Why are there so much disagreements around the quality of the Stalker 2 game?

[Frankie]

I am a little curious around all the complaints I see in reviews and discussions both here in Steam, and elsewhere.
Many that complains about the game, does not include their PC setups when complaining.

I have an I7 13700K, Nvidia RTX 4090, 64 GB RAM. Stalker 2 installed on a (fast) M2 storage unit. Windows 11 pro. I have about 38 hour game time and no special bugs (except maybe ... perhaps one mentioned below).
The bad things I have noticed is that I need to have DLSS activated. If not, the graphics seems wrong (and pixelated!?). I have good FPS about 80, never noticed it being below 60, on an ultrawide 5120x1440 resolution.
Another thing I don't like is that there seems to be a lag and some darkness hang when I use the PDA and close it. The world seems darker for a few seconds before adjusting (to normal). And it might be some lag. That's it. No crashes, no FPS lag, no nothing the others are complaining about. I run two screen setup. One for mail/Messenger/Spotify etc and one for the game.

Considering my experience, I really want to hear from others that have an opposite experience, and if they have the same or similar setup as mine, maybe the difference of opinions is tied to personal preference and/or perspectives.

[Lens007888]

Runs great here and loving the story, all those other threads that pop up saying random untruths are just attention clowns looking to bait others into a negativity pit

[Sgt. Flaw]

It's the steam forums....look at the reviews for a more accurate picture of how people feel...

[alquemir]

Originally posted by Lens007888:

Runs great here and loving the story, all those other threads that pop up saying random untruths are just attention clowns looking to bait others into a negativity pit

They lied about A-life.

[RaztaPapoulos]

game is poorly optimized and bugged to hell. With high end pc no matter if you have the setting on low, medium and high you will experience the same issue (memory leak, bad fps drop). The last two patches made it worse for me. I'm getting crash with this stupid error that no one knows what it is but a lot of people are experiencing the same.

[CZ2128D]

70 hrs in, a few crash from memory leak, and a few freeze presumably from loading an underground level, but otherwise stable 100-120 fps max setting.

Game is amazing imo.

7800X3D 64GB 7900XTX 1440P (FSR Native + FG).

[Zibigan]

The last half (maybe third) of the main story is objectively bad. The game really does start to fall apart and has not been fixed. The difference in opinions is partly due to how people are playing the game. Those who have finished the main story quest tend to be having a more negative view of the game than those that have not.

[Mac]

Your computer is not the norm setup, the majority of people are not using a high end card and this might be why, we get used to using our computer in the way we have it setup, and when something comes along that demands more, it tips the bottle over etc

That being said, the majority of the bugs are not visual, yeah sure framerate is low in parts, but largely gpu issues are not the main bugs are reporting, story and quest related bugs have nothing to do with your system specs for instance, as well as a-life, doesn't matter if you're on a laptop or state of the art PC, the devs have admitted that a-life is not working as intended, ergo, bugged.

I'm on a i7 8 core no thread system, using 16gb ram and 4060 basic gpu, and i get consistant 60+ fps at 1080p, until i go to area that are noted for being bad, for instance zalissya

Zalissya has been one of the center issues for the game, early on its a hub location, you go there a lot, and the framerate just flat tanks for no reason, i can go to other towns and my fps stays high, but Zalissya floored its framerate, and not only that, its been one of the largest bugged areas in the game full stop, the invasion, npc's being killed for no reason, the game telling you you saved the town (Achievement unlocks) and yet, the moment you leave the town, it fell, its had to be fixed twice in the last 2 patches.

Yes .... well done, you've not been getting bugs your end with framerate and freezing/crashing, but thats not the main focus of so much negative feedback.

[Frankie]

Originally posted by Zibigan:

The last half (maybe third) of the main story is objectively bad. The game really does start to fall apart and has not been fixed. The difference in opinions is partly due to how people are playing the game. Those who have finished the main story quest tend to be having a more negative view of the game than those that have not.

Interesting. I use a lot of time walking around, gathering resources. Doing some side quest etc. Therefore, i have not progressed far in the main quest. Also, my play style so far is to play a couple of hour (max) before taking a break (quitting the game and restarting when i have time to play again). Maybe that also eliminates some of the bugs?!

[doscomputer]

maybe because we are 3 patches deep now and there are still tons of broken quests, I even had my first crash today

also the sheer amount of annoying bugs that havent been fixed yet is also very concerning, compass disappearing, NPC guns teleporting into player inventory, broken animations, mutants/npcs spawning right behind and or in front of the player, texture pop-in on random trees, stuttering in towns.

