STALKER 2 | Hands-On Previews
▪️ Left the impression that the team at GSC Game World "has created something special"
▪️ "Came away feeling like I'd played a clear game of the year contender"
▪️ Very much a hostile, dangerous open world like its predecessor; you're free to go pretty much anywhere
▪️ Found it 'refreshing' to be challenged with managing resources like ammunition and food to survive
▪️ Large number of ways to tackle objectives: all out guns blazing, stealth, peaceful route, do a mission at night for better cover or daytime to see better, etc
▪️ Flexibility in its game design with quests: you can skip different objectives in a mission and stumble upon your goal directly and the game carries on and adapts to it
▪️ You need to eat or you'll fatigue faster, if you run out of bullets you can try and use your knife, or use the environment to lure enemies into anomalies, etc
▪️ NPCs can abruptly end a quest without rewarding you because you decided to loot the body of their dead friend
▪️ Firefights are tense and frenetic, with your guns sometimes jamming mid-combat, having to bandage up wounds, etc all while enemies rush or outflank you
▪️ Enemies aren't pushovers, you'll die quick if you get careless with how you approach combat
▪️ Goes "unexpectedly hard" on narrative delivery, info is divulged through involved conversations with branching dialogue and full voice acting, a lot of options
▪️ The world is full of many intersecting systems and emergent gameplay: a mutant rushed a player for example while scouting a compound, only to trigger a fire anomaly and running off squealing. You'll see bandits fighting mutants, other Stalkers fighting them or even intervening in a firefight with you
▪️ Choosing to help an NPC on a side quest can open up a chain of other quests and evolve into a larger story beat that was completely optional