Stalker 2 captured the Sprit of the PC this yr—its vibrancy, inventiveness (and, sure, occasional jank). For extra awards, go to our Game of the Year 2024 hub.
Joshua Wolens, Information Author: This would possibly sound odd, however what I most love about Stalker 2 is how Stalker it’s: how far it goes—even in dolled-up 2024 type—to protect all of the systemic strangeness and seemingly weird design priorities that made the unique video games nice. Even with the A-Life system apparently busted, the world nonetheless feels to me prefer it lives, breathes, and vibrates with potential for full lunacy—boss encounters can get lower quick when the scary monster stumbles into an anomaly, packs of canine can descend in your enemies to wipe them out earlier than you may even unholster your gun, that sort of factor.
Nevertheless it’s the little touches, too. Why does GSC think about it essential to procedurally generate names for each human you encounter, enemies and all? No concept, however the place most studios would simply label the schmucks you run throughout within the Zone issues like ‘Bandit’ and ‘Obligation Patrolman,’ Stalker 2 will give them names like ‘Vanya Badass,’ and ‘Gena Sleepy’. It is an extremely minor selection that finally ends up lending humanity each to your enemies and the sport as an entire, a revival of that Morrowind-style strategy of giving everybody at the least a obscure place on this planet.
That is the deal with, I believe. It is beautiful and, when it really works, comparatively slick (at the least in comparison with the outdated video games), however at its coronary heart Stalker 2 is a fantastic caveman we thawed out of a block of ice: the final, dim torch of an uncaring, old-school philosophy of sport design that GSC, god bless ’em, has been carrying for the final 14 years of growth.
Fraser Brown, On-line Editor: Yeah, like Josh I am simply enamoured with how a lot Stalker 2 transports me again to 2007. It is beautiful as all heck, but it surely nonetheless has that bizarre, janky soul that ensures I am perpetually being shocked.
It is precisely the kind of factor I might have taken a punt on again in my early 20s, once I’d spend ages shopping the cabinets in Gamestation (one of many many brick and mortars that had been killed off by digital distribution) to benefit from the employees low cost I bought from being evening supervisor at Blockbuster Video (which owned Gamestation, till it too went below). God, I am actually relationship myself right here.
Each journey into the zone is its personal bizarre vignette. Will I get mauled by canine? Will I get right into a battle that ends when my enemies unintentionally step into an anomaly and get flattened? Will I run out of ammo on the worst potential time and must hoof it again to base, popping radiation meds, consuming vodka and wrapping myself up in bandages till I am a post-apocalyptic mummy? Sure, to all of them.
Robert Jones, Print Editor: Stalker 2 crashed onto PC in tough form and with tons of the sequence’ trademark jank on show, together with some uncool progress-halting distress and, for me at the least, a bizarre as hell bug the place a swarm of rats would comply with me round wherever I went. Significantly, for a time I grew to become the rat Pied Piper! However regardless of the myriad of bugs, patches and, at instances, deep frustrations, Stalker 2 nonetheless delivers an extremely distinctive, immersive, and gripping gaming expertise that recaptures the awful and weird great thing about the unique sport completely.
Stalker 2 is a sport the place you may regularly end up having to battle in opposition to each the immense hostility of its digital world, in addition to the myriad of how the sport may go dangerous on you, which may typically really feel so random to some extent of comedian cosmic unfairness, however you soldier on regardless, at midnight and with out hand-holding or security web, as when every thing is working because it ought to, Stalker 2 delivers one of the vital mature, lovely, complicated and difficult experiences in gaming at present. It is a sport that captures a lot of what PC gaming is all about and, in my view, is a worthy winner of this yr’s Spirit of PC award.
