I’ll admit I wasn’t the biggest fan of Stalker 2: Heart of Chernobyl when it launched on PC and Xbox last year. While I liked the vast world and overall sense of adventure, the technical issues, iffy graphics, and clumsy combat held it back for me. Heading into the PS5 version now, I’m happy to report that some of those issues have been fixed.
I say “some” because the performance is noticeably better. Framerates are more stable, there’s less texture pop, and there aren’t so many glitches – it certainly crashes less. But the elements that I didn’t enjoy so much are largely untouched. Shooting still feels imprecise and lacklustre, while enemy AI has just two settings: either the guys with guns will try to flank you while lobbing grenades, shouting, and hitting you with superhuman accuracy, or the monster-type enemies will charge at you, forcing you to backpedal like crazy to even get a shot off. Seriously, there are enemies that utilise hit and run tactics, hitting you and disappearing over and over, and they’re immensely frustrating as they tend to reappear on top of you and move very fast.
And I get it. The defenders and fans of this game will say that this is the point; it’s supposed to be hardcore, it’s supposed to be challenging. But honestly, it’s not a fun experience regardless. Every time I was forced into any kind of combat I audibly sighed before pushing through the motions to get it out of the way. Thankfully, there’s a lot more to the game than shooting.
As Skif, you’ve entered Chernobyl’s forbidden zone alongside physicist Hermann, ostensibly to gather samples but really to dig into Skif’s mysterious past. You’re robbed and left for dead almost immediately, though, which leads Skif on a new mission to recover Hermann’s equipment and escape alive.
The Zone is pretty nasty, too. Not only is it rife with looters and mutated beasts, it’s also plagued by bizarre anomalies that you’ll need to avoid or temporarily nullify by throwing iron nails into them. These anomalies come in various elemental flavours, but navigating them is worth it if it allows you to snag an Artefact, a piece of concentrated radiation that can bestow various buffs to Skif.
They’re very useful, especially early on when the guns are simply awful. With no skill trees or half-arsed RPG elements, Skif must rely on Artefacts and his gear to survive. This is perhaps my favourite element of Stalker 2, because it really emphasises travelling light, collecting materials, and repairing your gear before you leave the town. Side missions and other activities add backstory and context, even if they are delivered by the most diverse group of survivors you’ll ever meet in terms of dialect if not appearance or, well, race or gender. Accents run the gamut of the entire northern hemisphere, and it never fails to raise my eyebrows.
Stalker 2: Heart of Chernobyl is a big game, though. The world is not only huge but stuffed to the gills with things to find and places to explore. If you can make your peace with the clunky combat, there’s a massive gamespace ripe for getting stuck into. You’ll meet bizarre, half-mad characters, heroes, villains, and terrifying mutants, running afoul of gun-toting bandit gangs and packs of starving dogs. Skif carries a device that detects nearby anomalies, giving you fair warning of what you’re about to walk into, but often either story or loot will force you to walk into it anyway.
It’s a game of small stories rather than grand narrative. While there is a coherent through-line, I had more fun with side characters and extra-curricular quests than the main story, always happy to tuck my gun under my arm and head off into the wilderness for the promise of something shiny and deadly to add to my arsenal. This is honestly when Stalker 2 is at its best, and you’re just losing yourself in its world – which is a lot easier now that there are fewer immersion-shattering bugs.
Stalker 2: Heart of Chernobyl is not a bad game by any stretch, but it’s certainly an acquired taste. It’s very much like a Fallout game, which is a somewhat dated concept in 2025, and indeed Stalker 2 definitely feels like a game that was in development for almost a decade. But there’s an endearing quality to a lot of its systems, and enough adventure to keep any hardened explorer busy for tens of hours or more. But you will have to reckon with some janky design decisions, wonky combat, and uneven difficulty if you want to make the most of what Stalker 2 has to offer on PlayStation 5.