Key Takeaways
- A Steam user was banned from the Stalker 2 forums after pointing out that the PC requirements appear innacurate.
- They’ve since been unbanned, but it has sparked worries about the game’s performance.
- Stalker 2 launches on November 20, so we’ll find out later this week how it fares on PC.
A few days ago, a Steam user was banned from the Stalker 2 forums after highlighting that the PC requirements appear to be inaccurate.
The Steam user in question, Redditor RTcore, pointed out that community manager Mol1t said to “achieve similar performance on the specificed PC characteristics, you should use TSR upscale technology”.
Essentially, if the chart says your graphics card can hit 60fps at 1080p on medium settings, it can only do so with DLSS/FSR, which is actually a lower resolution that has been upscaled.
This user has since been unbanned, with GSC Game World issuing an apology on Twitter: “Our new moderator provided this ban. He made a mistake with this topic.” Problem solved, kind of. There’s still the PC requirements debacle, which has sparked concerns about how well the game will run at launch.
Everyone’s Pointing Their Fingers At Unreal Engine 5
For a lot of PC players, Unreal Engine 5 is a big red flag. The number of UE5 games with stuttering and performance issues is a growing list, and with warnings that you need to use upscaling technology to hit a steady framerate in Stalker 2, fans are worried that it’ll join those ranks soon enough.
“I don’t understand why games that look only marginally better (if at all) than their pre-2021 counterparts all perform like a** without upscaling and frame generation,” Reddit user nnnnnnitram commented. “What is happening in this industry that’s causing developers to just drop performance as a first class feature of games?”
A good chunk of the comments all say one thing: “Unreal Engine 5”.
“Unreal Engine 5 is a double-edged sword — great visuals, but at a significant performance cost,” Hazardousbullet replied.
“Unreal Engine has become both the best and worst thing for gaming,” TrptJim added. “They’re defining an entire era of gaming with the phrase ‘stutter struggle’.”
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Stalker 2 Interview: How GSC Game World Came Back From The Brink
““It’s about Chernobyl. It’s about Ukraine. It belongs to our culture. We can tell stories here.”
It’s an Unreal Engine 5 game, this is pretty much the standard,” Jorlen put it simply.
Stalker 2 is out in just two days, so we’ll find out soon enough whether these worries are warranted.
Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl is the long-awaited follow-up to the apocalyptic first-person shooter. As a Stalker, you must venture into the deadly Exclusion Zone, contending with mutants and warring factions alike, in search of valuable artifacts.