AND MY GOD ALL OF THE AUDIO BUGS, DONT EVEN GET ME STARTED, basically no point to use combat music at all furthermore the sound when going through a portal is messed up as well...

[Frankie]

Originally posted by doscomputer:

maybe because we are 3 patches deep now and there are still tons of broken quests, I even had my first crash today

also the sheer amount of annoying bugs that havent been fixed yet is also very concerning, compass disappearing, NPC guns teleporting into player inventory, broken animations, mutants/npcs spawning right behind and or in front of the player, texture pop-in on random trees, stuttering in towns.

AND MY GOD ALL OF THE AUDIO BUGS, DONT EVEN GET ME STARTED, basically no point to use combat music at all furthermore the sound when going through a portal is messed up as well...

Actually, I experienced this ... Found it strange ... But i opened my PDA and it came back. Thought I pressed a shortcut to deactivate the UI or something lol ;)

[Dayzed]

Originally posted by Mac:

Your computer is not the norm setup, the majority of people are not using a high end card and this might be why, we get used to using our computer in the way we have it setup, and when something comes along that demands more, it tips the bottle over etc

That being said, the majority of the bugs are not visual, yeah sure framerate is low in parts, but largely gpu issues are not the main bugs are reporting, story and quest related bugs have nothing to do with your system specs for instance, as well as a-life, doesn't matter if you're on a laptop or state of the art PC, the devs have admitted that a-life is not working as intended, ergo, bugged.

I'm on a i7 8 core no thread system, using 16gb ram and 4060 basic gpu, and i get consistant 60+ fps at 1080p, until i go to area that are noted for being bad, for instance zalissya

Zalissya has been one of the center issues for the game, early on its a hub location, you go there a lot, and the framerate just flat tanks for no reason, i can go to other towns and my fps stays high, but Zalissya floored its framerate, and not only that, its been one of the largest bugged areas in the game full stop, the invasion, npc's being killed for no reason, the game telling you you saved the town (Achievement unlocks) and yet, the moment you leave the town, it fell, its had to be fixed twice in the last 2 patches.

Yes .... well done, you've not been getting bugs your end with framerate and freezing/crashing, but thats not the main focus of so much negative feedback.

Even on the high end card the guy says he uses upscaling and getting 80fps at 1440p lol.

[doscomputer]

edit: ^^^^^ see like who are these users? dude comes into this thread to make some random comment about the game issues being bad hardware, meanwhile I think most of us complaining are actually on high end rigs.


furthermore, the steam reviews seem a bit SUS, the game started out as mixed and now its at very positive, meanwhile on the steam forums and every other website there are still tons of people complaining

I think unfortunately politics are severely affecting the game and its image as well, there are a lot of people out there who either have had no bugs somehow, or they're all lying and pretending the game isn't extremely janky well beyond any of the original stalker games.

[yaji]

It depends on how much video memory you have. If you have more than 8GB there is a chance the game will work fine. If you have 8GB or less (~70% of Steam users) then you will have a bad times.

[Dayzed]

Originally posted by Donaldo Trumpado:

It's the age-old argument between the unwashed masses and the beautiful chads of the world. See, OP, there are potatoes and there are gods. The people complaining are attempting to play the game on potatoes. This is a bad way to attempt to play the game, OP. Potatoes are for stews, not gaming. The gods are the chosen. The chads. The based individuals who play on computer hardware from this decade. We have fun and have a great experience. And we gaze down from our ivory tower at them, toiling in their potato fields, and we don't laugh. We simply enjoy the game.

Your brain is the potato.

[MrFisse]

Honestly, you guys defending this travesty of a game, what do you get out of it? Don't you want / feel you deserve a little better quality product for you money?
Sure you can have fun. But there is no denying the game has a litany of issues.

- AI is almost as bad as a random asset flip game here on the steam store
- Graphics are janky at best
- Performance issues, game expects you to run DLSS and FramGen on even good hardware
- CPU issues even though the AI is braindead
- Enemies just spawn in randomly
- Voice acting is some of the worst I heard from a big title
- The dialogue is terribly written for the most part.
- There is a loot system but the items and weapons in the game are so boring and uninteresting.
- There is a big world to explore but there is nothing to explore, no "untold" stories anywhere. Just random garbage thrown around in every location and house.

This studio has not done any improving since their first stalker. Almost nothing has changed for the better. Only that the game looks a bit better, but that is almost entirely thanks to UE5