The Zone for the first time. As a newcomer to the franchise, everything about the game feels fresh to me, and while the dialogues, story, and human NPC encounters have been a ton of fun so far, there's one part of the game that I've found to be pretty annoying.
GSC Game World has done an amazing job of creating a world that pulls you in and surprises you, especially if you don't have experience with the franchise. While exploring these concepts is intriguing and compelling, one of the scariest, most difficult parts of the game often left me feeling underwhelmed by the end of it.
Stalker 2 Mutants Are Total Bullet Sponges
Where Did All My Ammo Go?
One of the first things I encountered in STALKER 2 is a mutant that rushes you right at the start once you enter The Zone and begin the first quest. Although this initial blob-like dog thing called a Flesh is no issue to take down, it's really the invisible, indomitable Bloodsuckers that really grind my gears. Even before I officially started the main missions and discovered what the Lesser Zone had to offer, I was attacked by a Bloodsucker, and it took a few clips of a fully automatic AK to take one out.
On top of this, Bloodsuckers are invisible and incredibly fast, — making the entire endeavor a lot more annoying. In a game where conserving ammunition is important, and everything from bandages to energy drinks has value, spending 15 minutes killing a single monster isn't totally fun. In one respect, it instantly instills a sense of fear into the player, as indicated by my running away during my first encounter. That said, after a few meetings with these ugly vampiric scoundrels, the horrifying novelty wears off, and I wish there were just a more effective way to take it down.
There are a vast array of around 16 different mutant types in STALKER 2.
Other higher-tier mutants like the Poltergeist that throws items at you are also equally difficult and even more bullet-spongy, and it often results in me wasting all my ammunition on them. Even the dogs — while easy to put down, are numerous, so I found myself crouching down in a corner as a dozen or so ran into my funnel of bullets before I had to head back to town to re-up my ammo.
At Least Reward Players With Mutated Parts
Limitations With A-Life May Be The Culprit To Lackluster Mutants
Attacks from the irradiated beasts wouldn't be so bad if there was some level of reward for them. I've never played the previous STALKER games, but I've heard mutants were at the core of those games. Apparently, mutant behavior in the prior entries was a lot more natural and organic, with these things acting more like animals in the real world than random spawns that attack you in a straight line with unrelenting fury.
According to an interview with working on a fix for STALKER 2's A-Life system.
Although it might break with the tradition of previous titles, having something drop on their corpses could really help alleviate the feeling that I'm "wasting" resources by killing them. Having mutated parts that can be traded for coupons or used for some other task might make killing these things feel better.
STALKER 2: Heart Of Chornobyl - More Than Another Cult Classic
STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl is an ambitious and engrossing open-world immersive sim, putting you in the Zone, an unnerving and unfathomable place.
STALKER 2 does a pretty great job at grounding the narrative in a realistic and gritty world, so I'm not sure that my mutated parts idea would be the answer, but maybe some artifact or something special on a few of the harder mutants could help make the experience feel more rewarding. Heck, just a few measly coupons would do the trick.
I Enjoy The Difficulty Of Mutants
Don't Nerf Them, Though
My complaint with mutants isn't with difficulty; on the contrary, I enjoy the fact that STALKER 2 has a ton of different things that can kill me fairly easily. Although, I will it, my first Poltergeist encounter was totally confusing, I don't necessarily mind that mutants are hard to kill. However, the fact is, since I'm new to the series, I wasn't even entirely sure if I should keep shooting these things initially because it wasn't clear whether they were actually killable, especially when using smaller caliber ammunition.
As an extraction game player and someone who grew up on more traditional FPS games like Counter-Strike or Battlefield, I find the human NPC encounters in STALKER 2 a lot more fun.
After finally killing it, I furiously clicked around its immobile body, desperately looking for any shred of a reward for having wasted my entire inventory of ammunition. Ultimately, it felt unrewarding. Maybe if GSC is able to hammer out all the kinks with A-Life, mutants will actually be more of a part of the setting than an annoying inconvenience.
I Prefer Human NPC Encounters Much More
Hopefully, Mutants Can Grow On Me
As an extraction game player and someone who grew up on more traditional FPS games like Counter-Strike or Battlefield, I find the human NPC encounters in STALKER 2 a lot more fun. They remind me of scav encounters in Escape From Tarkov and are equally as difficult and deadly. Although diehard fans have plenty of complaints with the A-life system, I have encountered a few instances of random groups running into each other, only for me to lurk in a dark corner and take out the remaining survivors before descending on their corpses to loot them like a ravenous Himalayan vulture.
Playing STALKER 2 Just Made Me Want To Play A Different, Underrated Game Inspired By The Original
STALKER 2 has been a ton of fun for me so far, but it also reminded me of a hidden indie gem that I think a lot of people would enjoy.
Battles with humans also feel more dynamic, like they have some level of strategy, and NPCs try to close the gap or get an angle on me to take me out. Mutants, on the other hand, just kind of run around — and depending on the type, this can often lead to some unintentionally hilarious situations of a Bloodsucker coming in and out of a room, only to get shot in the face with my shotgun repeatedly.
The main mission and questline put me in the crosshairs of these beasts, so regardless of whether I enjoy the encounters, I'll have to get through them for the rest of the game. It certainly still freaks me out anytime a mutant in STALKER 2: Heart Of Chornobyl rushes up on me, so at least there's that -- but generally, I wish that in the end, I'd get something for overcoming the challenge.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl
- Released
- November 20, 2024
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ Due To Intense Violence, Blood, Use Of Drugs And Alcohol, Language, Crude Humor
- Developer(s)
- GSC Game World
- Publisher(s)
- GSC Game World
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 5
- Franchise
- S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
- Platform(s)
- PC, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X
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