Stalker 2 fans are calling out the game’s developer after a massive shift in system requirements, which require upscaling technologies such as AMD FSR and Nvidia DLSS to hit the stated frame rates. The situation got a little hot around the collar, with one critical fan being banned from the game’s Steam forums, prompting an apology from the developer.
GSC Game World changed the Stalker 2 system requirements considerably, and quite close to launch. The original specs were published when the game was expected in 2021. Since the war in Ukraine and a move to Unreal Engine 5 caused significant delays, Stalker 2 has been through a tumultuous development cycle.
The banned player called out GSC over masking information surrounding resolution upscaling tech, such as Nvidia DLSS and AMD FSR. The official chart published by the studio makes no mention of these technologies being required to run the game at the designated presets.
The upscaler information was allegedly only discovered through a reply on Discord by the game’s community manager. In a screenshot, community manager Mol1t said, that in order “to achieve the specified performance at medium, high, and epic settings, you need to use DLSS, TSR, and their analogues.”
User Pirat_Nation on X posted a screenshot of their banning, which was attributed to “Spreading fake [information] about the company,” and said “they lied” when referring to the original system requirements. GSC was quick to hop onto X and reverse the ban, stating in a post that a new moderator made a “mistake with this topic,” adding that the developer was “so sorry.”
The studio also reiterated this in an additional message on the Steam forums. Responding to a post about the banning, a GSC staff member claimed that the new team had “overdone” their job “a bit.”
Upscalers and frame generation are now a hot discussion on the forums. Some players are claiming that the industry’s overreliance on the technology is “very worrying,” while others have devolved into arguments, as expected.
Stalker 2 is set to be quite an intensive game to run on PC, with 32GB of RAM recommended for high settings, along with one of the best graphics cards available today. With the Stalker 2 release date just days away, we’ll have to wait for the real-world tests to come in before we can pass judgment.