Recent reviews by NoOneKnows_

- Mom? Can we buy Payday?
- We have Payday at Home

Payday at home ^

The game is solid and captures the essence of the classic S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series from the 2007-2009 era (it feels like a mix of the original trilogy).

Honestly, I recommend buying it now and exploring the world. However, after completing my first playthrough, I plan to take a break for a few months and wait for patches before diving back in to experience the two endings I haven’t seen yet.

The digital edition of the game is definitely worth the price, especially considering its reasonable cost.

That said, due to various issues, it’s a bit difficult to fully enjoy it right now. I’ll explain in detail below.
I’ve lost nearly ~8 hours of progress in total due to needing to replay certain parts of the game to avoid issues.

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The story starts off strong but quickly loses its connection to its roots. The protagonist’s motivation feels underdeveloped, and one of the endings (out of the two I’ve seen) feels almost entirely disconnected from the game’s beginning. Without giving spoilers, overall, the endings are rather underwhelming.

That said, all the cutscenes are impressive and visually stunning. By the way, I noticed that Illya Naishuller worked on the cinematics, great direction there!

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There is no real A-Life system here. The developers even removed any mention of it from the game description. Instead, the game relies on scripted spawns that activate around the player on a timer.

99% of random encounters involve enemies spawning right in front of or behind you and attacking immediately.

When it comes to the world’s "population," the game feels more like Mad Max or Metro Exodus than S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

While hubs feel lively, the world outside them is empty. Only specific “points of interest” have any activity. Out of my ~60 hours of gameplay, about 30 were spent wandering through empty locations, exploring static pre-placed anomalies. Emissions have no effect on these, and their positions never change.

By the way, forget about stalkers escorting you across locations like in Clear Sky -- that feature is gone.

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Combat is not particularly enjoyable. It’s often better to avoid fights and run away rather than waste resources and money on repairs afterward.

A major issue is identifying friend or foe. For example, NPCs may appear friendly (green marker) through a scope but will attack when you get close, which is frustrating.

Fighting pseudodogs is especially annoying, as there’s no way to visually distinguish the real dog from its clones, making targeting difficult. I usually ran away from them, except during the mandatory Arena fight, which was a nightmare. Also, the protagonist seems to attract grenades regardless of cover.

Stealth is present (with a unique stealth kill animation), but it feels unfinished and isn’t worth using. NPC reactions are inconsistent: sometimes they ignore nearby corpses, other times they detect suppressed kills without seeing the shooter.

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The game’s economy is poorly balanced. Quest rewards are minimal, while repairs, upgrades, and consumables are extremely overpriced. You’ll spend a lot of time scavenging for loot, like a dumpster diver looking for hidden stashes.

Trading with friendly NPCs feels pointless due to their limited inventory and inflated prices.

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The world is a standout feature, with phenomenal level design and art. The changes to old locations honor the legacy of the series. Recognizable spots look fantastic and can be easily identified.

The new map layout takes some getting used to, as locations have been rearranged. The world is seamless but contains void zones that instantly kill you if you stray too far.

While the world is massive, it’s largely empty outside points of interest. There are some scripted encounters, but between them, you’ll be traversing long, barren paths. I also don’t understand why some old locations like Agroprom or Army Warehouses are now uninhabited.

The SIIRCA facility stands out in a bad way—it visually clashes with the rest of the game. Logically, it should be located on the Zone’s border, not inside it. Its presence within the Zone, given the anomalies and emissions, breaks immersion.

New anomalies are scarce but visually impressive. Artifact hunting isn’t challenging. The much-hyped “Gilka” device from the trailer looks like a fun gimmick but isn’t very useful.

The game offers limited fast travel. You can move between hubs for a fee, but you can’t travel between points of interest on the map, unlike in Clear Sky. So, you’ll be doing a lot of running.

And here's a small fact to make you think:

The rapid depletion of stamina, combined with its slow regeneration, feels like an artificial way to extend playtime, especially in a game that requires frequent exploration. This mechanic seems poorly implemented, hindering the flow of gameplay rather than enhancing it.

