Is S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Worth Playing Now?

[Thomas]

I tried S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 when it first launched, but my experience was similar to when I played Cyberpunk 2077 at launch — there were a lot of performance issues, bugs, and the overall experience felt underwhelming. Because of that, I never ended up finishing Cyberpunk 2077 and am now wondering whether it's worth going back to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2.

Has the game improved significantly since launch? I’ve heard there have been patches and updates, but I’m curious to know if it’s in a much better state now in terms of performance, gameplay, and overall enjoyment.

Thanks for any insights!

[Karballus]

Nope, bad performance,stutters,bugs, shader compilation issues,crashes,ect. Nothing has changed.

[GrenadeMagnet6]

I'm liking the game's experience. But you have a risk of running into technical issues, like the game freezing or crashing. And there are a few main-mission-stopping bugs you could run into, though not everyone has. Developers are working to patch things, but there are still many issues to fix, as their last big patch made 1,800 changes and fixes, which is a sign the developers did not have time or resources to QA the game properly before release.

If you're willing to accept the technical/bug risks then it's a good game to play. Otherwise wait for the game to go on sale further. And if it starts locking up or crashing on you at the start, then immediately return the game before the short return-window closes.

When I first got Stalker 2 it was crashing every 15 minutes. Then I read one Steam user upgraded their bios and the crashes went away. I did the same, upgrading my motherboard bios and Intel MB drivers, and then the game stopped crashing all the time. Could have been an Unreal 5 engine dependency requirement.

Now though in Stalker 2 I'm running into a memory-leak issues when Inventory is accessed in the settlement called Rostok, which makes the game freeze with no exceptions raised. Not everyone has that problem, but there are some posting here about the same memory-leak issue. I'm still trying to test workarounds for the freeze problem. And I'm not running any mods for the game.

[LMPT]

1.1 solved issues for some people, created new issues for people who were previously able to play and didn't change anything for some people. From a technical perspective, it's a big nothin' burger. From a gameplay perspective, they solved some of the A-Life issues, so that's a plus, but there are still issues with the way the AI behaves in general and how well it is included in the gameworld.

[Alien Minator]

No, since the latest patch my play through has come to a complete halt, the game went from playing reasonably well to suddenly totally unplayable, what with FPS lag, total slow mo stuttering to complete screen freezes and that's virtually from start up, yet have heard nothing back from the ticket I've submitted to the dev's helpline.

[jason]

latest patch made it completely unplayable

[Thomas]

+

[Ace]

Working great for me, worth playing.

[Kelden]

No, do yourself a favour and wait 1-2 months for the ACTUAL A-Life, if they ever manage to make it work.

[Aspohsingoes]

Worth playing its a great game.

[Haggy]

zero crashes, zero stutters, zero issues, ignore the peasants with trash pcs and no pc knowledge.

[Josh]

Depends if you've played the originals. If you haven't, wait until A-life is fully functional. Otherwise, its playable if your system can handle it, but just accept quests will be broken, enemies will spawn in and out in weird ways and just MOD, MOD, MOD. Nexus is your friend.

[T9]

Originally posted by Haggy:

zero crashes, zero stutters, zero issues, ignore the peasants with trash pcs and no pc knowledge.

The problem is the missing features and laughable mechanics lmao

[Spice Whale]

Originally posted by Haggy:

zero crashes, zero stutters, zero issues, ignore the peasants with trash pcs and no pc knowledge.

Lol post FPS with upscaling and framegen off

[StrangestEcho]

So play Cyberpunk instead? Most people are quite happy with Cyberpunk now, but Stalker 2 still needs months of patching to achieve its potential.

[Nite69]

Originally posted by StrangestEcho:

So play Cyberpunk instead? Most people are quite happy with Cyberpunk now, but Stalker 2 still needs months of patching to achieve its potential.

Yes cyberpunk 2077 is excellent very immersive storyline I wen't through it like 5 times

has 3 different start up choices too with the storyline being slightly different between them, so it has replay value too