Heart of Chornobyl Worth The Price?

Greetings Stalkers, welcome back to the Zone. Things have changed a lot in Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl and the wasteland around the reactor has never been this unstable before. New monsters and mercenaries patrol the irradiated frontier, not to mention the dangerous anomalies taking up home in various secluded spots.

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A long awaited sequel to a series that’s established a massive fan following and has become a cult favorite of many. Stalker 2 took everything that made the first game great and expanded upon it to bring more people in. If you’re still stuck on the fence and can’t decide whether to walk in this wilderness or not, then check out our various reasons why you should or shouldn’t pick up Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobly.

Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl Review

To kick things off, lets take a look at how Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl was received by the wider world after years of waiting.

Overall it seems to be a fairly positive one for this post-apocalyptic feeling survival game. The general audience rating for the game is sitting at around three point nine out of 794 ratings, whilst IGN (yes we know) gave it an eight out of 10. Over at Metacritic, Stalker 2 is sitting at a respectable 73 percent approval rating amongst 76 critics. Whilst the Metacritic general audience awarded it a seven point eight out of ten from roughly 2000 users.

Over at TheGamer we had Branden Lizardi review it and he came away feeling very mixed about the whole experience. For example, whilst Branden was mostly positive about Stalker 2, mainly praising the setting, the unique NPC’s and map size. There were a few bugbears worth pointing out.

Primarily that the combat felt unsatisfying, with a comment that the majority of enemies are either bullet sponges, too powerful, and lacking in variety. Also there were issues with the exploration.

Whilst Branden did praise the scale and density of side activities, he did recommend that the rewards for exploring certain areas should be improved as he considers them lacking in quality compared to effort spent obtaining. But in general he came away with a three and a half out of five for Stalker 2 with a recommendation to try it out for fans of the franchise.

How Long Does It Take To Beat Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl

Stalker games are renowned for being massive time sinks, and for a good reason. The maps are pretty massive and there’s something to do almost everywhere. Whether that’s clearing out bandits, hunting for anomalies, or just completing various quests for other survivors, you’re certainly kept busy.

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In Heart of Chornobyl, the Zone is just as mobbed with activities. So you’re getting quite a lot of things to do for what you’re paying. According to our friends at How Long To Beat, if you’re focused on just the main story you’ll breeze through the game in a respectable 34 hours and 20 minutes.

For those taking in the sights and doing some sidequests, you’ll get to enjoy a luxuriously long game time of between 54 and 70 hours. And finally, those going for a full-tilt completionist run will be able to hoover everything up in around a lengthy 96 to 100 hours. So there’s tons to do.

What Does It Cost?

So normally when it comes to prices we can be a bit hesitant when it comes to advising someone to pay full price for something. Unless a game is so good it demands that you play it on day one, we usually say wait until a sale.

In the case of Stalker 2, you’ll want to pay the full price. The developers are Ukrainian and a lot of the development, and the devs themselves, were impacted by Russia’s illegal war, with one of them dying in the conflict. The team put together a great game under awful circumstances, so this is a case where you really should support a development team.

So sending whatever you can to a studio in a bad situation will help them out massively. For those looking to buy Stalker 2, here are what the prices are:

However, if you don’t want to pay full price you can still find Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl on sale for as low as twenty to thirty pounds or dollars depending on where you look. But again, if you’re a fan and you want to support the developers, then we recommend just buying it on Steam or another major storefront.

What Players Are Saying

Now that we’ve dumped all the nitty gritty facts and reviews on the table, it’s worth checking in with those that have played Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl at TheGamer.

Here’s what we collated from our collective crew of people.

It’s About Exploring The Zone – Branden Lizardi

Stalker 2 does a fantastic job of following up on the original. The world is immersive, the narrative is complex, and the gameplay is… Well, it’s better than the first game. If you like experiencing anomalous worlds and engaging in slow-paced survival, it’s an excellent pick.

If you’re more interested in fair and satisfying gunplay, however, you might find Heart of Chornobyl frustrating. And with such a large world and literal days of content, you NEED to be able to enjoy the main gameplay loop if you want to make it to the end.

So overall the consensus is that if you liked the Stalker series, you’ll find the second game to be more of the same. If you’re new to it all, it might be a little rough but it’s worth persevearing.

Systems

Platform(s)

Xbox Series X and Series S
, Microsoft Windows

Released

2024-00-00

Developer(s)

GSC Game World

Publisher(s)

GSC Game World

Engine

Unreal Engine 5

ESRB

m

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