Honestly, it’s not fun at all to feel “addicted to energy drinks 24/7.”

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The core gameplay remains unchanged from previous titles, though combat tweaks have made it worse.

The “zoo” has received two new creatures: a mutated deer and a rat swarm, and some cut content from previous games has been restored (including cats and rodents).

Strangely, the ability to harvest and sell monster parts is gone. This was a major gameplay feature, and its removal feels like a huge loss, as it allowed players to cut and sell trophies.

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Despite numerous complaints about optimization, I experienced minimal issues (2K ultra on Ryzen 7 7800X3D + RTX 4070Ti). I played on the epic preset with a 60 FPS cap. There were some drops, especially at Agroprom Arena (down to 14 FPS), and a lot of LOD issues in Pripyat. Distant trees also pop in suddenly.

Graphically, the game looks good but not up to 2024 standards. Some visuals are even worse than Metro Exodus (2019). Optimization is poor without frame generation or DLSS.

Annoyingly, the game recompiles shaders every time you launch it, not just after updates or driver changes, but every single time.

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I played with the Ukrainian voice-over, which is decent, but the sound design has many issues. Characters speaking over the radio often sound like they’re standing right next to you, breaking immersion.

In some cases, it’s clear that the same character was voiced by two different actors.

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I must admit that some modifications for the original trilogy are still superior in certain aspects. However, the game has huge potential to surpass its predecessors.

Official mod support for S2 isn’t available yet, but NexusMods already offers hundreds of mods to improve various elements of the game. Go get them to sooth the pain at least for now.

P.S. I purchased the ultimate collector’s edition, but the price feels about ~25% too high. The included poster was particularly disappointing—poor print quality and creased in the envelope.

So... Half Life 2 + episodes 1 & 2 = means 3 games in 1 package...
HL 3 confirmed? :D

Pure disappointment
As a fan of the franchise who even worked in quality control for Metro Exodus years ago, I am deeply disappointed with this game’s release state and quality. It feels like it’s exploiting a well-known brand, yet it’s hard to call it a part of the universe. The game was rushed with minimal attention to detail, resulting in numerous technical and design issues


(I’m playing this on the following setup: 4070Ti + 7800x3D, Meta Q3, AV1 codec)

- Metro Redux, which released 10 years ago, was significantly superior in texture quality and overall visuals
- The game uses Unreal Engine 5 but looks like it’s built on Unreal Engine 3—it literally has PS4 VR graphics in a PCVR title released at the end of 2024
- Brightness settings do nothing
- The rendering scale setting is broken, causing FPS drops with any adjustment, higher or lower
- The official site even suggests this as a troubleshooting method: “If you continue to experience issues, we recommend lowering the rendering scale or texture quality to free up additional memory”

You can’t decrease something that’s already at the lowest level :(


- Combat tutorial doesn’t match the experience of the first encounter
- Game lacks a weapon attachment system, and the only throwable item is dynamite
- So called “revolutionary AI” is laughable: when you kill one enemy, the others panic and run in circles, like it was in old-school shooters from the early 2000s. in ~90 seconds they go back to patrolling as if nothing happened
- There are multiple tedious encounters where you simply have to endure waves of enemies
- There are several sequences where you’re “riding a train, shooting waves of Nosalises,” reused repeatedly with no variation. It’s dull even the first time, and nothing changes. The last ride even drags on for around 2 minutes. Simply boring
- Inventory and weapon controls are awkward: you have to “twist your arms” to manage gadgets and guns
- The world feels static. You can pick up and throw bottles or gunpowder cans (both of which can be used for enemies distraction), Other props are attached to the surface with superglue. You can't even pick plush teddy bears but plush Nosalis - can be picked tho, not sure what's the logic behind that
- There are scripted events while camera shakes like you're in epicenter of an earthquake, "amazing" feeling in VR sarcasm
- The save/load system is broken; dying in certain areas can sometimes teleport you forward in the story
- Stealth is theoretically possible but frequently fails—often due to glitches, especially during takedowns that don’t execute properly
- On several missions involving spiders, you’ll be disappointed to know they’re unavoidable. However, the developers recently confirmed on their Twitter that they’ll release a patch for people with arachnophobia
- The final chapter has a few very annoying encounters and as a bonus "run w/o equipment" segment, while you don't have flashlight & need to do find the way in almost pitch dark areas


