STALKER 2’s solid gunplay picks up a lot of the slack in its combat’s faults. Whipping around a decked-out assault rifle with a nice red dot sight to make headshots easy, or pumping shells into a mutant from a fully modded shotgun and slowing its charge with their impact had me looking forward to those high-stakes, kill-or-be-killed situations.

Heart of Chernobyl has numerous side quests for players to undertake. These missions are very well sculpted into the games story, and many could have been main missions. One such endeavor is the mission Piece of Cake.

It’s wild that anyone would want to go into The Zone by choice. But such is the addictive nature of the Stalker series. Even with all the harrowing attacks and life-draining challenges it throws at you,