TL;DR: I can only recommend this to people who enjoyed original Stalker games or people who don't mind tough restrictions on inventory, stamina, equipment condition and such. If you've played Arma-titles (excluding Reforged) you'll likely be immune to the jank, but other bits will likely get it tough to get into still.

This is a tough one to review. On one hand the game is completely within expectations. Exactly like previous titles in the series. On the other hand it's made of jank just like the previous titles, just without the X-Ray engine.

So is it buggy mess? Yes. Is it crashing all the time? No, aside from few crashes I had when the second entry to Duga radar complex took place up until death of Faust. Does it play nice with super ultrawide? No, it does not.

Most of the bugs I've encountered are visual bugs, physics bugs, artifacts spawning under the ground or moving through and into the ground. I can think of only one instance of game breaking bug and seems like this only happens in some, but not all cases. Didn't stop me from progressing the story, however, optional part of main quest line failed as a result.

A-life 2.0 system is still broken it looks like, or feels like. Zone doesn't feel as much alive as it was in the previous titles. But you still get some of it with hostile groups and friendly groups, but it feels off. Mind you three bloodsuckers finding you in a forest is still kinda scary as shrubs, bushes and trees make it really hard to spot them.

Ultrawide and especially super ultrawide feels weird. Zoomed in even with 110 FoV (more so after viewing cutscene where the game gets zoomed in even further, though changing something in display options and then changing it back and then saving resets things to the way they were before cutscene). Others say the game is using vertical FoV, maybe that's the case, though for me it feels like developers just used 16:9 viewport, stretched it to 32:9 and then cropped out parts from top and bottom. Just feels wrong no matter what. Someone recommended setting FoV to 120+, but I haven't bothered to edit UE ini files for that yet as the game menu only allows setting it to 110 at most.

Outside of these inconveniences the game is entertaining. Story isn't anything amazing, but I can work with that. I wanted and expected the zone with its usual nonsense. It is very much what I expected from Stalker game after playing a ton of the original games in the series, just without the extra jank and crashes that came with the X-Ray engine. Not much else I can say to it, it's Stalker game through and through, jank and all.

TL;DR: I can only recommend this to people who enjoyed original Stalker games or people who don't mind tough restrictions on inventory, stamina, equipment condition and such. If you've played Arma-titles (excluding Reforged) you'll likely be immune to the jank, but other bits will likely get it tough to get into still. This is a tough one to review. On one hand the game is completely within expectations. Exactly like previous titles in the series. On the other hand it's made of jank just like the previous titles, just without the X-Ray engine. So is it buggy mess? Yes. Is it crashing all the time? No, aside from few crashes I had when [spoiler]the second entry to Duga radar complex took place up until death of Faust[/spoiler]. Does it play nice with super ultrawide? No, it does not. Most of the bugs I've encountered are visual bugs, physics bugs, artifacts spawning under the ground or moving through and into the ground. I can think of only one instance of game breaking bug and seems like this only happens in some, but not all cases. Didn't stop me from progressing the story, however, optional part of main quest line failed as a result. A-life 2.0 system is still broken it looks like, or feels like. Zone doesn't feel as much alive as it was in the previous titles. But you still get some of it with hostile groups and friendly groups, but it feels off. Mind you three bloodsuckers finding you in a forest is still kinda scary as shrubs, bushes and trees make it really hard to spot them. Ultrawide and especially super ultrawide feels weird. Zoomed in even with 110 FoV (more so after viewing cutscene where the game gets zoomed in even further, though changing something in display options and then changing it back and then saving resets things to the way they were before cutscene). Others say the game is using vertical FoV, maybe that's the case, though for me it feels like developers just used 16:9 viewport, stretched it to 32:9 and then cropped out parts from top and bottom. Just feels wrong no matter what. Someone recommended setting FoV to 120+, but I haven't bothered to edit UE ini files for that yet as the game menu only allows setting it to 110 at most. Outside of these inconveniences the game is entertaining. Story isn't anything amazing, but I can work with that. I wanted and expected the zone with its usual nonsense. It is very much what I expected from Stalker game after playing a ton of the original games in the series, just without the extra jank and crashes that came with the X-Ray engine. Not much else I can say to it, it's Stalker game through and through, jank and all.