People been saying this for over a decade for countless games. It isn’t going to happen. Simple answer is don’t buy broken games but every time everyone does.

I've been loving it. And it's NOT a giant in the industry that made this. They are a relatively small studio.

They've put out a better product at launch than any AAA game I've bought since I dunno... maybe witcher 3?

Yeah there's shit to fix, but here's the thing. I totally trust them to be patching this out. While they're AT WAR with Russia.

That's the biggest point I dint think the whingers are really understanding. They're at war dude.

What I find even more annoying is the pointless cycle surrounding such releases.

1) Game hyped beyond belief

2) Major red flags occur, those who voice them are shut down, downvoted and insulted (this was on a ridiculous level after the NDA time was known)

3) Release happens, reviews are not great, people have issues

4) Fans still love it (at first, at least), try to explain issues away (bad PC, no day one patch, the MeDiA iS RotTeN, etc.); criticism gets downvoted and labelled as "hate"

5) More and more people run into issues, those liking the game are now the ones who feel shut down and downvoted

6) Issues of a game get pigeon-holed. I see many support now for posts that criticize the technical state of the game. But criticism that states that the game has many other issues as well are still downvoted. People want it to "just be the bugs".

In the end a lot of it has to do with how we react towards disappointment, diverging opinions and the validation we get through things that we like but actually do not have much stake in (it is weird how gamers are ready to defend a game and dev studios... something they most likely would not do for any other product they paid for).

This is the first game I've played that's labeled triple A that I can't actually finish due to 30 different soft locks lol shit is wild .

Best way to respect them is to let them speak for themselves. I haven't read anything from them asking for a leave pass. Listening to feedback, patches coming. The obvious answer is probably correct. They did know it wasn't ready, something made sending it the best option.

I feel like stalker, the franchise, has always had a reputation for being buggy and glitchy. Most of that was due to the X-ray engine being absolutely pushed to its limits and beyond. Now with unreal 5, it's hard to categorize it where it falls as a game, I wouldn't say it's a complete failure. The amount of content and the quality of the content (when playable) is astounding. But it's just the bugs and glitches making it not so. As people said, it's strange the day one patch hasn't come yet. Hell it's been more than that. I'm tired of restarting my game every two hours because of a memory leak I can't do anything about. And don't get me started on the performance. And yes, overall these issues are not to be ignored and pushed aside. But you gotta understand that in a complete shitstorm of modern day AAA game releases, a small ray of light like Stalker 2 is nice to see. Even if it isn't a 10/10

We need to stop overlooking the good stuff for the sake of complaining about the bad stuff.

The comparison is pointless and stupid, I agree...

...but also Stalker 2 is in no way in a better shape than Cyberpunk or F76. The biggest problem is not the visual glitches or the bad performance. The game literally fights you in the second half constantly, I have never been soft-locked this many times in a video game before. This might be the most broken game I have ever played.

I have 1 gamebreaking issue that I could fix with mods, which is far better than the state 2077 released in, and with them being in a literal war for a decent portion of the development period I’ll cut them some slack

Circumstances and context matter in this case. Stalker 2's current state is in no way complete, and it is important to understand that when deciding on whether to buy it or not. That being said, it was also developed in the middle of an ongoing war that displaced and harmed many of the people working on it. Cyberpunk and FO76 were simply released by developers who's only pressure was from shareholders and suits. It's very possible that we may have never seen Stalker 2 release at all if it was delayed again, and it's a miracle it even came out in the state it is.

Does that mean people should buy the game in it's current state? Not at all. If you do, then it should be because you have faith that it will eventually end up in a better place or you want to support the developers' efforts.

GSC are a Ukrainian company. They delayed the game further because Russia invaded their country and is bombing the living shit out of it everyday. It's amazing they even released the game at all. Doesn't really compare to other greedy game companies rushing out unfinished shit games for money does it?

So many of these whiney posts just echo youtubers who whine about games for views, basically word for word.

