so i initially reviewed this game a month and a half after it'd dropped and. as much as i loved it, the game was sincerely unoptimized and there were many times where i had practically game-breaking bugs in the middle of a late-game fight, on vet difficulty so, as plentiful as saves were, it was frustrating dying in the face of those bugs. in spite of the bugs, in spite of the frustration from the early-stage ai back before 1.5 1.4 1.3, in the coming days right after it was released i found a story that refreshed the Zone, in my first playthrough i sided with Strelok and ended up beating the game at around ~150 hours of playtime.
that being said, given the state of the game since 2.0 / Cost of Hope was released, given the DLC itself being one of the best pieces of media i've ever played, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is only likely to get better from here on out.
get into the zone, play with og ukrainian voice acting, immerse yourselves in the modern-day anomalous exclusion zone