season passes, battle passes, or other in game rewards, the game is just plain fun. Pure, addicting, fun. an easy 9/10 from me (touch up some of the in game information with either a built in encyclopedia or better menus would easily push it to a 10/10)

Did what I normally do when playing open world exploration games and spend much of the first "off the leash" time grabbing every location available.

Only to learn that the MAIN quest has a HARD PROGRESSION LOCK bug where a character you have to talk to wont talk to you if you unlock the area hes in first.

It feels bad, and I'm not interested in replaying the game to fix the issue.

The game itself: The parkour felt fluid (although much of it is gated behind progression) the combat was simple but fun. The city seemed to be mostly copy and pasted assets where the occasional unique location would shine through, but almost ALL of the various "loot buildings" are copy paste. This stings in comparison to Dying light's hand crafted Haran with all of its unique locations adding to the fun of the parkour.

So you have a game with basically little to no innovation on the original and plenty of launch bugs (including some Main progression breaking ones. Ill give it another chance once the progression bug is fixed but until then I'd avoid the game.

It works fine on Windows ten, which is hard to ask for these days.

A exceptionally challenging and well designed dungeon crawler, Like warhammers mordehiem and lovecraft made a child, atmosphere and art are top notch, whoever did the narration has a career in voice acting and I'm impressed with the amount of developer feedback being givin to early review critics.

Comparable to Civilization for its replayability and complexity