S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl  Download GAMESPACK.NET

I wish I could live in a universe where Unreal Engine 4 and 5 didn’t exist. It’s kind of sad to see developers nowadays choosing this engine, which often struggles to bring their ideas to life when they don’t have the resources to make their own engine. Budgets are everything, and that’s completely understandable. Unfortunately, Stalker 2 joins the list of buggy and unoptimized games made on UE5. It’s easy to understand why, especially since the studio was working under tough conditions after the war started. The resources needed to develop and polish the game probably doubled or even quadrupled. It’s just not realistic to expect a team to work normally on their product during times like that. And with Microsoft as your publisher, there’s probably extra pressure to deliver.

For now, the product feels unfinished. The more you play, the more it feels like the developers were figuring out Unreal Engine as they went. The animations are repetitive and feel like something out of an old Source engine game. There are so many bugs, from important NPCs missing in cutscenes to crashes during shader compilation, making every launch of the game a game of Russian roulette. Assassin’s Creed Mirage

I also feel like most games made on Unreal Engine 4/5 end up looking the same. There’s this lifeless vibe you get right from the start of any gameplay trailer. Sadly, Stalker 2 has that same feeling. It looks more like an engine demo than a real game (looking at you, Atomic Heart). That said, I do believe in GSC and hope they’ll release a bunch of patches by the end of 2025 to fix these issues. But right now, the game is barely playable. Sure, you can play and finish it, but will you enjoy it? Probably not.

ADD ONS/PATCHES AND DLC’S: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl