It's been a long time coming, but Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl is finally on the horizon, and based on what I played at Gamescom 2024, it seems like the wait is going to be worth it for series veterans and Exclusion Zone newcomers alike. I'll be honest, I've never played any of the Stalker games before, so heading into my hands-on demo, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. However, the opening 30 minutes has me thoroughly intrigued – even if I did get my ass kicked several times – and it's almost hard to believe that this is the same game that GamesRadar+'s own Josh West found to be rather rough around the edges at last year's Gamescom .
Clearly, those extra couple of delays were well worth it. For a start, things are visually lovely – well, as lovely as a decaying, post-apocalyptic world can look. Water glistens beautifully, and you can almost smell the rotten, rusty metal of the dirty pipes and ladders as you explore.
It's paired with a surprisingly sleek performance – the frame rate remains consistent, and action feels smooth, although I did notice some lengthy loading screens whenever I had to reload after a death (which happened plenty, but more on that later). In an interview with GamesRadar+, GSC Game World technical producer Yevhenii Kulyk tells me that there's been "a lot of tuning" to Stalker 2's systems since last Gamescom – in fact, the devs are still working on some of the feedback they received last time during their last stint in Cologne. "We're no.