STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl Review

thesixthaxis.com:

In the earlier days of the internet, when social media wasn’t in everyone’s hands and gaming was niche and nerdy, some of the best video games were gatekept secrets and whispers on message boards. This rang particularly true for games from Japan or Europe, that often got overlooked by mainstream media. For years as a teen on the web, one game series in particular that felt like legend was STALKER. People would simply talk differently about these games, treating them like immersive experiences where you don’t just beat a level or complete a quest, you live in The Zone, and you become a Stalker. Now, with the first new entry in the series since 2009 and my first real foray into the franchise, I can tell you that all those stories were true. STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl is immersive, and frightening, and hilarious, and magical, and intense, and unlike pretty much anything else out there.

The STALKER series owes its inspiration to societ scifi novel Roadside Picnic and the loosely related film adaptation by Andrei Tarkovsky. In the wake of 1986 Chornobyl nuclear reactor disaster, STALKER paints the picture of an alternate history where a 2nd disaster rocked the Exclusion Zone decades later in 2006. This has warped the entire region from a barely inhabitable wasteland to a truly alien world.

Mutated creatures stalk through the bushes, while sudden emission storms turn the sky and rip the earth apart. And then there are the anomalies – environmental oddities like psionic whirlwinds or chutes of fire that can shred you in an instant if you aren’t careful. Stalkers are dedicated wanderers and survivors who may not share ideals or allegiances, but all take part in overcoming the odds of The Zone to track down artefacts, make a little money, and strive to see another day.

This is all the narrative setup that truly matters to the overarching experience. In STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl, the game will attempt to paint you into the box of a man named Skif, who works as a Stalker