How To Claim Deluxe And Ultimate Edition Items In Stalker 2: Heart Of Chornobyl

Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl is a massive game with lots of content that will keep you busy for hours on end. It offers many missions that can lead to tough choices, leading you down several branching paths that can severely alter your playthrough. And, if you want a bit extra, grabbing the Deluxe or Ultimate Editions of the game will offer even more quests for you to tackle.

But, in true Stalker fashion, purchasing these editions won’t automatically grant you the items or bonus quests for free. You will have to earn them by playing the game and obtaining them yourself. Fortunately, it’s not overly complex, but it can be time-consuming, especially since you have to progress through the game to get some of them.

How To Obtain Deluxe And Ultimate Edition Items In Stalker 2: Heart Of Chornobyl

If you pre-ordered Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl or purchased the Deluxe or Ultimate Edition of it, you will be able to get your hands on a bunch of exclusive goodies, but you must take care of a few things first. For starters, you must progress through the game until you complete the A Needle in a Haystack main mission.

Upon completing A Needle in a Haystack, you should automatically receive a side mission titled ‘Seek, and You Shall Find,’ which will have you search your Stash to move the quest forward.

Check Your Stash

After receiving the Seek, and You Shall Find side mission, head to the inn in Zalissya, make your way to where your Stash is in the back room, and search it to find The Journalist’s Flash Drive stored inside. Add the Flash Drive to your inventory to begin playing a recording of the Journalist, who will tell you they planted Stashes all around the wasteland, urging you to find them.

All Journalist’s Stash Locations

There will be 13 Journalist’s Stashes total, spanning across every zone, forcing you to progress through the game to gain access to them. Picking up the Flash Drive will mark 12 Stashes on your map, which you can find by looking for the icon resembling a Triforce with three white triangles. Hovering over the Stash Icon will reveal its name. Look for the ones that are called ‘Journalist’s Stash.’

Each of the Journalist’s Stash will contain DLC Items from either the Deluxe or Ultimate Edition, as well as Pre-Order Bonuses if you’ve purchased the game early. You can find what each Stash contains in the table below, corresponding to the number on the map above!

Journalist’s Stash 13 won’t become available until you find the first 12 Journalist’s Stashes. Upon doing this, you will receive more information from the Journalist detailing where you can locate the final one, which can be found in Prypiat.

How To Access The Bonus Side Mission In Stalker 2: Heart Of Chornobyl

Aside from the ‘Seek, and You Shall Find’ side mission, grabbing the Deluxe or Ultimate Edition of Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl will also grant you access to the Dog Fight quest, which is started by talking to Nightingale in Zalissya. Completing this quest ultimately leads to the ‘Nightingale’s Hunt’ side mission, allowing you to gather Electronic Collars from Mutants and sell them to Hamster.

Later on in the game, you will gain access to the ‘In the Name of Science’ side quest, which goes a bit further into the Electronic Collars, though it seems you do not need either of these editions to start that questline. To access this quest, you must first complete the ‘Visions of Truth’ main mission after giving the Controller Project Documents to Shcherba in the ‘In Search of Past Glory’ main mission.

If you do not have either the Deluxe or Ultimate Edition of Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl, Nightingale will not spawn in Zalissya, making the Dog Fight and Nightingale’s Hunt side missions unavailable to you. Again, we think the In the Name of Science quest will still be available to you down the road, but these additional quests give you extra context on what’s going on.

Other Deluxe And Ultimate Edition Items In Stalker 2: Heart Of Chornobyl

For everything else that isn’t an additional questline or unique weapons and armor, you will also gain access to different Guitar Tunes and Additional Stories as part of the Early Bird Pre-Order Bonus, allowing you to get slightly more content when sitting around the Campfires with other Stalkers.

Ultimate Edition owners will also gain access to the Season Pass, which will grant you access to two future Story Expansions, as well as all future DLC, making it a decent offering if the expansions are even remotely as big as the base game and this is on top of the exclusive items laid out in the table above.

Deluxe and Ultimate Edition owners will also gain access to the Digital Artbook and Digital Soundtrack of Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl and all the respective items highlighted in the table above. Furthermore, whenever the Multiplayer launches, you will gain access to three Outfits and seven Weapon Skins!

This only covers the Digital Deluxe and Ultimate Editions of Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl, as the physical editions will come with more goodies that cannot be used in game. Nonetheless, you will get lots of stuff no matter which edition you choose to snag. Even the Standard Edition has lots to chew on, so you can’t really go wrong with any of them!