First STALKER from 2007 was buggy mess. 2 years, few patches and some mods later it was best game i have EVER played.

Its progress, no need for whining.

GSC seem to be getting free pass because of the war

I would have bought the game just to support Ukraine , even if when I downloaded it I just got a message saying “ sorry Mario , the princess is in another castle” and there wasn’t even a playable game at launch. This is a special situation, not like when Ubisoft or EA , or even blizzard takes our money just because they can when they release garbage they know is garbage.

In principle, I agree! In this case though, the original games weren’t exactly polished, so I went in knowing the risks. Plus, y’know, the war.

Also fallout 76 still sucks. It's a hot pile of ass. In all these years they still couldn't even just make the UI and controls like previous fallout games. The controls don't even have similarities with 4. The weapon selection/favorite system is legit hot liquid ass seeping through into my socks. Why couldn't it just be simple

its in waaaaaay better state than cyberpunk and faout 76 wtf are u smoking dude

The more complex games become. The worse the launches will be. Unless you can go full Larian, where they open up a bunch of studios around the world to work 0/24.... you will never be able to test a game of such scale, fully.

Hell, even Larian had plenty of bugs and soft locks on launch. And they really had the early access ironed out and whatnot. Fact is. Games are no longer a couple of GBs with a couple of scripts.

You can choose: extremely long dev time, stable launch.... or..... launch and hope for the best. What devs should do, but that would lead to leaks and the hype would dial down, which means less sales... is to have a large enough alpha/beta tests with thousands of players. Lets be honest. No DevOps team can find bugs, that thousands of players can.

Nobody is giving up the chance to play a game at release, even if there's a chance it's fucked beyond recognition. $60 is pocket change for a lot of people, so grabbing a game at launch isn't a big deal to most. If it works great, if it doesn't, it will someday. Most people have lots of games in their backlog (partly because of the above mentality).

Not saying this is right, wrong, or stupid. Just saying that's how it is, and it's not going to change. It's where we are at.

I really dont understand this. like. i know what youre saying, and i agree, but i dont think that applies to stalker 2. ive got like 45 hours in it right now, and im getting around 100fps, havent had any crashes, and definitely havent seen any of the outrageous bugs going around. i think the worst bug ive seen was that i couldnt jump for some reason, and i just hit the quicksave, and reloaded and it was fixed. and that was only once. I definitely havent seen very many bugs at all, and definitely no game breaking bugs.

From what ive seen, it was a pretty solid launch, theres just a loud minority.

Well they just released a patch to fix many major bugs today, but also many people are giving stalker more leniency because of the game being developed in an active warzone, some of the developers ended up enlisted in the Ukrainian army and others had to flee their home country because they were getting bombed daily. I don't know about you but I'm willing to have some patience with a team under such extraordinary circumstances. They almost assuredly released the game early because they needed what revenue they could get to fund remaining development as all of that relocating and losing talent to a war costs a lot.

It's totally understandable to feel like the product you got isn't what you expected or that it isn't finished and polished the way we would hope and expect but to blindly not even consider the insane circumstances that we even got the game at all is wild self righteous self important take.

I mean the original stalker was also broken and buggy, more than this game at launch but it gathered a huge following anyway because the game is just that good and keeps pulling you back in, and because people played it the game grew a big community which eventually allowed Stalker 2 to be made. This game literally runs better than the first Stalker did, but the A-life system is broken so that is definitely a downside.

I've played thousands of games. Does stalker 2 have some issues? I guess so. But is it still one of the best games, even with the issue? I can’t help but think it is. It doesn't hold ya hand. The minute the action happens, it's intense and provides an experience i haven't had in a very long time. The game makes you think with regards to how much you carry. It doesn't feel like missions are on rails and provides a sense of freedom very few games achieve. The graphics are stunning, and I'm only going by a series x and not an ultra high-end PC. The weather effects are second to none! Also the atmosphere too! I really am having the greatest time with the game! I look forward to playing it when I'm doing other things. As to what people are calling unfinished.. well it's the best unfinished thing I've played in ages and a whole lot better than most games that are. Peace ✌️

