Honestly, the open world was a mistake...

[Phantom Limb]

While I know that die-hard fans are going to tear me a new one, but I just have to say it: the game didn't need open world, it actually made it worse.
It gives nothing to the game, but drags the game on and on as you run around the empty locations from one quest to another. There is barely anything useful you can find inside those hundreds of locations and I've completely given up on exploring because rewards in form of bottles of vodka and canned food aren't really rewards.
The devs should have kept the original way of building the world in form of smaller, separate locations. At least those were more enjoyable overall. Because current open world is an empty mess, you can run around for hours and meet maybe a couple of dogs and a group of bandits if you are lucky.
After almost 30 hours it's just tiresome really.

[Baron01]

Originally posted by Kleerex:

Sometimes I just ignore quests and go and explore, fight enemies and find loot. I see a lot of wandering groups of enemies, or stalkers. There are even groups of wandering boars!

Often I start to fight enemies and after a while game spawns some friends who also join the fight. Awesome!

Mate, you need to work on your observation skills. There are no wandering enemies, human or mutants alike. All that happened is the game spawned group of hostiles behind your back. If you play enough, you will start recognizing the tell tales of this happening. Have you suddenly run into group of friendly loners? Watch out, fights is about to break out. You will notice that there are pairings for spawns--friendly group of loners and hostile group, human or mutant. You can hear roaring of bloodsucker and soon after you notice group of loners being massacred.

There are quest or scripted events around the zone but often they are one time events that do not repeat itself. There are also pre-placed enemies in few locations such as chimera in Zaton near the tunnle or controller guarding scientist bunker in Yantar. They will always be there as they were most likely placed there for environmental story telling or whatever.

And than we have infamous spawn triggers--this is the biggest scam used by GSC to mask that A-life is not in the game or not working properly. These spawn triggers are placed at or around points of interest. You can easily test this--set out from base to somewhere far away but make sure you avoid by wide berth any points of interest. Please report how many enemy or friendly NPCs or mutants have you encountered. I can save you time to run this test, the answer is fat ZERO. Why is that? Because there are no wandering groups of humans or mutants, just spawns around points of interest.

[Eren Jäger]

Originally posted by CadaveR:

Originally posted by Eren Jäger:

You can think what you want about Elden Ring, but at least you have a horse that allows you to travel much faster.

As I said, I think the open world in Stalker 2 is actually very good. If there would be a lot more going on in the zone so that you can never be sure whether or how you will reach your goal, the long paths would be pretty cool

This game doesn't want you to go faster from A to B

I never said that. I said that the open world and the long walking distances are good if a lot more would happen along the way.

[Kleerex]

Originally posted by Eren Jäger:

Originally posted by CadaveR:

This game doesn't want you to go faster from A to B

I never said that. I said that the open world and the long walking distances are good if a lot more would happen along the way.

There's something to explore every 200 steps or so. If you're ignoring all of that, you can only blame yourself for making game boring for you.

[dylo]

Originally posted by Kleerex:

Originally posted by Eren Jäger:

I never said that. I said that the open world and the long walking distances are good if a lot more would happen along the way.

There's something to explore every 200 steps or so. If you're ignoring all of that, you can only blame yourself for making game boring for you.

i would agree with you if there was a point to that, however, there is not, most of the locations are empty of loot, NPC or any type of interaction with the worls :/

[Kleerex]

Originally posted by dylo:

Originally posted by Kleerex:

There's something to explore every 200 steps or so. If you're ignoring all of that, you can only blame yourself for making game boring for you.

i would agree with you if there was a point to that, however, there is not, most of the locations are empty of loot, NPC or any type of interaction with the worls :/

So it's just like Elden Ring!

[Intensiv - Glücksbärchi]

I often find myself bored by open world games really quick. I play Stalker CoP on the steam deck when I`m not at the computer to fire up Stalker 2.

In comparison I find the open world in CoP boring and empty.

The open world in Stalker 2 is hands down the best I`ve seen in years. Over 30 hours in and I can`t stop playing. Pure Immersion.

[Intensiv - Glücksbärchi]

Originally posted by dylo:

Originally posted by Kleerex:

There's something to explore every 200 steps or so. If you're ignoring all of that, you can only blame yourself for making game boring for you.

i would agree with you if there was a point to that, however, there is not, most of the locations are empty of loot, NPC or any type of interaction with the worls :/

Did you ever play the old stalker games ? That`s where you`ll find loads of boxes and stuff empty of loot.. In stalker 2 there`s loot everywhere. That was the first thing I noticed in comparison to the originals.

[ItsToofy!]

It's Chornobyl, not the heart of Kiev, the games always seemed to be exploring desolate places til the next set piece or random encounter with a potential enemy or friend

[BILI BHAI]

No please we don't need more starfield type mechanics and world 💀

[markdienekes]

Originally posted by BILI BHAI:

No please we don't need more starfield type mechanics and world 💀

This is a handcrafted world, not procedural like starfield. The only world I've seen done better I'd Red Dead Redemption 2.

[OGPG]

The open world of STALKER 2 is fantastic. I love it.

Originally posted by markdienekes:

Originally posted by BILI BHAI:

No please we don't need more starfield type mechanics and world 💀

This is a handcrafted world, not procedural like starfield. The only world I've seen done better I'd Red Dead Redemption 2.

RDR2 is the way a dynamic open world should be built.
The only game where I sat on the hill above Valentine and just watch the people and the day go by.
So immersive and life like.

[CadaveR]

Originally posted by OGPG:

The open world of STALKER 2 is fantastic. I love it.

Yup, i agree with the guy who said its pretty close to rdr2 for how is detailed. The ruins, woods, plains, bunkers... Seems like you're really there.

[Rhophius]

Originally posted by markdienekes:

Originally posted by BILI BHAI:

No please we don't need more starfield type mechanics and world 💀

This is a handcrafted world, not procedural like starfield. The only world I've seen done better I'd Red Dead Redemption 2.

Mark has a point here, nothing is randomly generated, its all handcrafted, every prop in the world has been placed by a designer, it must of taken a massive amount of time, while some areas are the same from the other games, all the assets have had to been remade in UE5.

Each area feels like it was used for something or someone lived there.

[krathax]

Originally posted by Phantom Limb:

While I know that die-hard fans are going to tear me a new one, but I just have to say it: the game didn't need open world, it actually made it worse.
It gives nothing to the game, but drags the game on and on as you run around the empty locations from one quest to another. There is barely anything useful you can find inside those hundreds of locations and I've completely given up on exploring because rewards in form of bottles of vodka and canned food aren't really rewards.
The devs should have kept the original way of building the world in form of smaller, separate locations. At least those were more enjoyable overall. Because current open world is an empty mess, you can run around for hours and meet maybe a couple of dogs and a group of bandits if you are lucky.
After almost 30 hours it's just tiresome really.

100%... having to load zones is FAR LESS of an immersion breaker than mobs spawning on me when I turn my back....

[♔ Affable 7th Wave Teaboo ♔]

All I can think of as I see this game is:
"GAMMA Mod for this is gonna be LIT"