underrated masterpiece

Good hunting stalker.

It's not terrible, but it's very disappointing after the greatness that was Shadow of Chernobyl. Worth playing if you're into the game franchise, but it has many flaws and shortcomings. Can't recommend it to anyone who isn't into the franchise.

Faction wars is a decent addition, but spamming never-ending bandit and mutant raids is frustrating and makes battling against them feel extremely unrewarding. In SoC you would sometimes be asked to defend a location against a raid and you only received one notification about them and it felt quite natural and part of the world. In Clear Skies you get non-stop notifications about the raids with morons crying "WHERE ARE YOU!!!?!?!!?!!!" and "THEY ARE KILLING OUR GUYS!!111!!!!" every few seconds over and over again. Feels extremely repetitive, frustrating/annoying and feels like a game system rather than a natural part of the world. Furthermore, you can't even win the faction wars, so what's the point? I wiped out every renegade settlement in the swamps, only for them to spawn again once I left the swamp. Then I went to garbage, killed every single bandit, wiped out the Depot, including the trader and two other non-aggressive bandits inside the Depot. The only bandit left alive was Bonov, who you literally can't kill due to him being a character in SoC. The faction wars screen literally showed there were 0 bandits left in the entire Zone, yet bandits respawned at the Depot instantly after I left. What a great system.

The addition of the weapon and armour repair and upgrade system is great, although some of the prices are maybe a bit steep.

In SoC the enemies didn't use grenades at all, which was quite disappointing, especially considering they often had them in their inventories. In Clear Skies they not only spam grenades, they spam them with nearly 100% accuracy to distances of approximately 70 meters. Yes, you will often hear them shout something before they throw one, which gives you a chance to run away, but it's still completely broken and makes some levels of the game extremely frustrating and unenjoyable. I genuinely hope whoever thought the grenades in this game were balanced isn't working on Stalker 2.

I like the fact that they made artifacts more rare and harder to get even when you find one. However, to be able to use any artifacts that give you radiation you pretty much also need to use one that removes radiation. I found my first radiation removing artifact 20 hours in, which meant I couldn't use any artifacts for 80% of my playthrough. Maybe I got unlucky, maybe I failed to find some easy artifact spots. Either way, running around for nearly 20 hours with artifacts in my inventory without being able to use any of them was pretty lame. The game also doesn't do a great job of teaching you how to find artifacts with a detector.

Early game radiation is too lethal. You can't handle even a tiny bit without having to pop anti-rad pills or vodka. The game also doesn't do a great job of telling you when you've got radiation sickness. I had to google to find out that having red on your radiation meter means you need to pop anti-rad because the game doesn't tell you this, you just take damage until you die.

Being rewarded by the faction's shopkeeper for most quests instead of individual stalkers who gave you the task makes completing quests feel less personal and makes it feel more like a game system.

VSS, a literal sniper rifle, is inaccurate as ♥♥♥♥. When I found one in SoC I was over the moon bc I was finally able to snipe enemy heads. 1 shot, 1 kill. In Clear Sky you miss a lot of your VSS shots even when crouched down. I also found a bunch of SVD ammo since early stages of the game, yet I didn't find the actual gun throughout the entire playthrough. Maybe I got unlucky, maybe I didn't side with the correct factions, who knows.

They removed the hunger system for literally no reason. Another thing that makes the zone feel less immersive. Overall the game feels a lot less immersive than SoC due to a combination of many factors. I enjoyed most of the game, but the shortcomings, especially near the end of the game left me with a negative experience overall.