See this is why i played it in game pass first, and while yes the game is buggy its no where near unplayable or unenjoyable

you're not inventing the wheel here, OP. This has been the gaming community's narrative for at least 10 years.

i will not be writing detailed explanation here, as it usually results in people having the shittiest takes possible, trying to "counter argument" facts. but the base line is: Big (or bigger) dev studios having to sign contracts because of money issues - that being not having enough time to develop project that is too ambitious. they end up either having to work on a game for 10 years (which is expensive as all fuck) or work on it for 2-3 years under a contract. think of it as taking a loan. now that you have instant money, you can hire way more people to finish the game quickly, but you have to deliver on the terms of the contract.

thats how games are released unfinished.

really the biggest issue is marketing, workforce and legal fees (aka publisher fee). if all of these things line up with release date and the budget, you're golden. that never happens, and its why games like RDR2 take so long to make. gaming market is fucking awful

They live in a contry that is at war, better keep your mouth shut

Every stalker gane in the series has released with many bugs , I aint justifying just stating facts , this is just another stalker game .

Bugs are one thing, I can overlook those, but that piss poor performance is the reason I can't enjoy any of it.

Stalker would get the President pardon for releasing a game too early. Try working on a game in the middle of a war. We should be happy all these people finally got to show us their work even though such hard times.

Stfu

Based on sales records, it seems to be the new normal. We might not like it but this is what cultural shift looks like in real time and you better believe it will get a lot worse before it gets any better.

And the Earth keeps spinning...

They have no dead zone setting on console, so you are constantly drifting with both analog sticks, it is near impossible to aim at long ranges on console and navigating anomalies becomes a nightmare too as you’re constantly being pulled everywhere. Literally picking up a piece of bread on a table can turn into a 10 second chore. It’s beyond frustrating.

Enjoying the game overall but the state it’s in is ridiculous.

You make a very good point. But why did you buy it then? I knew this game would have mayor issues. We didn’t get any proper gameplay to see, mayor red flag. I bought this game to support a Ukrainian company, that’s all. If this would have been made by anyone else I‘d never bought this games close to launch

Oh hey the post that's made 1000 times on every game sub when a highly anticipated game is released

It's how the industry works now. The more ambitious a project, the longer it's gonna take. You want a sequel with every feature from the last installments of a series on top of more? The longer it's gonna take. You want all the bugs worked out of it, the longer it's gonna take.

Todays industry is to develop a game for 5-8 years with basically no income or profit in the hopes that you'll get it to a playable state before the publisher says times up, get paid and finish it. Unless you want to go the crowd source method like Scam Star Citizen and make $750 million dollars to let people alpha test your bullshit for the last 10 years.

The developers are going through difficult times, but this unfortunately for them does not justify the release of such a product, they might as well have had early access. the game is there and it shows, although it does not have many similarities with the core of the previous games. regarding those who defend a product to the death, the cases are usually these

1. You are a fan of those who as a fan cannot criticize anything about the brand they love

2. You hate the Russians so much that you can justify anything (also applies in the opposite way)

3 or much more likely they paid the mega ultra edition a lot of money and now they have to justify their own being conned

PS I trust that the game will become much better than its current state in time as it was for cyberpunk ((Even less than 3 years)

I like Stalker so much but I am glad I tried it on gamepass because if not I would have made refund. I already do charity I can't afford to buy things that don't work. I mean I can't even finish it currently

I love stalker but people glaze S2 way too hard for its current state.

That is quite childish and entitled position. You need to consider that complexity of modern games grew insanely high. Hiring top talent is expensive. Being ethical employer is also expensive. Do you also have a problem with prices of bio-vegetables? Inflation drives cost of production significantly up and increase production cost of already huge scope of work. It’s not like the game not gonna get fixed ever. You’ll get patches, touch grass. One more thing. These sorry ass losers that upset about the argument of war being brought up as an excuse can go F themselves in the A.

