S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl

The game is a blend of first person shooter action, combined with an immersive simulation game and a horror game, all rolled into one and sent out into the world with an atmospheric open world for you to explore – if you are brave enough!

You are one of a motley band of stalkers, which stands for: Scavengers, Trespassers, Adventurers, Loners, Killers, Explorers and Robbers, who live on the fringes of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone making a meagre living as best they can. The stalkers make a living (and you play the game) by venturing into the heart of the contamination Zone to see what adventures and quests lie before you.

The game is set in an alternate reality, where a second explosion wrought even more havoc on the surrounding area than the real 1986 event. This has created all sorts of uncanny changes to the known world, affecting, flora, fauna and everything else besides! (See more details about these antagonists below.)

The Zone, and the area surrounding it, are moderately well populated with your fellow stalkers, but there is no such thing as friendship within the Zone. However, after a strenuous and successful battle, you might find likely kindred souls sitting around a campfire who you can join for a moment of respite and some campfire tales, before heading off again on your next quest.

As they say in the Zone: you never get used to the Zone. There is no room for complacency or relaxation in this atmospheric and genuinely creepy locale!

The Nitty Gritty

The game features a huge story tree in which your decisions will affect not only the small immediate decisions but they will send ripples and tweak the entire length of the storyline arc, so decisions made in haste in the early stages could well become a source of extreme regret later on!

With a decent inventory to hand, you can be armed with various weapons and gadgets that help you avoid the worst dangers, as long as you are smart, cautious and careful. These include devices such as telescopic lenses, Geiger counters, and anomaly detectors.

Fight your way to the heart of Chernobyl and see what there is to find lurking in the depths of this wasteland – it is a waste land, yes, but it is definitely not barren…

What to Watch Out For

A partial list of enemies and traps in the zone include:

Anomalies – these nasty traps are soft spots in the area which only the unwary – and soon to be dead – wander into. You can spot them by the wavering glints in the air, and test them out by chucking rocks and logs into them to see if they fall normally or if something painful happens to them instead

Mutants – in the years since the meltdown, something weird has happened to cells, both human and animal, in the zone. And the resulting creatures are not very happy about this at all…

Some objects in the Zone have become powerful artefacts that are always valuable and that might help you – or they might vaporise you! Finding out which is… interesting