STALKER 2: The Heart of Chernobyl brings scavengers, intruders and adventurers from all over the world to live their best lives in a faithfully digitized corner of Ukraine. Danger lurks around every corner, whether from hungry mutants or battle-hardened mercenaries. But very similar Dark Souls AND Transmitted through bloodthe game has its own internal quirks and quirks that you need to become familiar with before you get too far.
Here are the beginner tips you need to know before embarking on your first adventure in the Zone STALKER 2.
Saving scum can be threatening
SSPEAKER 2 contains only three playable slot machines. But in all three of these machines, I was only given the option to save 50 separate save game files to my computer. Any more and I’ll have to overwrite the existing save.
Furthermore, the game does not allow you to annotate or otherwise communicate what you are doing when creating a save file. All you can jog your memory later is a basic image of the Zone region you were in when you created the file, along with the time and date it was first saved or last overwritten. Okay, if a little uncomfortable.
However, combined with the built-in autosave feature, there is a high chance of accidentally saving a file that you absolutely need to go back to in order to advance the game in the way you prefer. It is up to you, the player, to keep a close eye on your save files and not overwrite them recklessly.
When you sit down for a session, pay attention to the save file you create at the very beginning of the night. Be aware of the ones you create in the future. You just might need them to work a few hours later when you realize you’ve inadvertently screwed up.
Know that you are being watched
STALKER 2 has multiple endings – four as the press materials say, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more. In previous versions of the STALKER series, the number of times you die in-game from a given save slot can directly impact the endings available to you, and I suspect that’s the case here as well.
The game is long and can accommodate a hundred or more hours of gameplay, including side quests and more. So if getting the “best” ending isn’t a large deal for you, go crazy and have fun. Just know that you can’t actually undo the impact of that death (or multiple deaths, depending on where you landed) on your final score in a given save slot.
STALKER 2 is a game about taking long journeys through an unforgiving landscape, but the environment itself provides a surprising amount of food to aid you refuel along the way. If you’re heading in a fresh direction where the loot will be fresh, don’t worry too much about having a six-pack of energy drinks and a dozen loose sausages in your pockets. Maybe at most half that number plus some vodka for radiation would be enough to get me through, apart from the cleansing.
Keeping your weight down is vital because you won’t level up in this game. This isn’t an RPG, so you can’t drop a few strength points to escalate your load capacity. Instead, you’ll need to be able to carry around a lot of loot that can be sold – particularly rifles and shotguns, half a dozen or more at a time – to earn enough money to buy other necessities and repair your favorite equipment. So the fewer cans of condensed milk you have on you, the more firearms you can take back to camp.
Finally, don’t waste your time carrying broken weapons, marked with a red icon in the inventory menu. Sellers won’t buy them, and unless they’re particularly infrequent, it’s better to buy a fresh gun than repair an elderly one.
Prioritize repairing your equipment
Wandering around knee-deep in river water and bumping into anomalies – like a floating field of glass shards or a nasty gust of phantasmal wind that can make your head spin – is the surest way to damage your health. But while you can apply a bandage, the clothes on your back cannot be repaired so easily. Even your weapons will start to show wear and tear on the inventory screen, where you can track the degradation of your equipment in real time. That’s right, the game world doesn’t stop when you open the menu, so check your surroundings before taking out your PDA.
I speak from experience: when you operate up, say, 10% of the suit’s available durability, you will have to look for thousands of repair coupons. If you turn around at this point and go home with less than 20% damage dealt, you might be able to keep the cost under 10k, depending on what you’re wearing. If you go further than that – especially with more exotic armor and weapons in the mid-to-late game – you’re going to have to pay a really high bill. Plan accordingly for your finances as they are, so you don’t get caught outside with damaged equipment or, worse yet, a shell that has fallen into the receiver of your previously trusted AK.
Semi-automatic and fully automatic weapons are great fun, with all the mode selector switches, attachments, scopes, and so on. But there’s no substitute for a economical, easy-to-repair smoothbore shotgun and a dozen 20-gauge shells. Just in case, bring about 50 pellets and get close. Stunning one enemy and then pecking the other is sometimes the only way to get out of an attack STALKER 2 live shooting.