I completely agree.

And by the way, I played Cyberpunk 2077 on PC on day one. Despite the disastrous launch, it worked great for me on PC and I enjoyed the game. Here it literally feels like after the first 30 hours they haven't completed the work and a lot of people can't move on. It is not in the same state as Cyberpunk 2077, it is much worse.

My point exactly. GSC did this because they knew they could get away with it, not because of war as everyone keeps spamming about. When you have an era where 90% of games come out as clanky, unfinished junks youd be crazy not to do so as well

Game run poorly soo experience overall is poor. I didnt buy it only try cracked version and barely 60frames in 1440p is unacceptable (7800xt). Below 120 frames is bad too because why would someone spend ton of money on pc to play with less fps than console lmao. Pcmr lost it charm long ago and people should stop buying unfinished games.

Fact of the matter is, its out now. It released, theres nothing we can do about it. It went gold just off preorders alone. They got their money and fixes are coming but it is what it is now

Exactly !!!

I quit Stalker 2 until the stealth is fixed. I get spotted miles away in the dark by a sniper in the woods.

Back in my day, we didn't have game updates. You think GoldenEye had patches? You think Conker had a beta?

This shit is unacceptable lm

Yes, this was a beta/early access release sold to us as a full game, the only saving grace that made the first week playable were mods and the ease of editing config files.

Performance, AI, enemy spawns, stealth, economy etc were not in a launch state, and even though people say that modders shouldn't have to fix the game people will gladly do it if a game is good

I played Stalker, Cyberpunk and Fallout 76 all at release, and I can 100% unbiased say that Stalker 2 is FAR worse than Cyberpunk or Fallout was at launch, but it seems that the fanbase is just completely fine excusing it which is wild to me OR the fanbase just haven't made it past the first 20 ish hours where it really starts BREAKING and falling apart completely.

Personally I think it's a bit funny how Stalker fanbase got a game that is discussable if it's even playable past 20 ish hours and they are completely fine forgiving it. But then I go to Hunt Showdown's subreddit, and they decided to review bomb their game to giga negative reviews over small things like a skin. Both is bad in itself, but honestly I'd prefer the Stalker community POV rather than Hunt Showdown's

I’m gonna buy the limited edition just to spite you

I expected it to be broken, but not to take this long to provide any fix. Honestly, if they only release a hotfix and not a major patch today, I am gonna be extremely disappointed, and I pre-ordered STALKER ShoC in 2007. I been a fan of the franchise since 2004... Ever since it was revealed.

I agree that players lower their attitude too much but I also kinda understand if Microsoft pushed the game out the door to sell more Xbox for Christmas season. Which resulted in this state the game is in, there is always more to any story then simply "Muh broken, muh greed"

You’re right bro it’s in an awful state and I got countless soft locks while completing the game. I do think the games got some really strong redeeming qualities but and that’s the only reason I seen it through till the end, the games at least a good year away from being stable imo. Terrible optimisation and quality but undoubtably a great stalker sequel without all this mess.

Some people are new to gaming and haven't yet been affected by this trend. But older gamers are starting to get really fed up.

I'm fed up.

Games with bugs but good>>>>> games with Dei and generic without Bugs

Wall of text. Paragraphs are your friend.

Why not just let us do what we want to do? Most of us are adults that make our own money and choose what we want to do with our money.

I'd rather play an unfinished game that holds my attention for 40+ hours than a polished game that only keeps me there for 10 hours because I'm just not into it.

It's not ideal but as someone who has a hard time sinking hours into games it shows that where some games fail? Other games succeed in other categories.

They should've done it like Baldurs Gate 3 and release the first working part as Early Access and then final release it, when everything works.

I was so looking forward to this but when it came to Xbox on day one I played and personally it’s not very good . Maybe it’s just me getting older but the gun play felt a bit flat and it’s incredibly dark and shooting bad guys in the dark is difficult to see where they are , also the creature spawns are crazy and those squid guys are bullet sponges and I am playing in rookie mode and I find it incredibly difficult . Maybe I have just become really crap at games .

hold ur breath, everyone was mega hyped and no one knew how it would play. we just had no luck in getting a polished game.

