Recent reviews by HolyMoose

I want to start by saying, this is not a BAD game, it simply not a GOOD stalker game.
As many have mentioned previously, this is Far Cry with a stalker skin. It's a cutscene shooter and not the horror survival shooter of the previous titles.

The art direction is phenomenal, the sound is good, the anomalies (new and old ones) are amazing but the gameplay has been heavily watered down to make the experience a more console friendly one with several things like the hotkeys being forced into the same two buttons, the presence of the weapon/item wheel etc. The addition of campaign slots instead of having unlimited saves
Saves can no longer be named or adjusted in any way now you get generic picture of the zone you saved in with how many hours you've played. The game can't be saved at certain points
The abundance of supplies and the weakness of mutants makes you never feel really in danger.

The PDA lacks a proper encylopedia with lore information about things within the zone as you discover them.

Several big features from previous installments are gone or heavily broken making them practically removed
The biggest being the lauded A-life system.
Now it is simply a random spawn within 80 meters of the character, and as soon as the entities leave render distance they are gone forever
This simply makes the zone feel empty and dead. The AI simply spawns and walk in your general direction
Stealth is practically non-existent because if you make a single sound the AI knows exactly where you are, even if there is a whole building in between you and the noise you made.

Another gripe I have is the fact that this game is made on the Unreal Engine.
It makes for this blurry game where upscaling like DLSS is mandatory or you simply get a grainy mess.
Ghosting and other issues from foliage and other objects are plentiful making this at times beautiful game (when you stand still) look horrible when you start to move

The radiation system is horrible, instead of higher radiation draining your health faster and faster like previous installments, giving you a chance to quickly vacate the area you are forced to avoid these areas entirely because it will instantly kill you as soon as you reach roughly 90% radiation on your bar (A good example of this is the scrap heaps in Garbage)

Alot of people will say "oh, but this will be fixed with patches, you'll see!" Perhaps, but alot of this should have been working from the start. I don't pay full price for an early access game.

Were Shadow of Chernobyl, Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat buggy at launch? Yes
BUT, they were feature complete games

GSC had a chance here to make a better game than their previous titles, and they failed. Maybe with time and alot of mods this game might get better but due to the inherent design flaws I doubt this will be better than modded version of previous installments in the series.


TLDR: Its a good game for a 'modern' audience but it doesn't provide that special something that makes it stalker.
You will probably enjoy your time with the game, but if you want the real stalker experience. Buy the trilogy instead

i THINK i got my moneys worth, not quite sure...

After a few hours of playtime, i can say it's pretty good