- I’ve finished the game --- and honestly, the story is weak... It's barely worth time invested

- It’s definitely not interesting.
- Storyline about one of the franchise’s most intriguing side characters is completely empty
- The beginning is repetitive --- you’re going on a mission to find medicine for your wife. No new ideas, just reusing Artyom’s and Anna’s arc from Exodus
- Game is completely linear, with no good/bad karma system
- Throughout the entire journey, we’ll only be walking, shooting, and collecting ammo/medkits, as there are almost no “interesting stories” to overhear or learn from NPCs
- As for story challenges besides combat - there are few puzzles, but those are pretty much simple and could be solved by a person with a room-temperature IQ
- If you’ve seen and completed the first few levels, you’ve essentially seen everything the game has to offer --- all maps are identical, with thousands of reused props/art
Only the first chapter has some "cool" looking areas, which vanish from memory quickly
And imagine that game from Metro franchise has zero “surface” visits. Fact.
For entire 12 chapters of game - we'll be lurking in a dark tunnels and technical rooms—nothing about Dead Moscow
- You can’t buy or sell anything—there are no vendors, and almost no “peaceful stations”
- Only a few missions meet the overall narrative standards of the Metro 2033 series—specifically, the pipes maze & tea party
However, even in the first of these two missions above, the developers managed to mess up, forcing you to go through part of it again (with a bit different ending this time), but it’s not interesting for second time
- Oh, and last but not least – there’s only one finale, which I’d describe as a ‘tragic happy end.’ No alternatives available


- I pre-ordered the game, hoping it would be a worthwhile project—but unfortunately, that was a mistake.
- At this point, I can’t recommend paying full price, even for the standard edition. The game currently lacks polish. Wait for patches, wait for a sale—but don’t buy it now, or you’ll be disappointed.
- Right now, it feels like the publisher decided to quickly and cheaply parasite off the brand, releasing a VR game built on downgraded assets from over 10 years ago.

P.S. I know that Vertigo developed this, sadly not 4A

Apparently, it seems like Vertigo knows how to make fun zombie shooters in VR --- I have nothing against Arizona Sunshine, but they are not yet ready to deliver proper Metro franchise game.

Much worse than the remaster of the first part, but finished it at least

2 years after release, still not fixed save/load leads to loose of progress during missions
This game is a waste.

Boring game.

Better buy cookie clicker.

+ Works great on Deck
+ Does not require Ubisoft Connect to be installed

6/10

I finished the game with approximately 70% completion and have no desire to continue grinding for the sake of grinding. Honestly, it's much worse than the third and fourth games in the series, but still significantly better than Rockstar's GTA Definitive Edition

While I managed to complete the game - I can't recommend it.

The experience was boring, held back by a stupid progression system with a lack of variability.
I reached level 20 at around 30% completion, and for the rest of the game, I was earning XP for nothing since I had already hit the level cap. The level limit should be around 50 or something more reasonable to provide a sense of continuous progression.

The talents system is trash. You'll forget about it at the start and will unlock everything without much thought or engagement.

The DLCs are not worth it at all, except for Ice & Dust, which is actually better than the entire base game. However, even this highlight doesn't redeem the overall experience.

The "murder circus" mode, a battle-royale-like arena, needs to be completed approximately 15-20 times for each of the four characters to receive the reward. The reward, which is merely 4x achievements in the Steam profile, hardly justifies the ultra-boring, repetitive grind.

The controls seem to be designed by someone who has never played a game on a PC using a mouse and keyboard. They are clunky and unintuitive, making the gameplay experience frustrating rather than enjoyable.

In summary, despite completing the game, I found it to be a monotonous experience with poor design choices. It fails to live up to the standards set by its predecessors and offers little to entice players to stick with it.

Honestly, usually I don't care about adding 3rd-party login required to play the game.

But not 3 months later after release...
Scum move from Sony