Recent reviews by Vari

Update: There have been Wine updates for linux as well as two patches that address many issues. I haven't played it properly since my last review so anything below should be taken with the grain of salt that it may be outdated and fixed. I will update my review fully when I play again!

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The story so far is good, and the game has all the things I loved from DS1.

I can't recommend it at the moment as the game has several performance issues at the moment, including some that prevent me from playing:
- Heavy stuttering - FPS averages at 80-90 @ 1440p but feels smooth outside of the stutters which are quite bad.
- Eventually all non-ambient audio cuts out and results in a frozen black screen at the next cutscene. Only fix is restarting. (Seems to be a Windows & Linux issue as far as I can tell).
- Shadows keep flickering for me every once in a while (Probably a Linux issue, but no way to be sure)
- Minor but double the install size of the PS5 version is a little bit insane.

I will update my review once this is fixed as gameplay/story wise I have no complaints.

I'd give this a mixed if I could. I love the game but seriously, how is this not finished? It's been five years.

Update:
This update isn't anywhere near as bad as Oshaune but they definitely broke like half of the game. There are a few softlocks and a bunch of the AI features like navigation seem to be completely broken recently.

Revised review:
Recent changes seem to have addressed most of the big issues with performance and a lot on balancing from post-Oshaune. We'll see how it goes (It's Arrowhead after all) but so far it's been a lot more enoyable. I still have a few issues with certain enemies, but generally it's a lot less frustrating than the war striders were previously, and thankfully no more host discrimination for burrowers. Freezing on Automatons seems to have disappeared.

I do hope Arrowhead will be less dishonest about buffs and nerfs in the future but I can't be too hopeful.


Old Review:
♥♥♥♥♥♥ optimization, crashes, freezes. God awful balancing where you just get ♥♥♥♥♥♥, only for devs to make a "buff" patch that buffs every weapon but then also buffs all of the enemies to make those buffs entirely negated. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stupid. Live Service obsession with making the game more grindy as time goes on while trying to pretend that they aren't.

Some elements of stealth would be great, taking into account if the player is in the dark, or behind bushes, etc would be nice. I would definitely buy the full game if there was some consideration for stealth. At the moment all you get is a silencer which means you can shoot people without attracting attention but other than that you will get spotted across the map in light or dark which makes sneaking up to an enemy to shoot them with a silenced pistol feel unrewarding.

AI could also use some work and better communicate and approach the player in interesting ways.

Good base, but seems a little lackluster. Gunplay is a bit too easy also.

Thought I was getting past the intro, but credits rolled and the game just ended. Probably about 15 minutes of actual gameplay if you know what you're doing. Really was expecting a longer story. Cool concept, but I wish there was more, and unfortunately gotta give it a negative review. Also if this gets a sequel or an extension, please add a tab auto-complete keybind.

Cringe Epic Exclusive

Used to be great. Basically abandoned to cheats.

Sniper Invasion desperately needs balancing changes. It basically comes down to a hide and seek with wallhacks when the non-invader can see you through walls in focus at all times, and can see your general direction at all times when you're far away.

Sniper invasion also has several exploits, there are spots where you can see through walls. The infinite timer exploit STILL exists after Sniper Elite 5, I have no idea how this isn't patched.

Rest of the game is a copy and paste of 5 with new levels, propaganda missions are bugged and don't even give you score. All in all, zero effort was made to improve the game at all or fix any bugs from 5.

Simply a fantastic stealth sim, with great support proven by Intravenous 1. Can't wait for mod support. If you like splinter cell, metal gear solid, etc, definitely give this a try!

I love Stalker, currently in a 125hr playthrough of a character in Stalker Gamma, I'm not going to compare this to Gamma as they are not intended to be similar at all in gameplay style, however, I had to refund the game as I simply could not play it on a 3080 above 50fps unless I used framegen which added a lot of blur and input lag. I just cannot recommend this game at the moment, as much as I want to play it myself.