STALKER 2 is a merciless trip down memory lane
Skif is lying in the moss, a mutated dog gnawing at his shin. He pulls a pistol to fend it off, but — gasp — the clip is empty. Just before it can chew on his neck, he musters a deft kick, booting the pooch into a gravitational anomaly. The dog floats delicately in its gentle embrace before being compressed into a shower of meaty chunks. This constitutes my warm welcome into the unforgiving world of STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl.
It has been 14 years since the last official STALKER game (2009’s Call of Pripyat), and GSC Game World has returned with what looks to be another complex blend of FPS, RPG, and survival horror. Like its trio of predecessors, Heart of Chornobyl is set in an alt-history version of the Chornobyl Anomalous Exclusion Zone, where a second disaster in 2006 summoned strange environmental phenomena, coveted supernatural artifacts, and a rogues’ gallery of mutants.
As one of the titular stalkers, you come to chart “the Zone” in search of riches and answers, dodging its hazards and liaising with its lone wolves and various factions. How it all shakes out is very much up to the choices you make. The series’ hands-off approach and treacle-thick atmosphere are why the games have nurtured such a die-hard cult following (and countless fan-made spinoffs).
It doesn’t take long for me to find comforting hallmarks in STALKER 2. After the doggy debacle, a curious stranger throws me a single metal bolt (a trademark tool of the series), which I can chuck in various directions to detect and avoid the anomalies that litter the Zone. The spatial distortion that mutilated the mutt was either a Vortex or a Whirligig — but there are so many more varieties beyond those, and players will come to know their names and their
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