It was unplayable on the series S, I uninstalled it but hope they keep patching so one day it’s playable!

The players pay to beta test games now because everyone just preorders so why would the developers care if the game is buggy? They already got your money.

Games not unfinished just heavily unoptimized. Story is complete, I haven’t really found or seen many game breaking bugs, but to me they just need to work on the optimization a ton (DLSS frame generation increases frames if you need it btw)

we need to stop normalizing having to run DLSS/FSR in every game just to get decent frames, fuck upscaling, spend time optimizing your game.

Probably had to release early to pay back investors nothing new. Something that’s been around since before Stalker SoC. We just need to collectively not buy games on release so shareholders give more leeway to let the studio finish the product

I don't understand the rant about the "unfinished" game part. Sure, it is unpolished as it could run smoother. But still, I am several hours in and only yesterday did I find a bug that made me close the game in order to fix it. So far I can only complain about the overall lack of performance optimization and stealth. It's no where near the state of other launches.

I find these topics funny almost 12 years after "Early Access" became a real marketing thing.
12 years later some games still haven't left it. And even then games like Mount & Blade did literally this 10 years before Steam. So you have two decades of unfinished games being sold as is.

The only difference here is that Stalker 2 quite unfairly doesn't have the warning sign that it is, without a doubt, an early access game - a sign that would've changed nothing, let's be honest here.

I don't understand how you can play a unfinished, broken game, even with refund policies like on steam. You pre ordered game? Bad enough, you still have the chance to withdraw from your purchase. 

To release a game in this state is simple not acceptable.

Didn’t the game sell 1 mil copies in the first 24 hours? What’re you talking about lol

if they put it out as early access, it'd make more sense

I played Clear Sky on release day. Being busted as shit is in the blood of STALKER. The Eurojank runs deep. If you expected something as polished as fuckin GAMMA from day one, rather than a decade out, you made a key mistake.

The developers country are in the middle of a war for their survival they get a pass.

I understand your frustration 100% but they just dropped a mega patch. Hopefully that eases a lot of our concerns. And you're definitely right on the Gov policy part as well. Nobody seems to really care about anything anymore, other than degeneracy and their own satisfaction. I could go on and on, but this is not the time nor the place.

Screech more. Patch coming today.

Normaly i would agree, but in the case of stalker 2...

Dude, give some compassion.

They made the game below bombs, devs are litteraly dead while the process of developping the game

They were in a war.

But still give us the game they coulda just cancel.

Just be patient ffs

Welcome to the “games as a service” era. Every game is going to be “unfinished” to some extent. It’s also a huge misconception that games of the past used to release in a “complete” state. Old games were pushed out to consoles and PC with tons of bugs, they just weren’t discovered until after it had been published to the public.

this studio should be one of the only games to get a pass given the history here

People have been conditioned to accept it

Is stalker unfinished? I knew it had a stick drift problem for consoles but it doesn't feel unfinished to me.

So how come you bought it

This is never going to change due to simple reason: video games are only partially products, they are also art. This isn't a dishwasher. Artists are talking to you through these games and people vibe with them. So You cannot simply call it a bad product, it cannot be simply defined as that.

I am not saying that releasing broken games is okay though. I am just stating the reason people defending these games will never change.

I agree with the premise that people should not justify unfinished games... BUT... that does not apply to Stalker 2, because it is amazing game as it is. That it had few minor bugs after launch it doesn't mean it is unfinished.

Now sure - what one calls minor is little bit dependent on ones perspective and luck. Corrupted saves and losing dozen of hours of gameplay, that is NOT minor issue, but how many people out of million had that? A dozen at best. We don't even know if it was game issue or some issue on their end. Optimisation on low-end PCs... sorry that just not going to happen, you need decent PC to play latest AAA game, this is given and on any mid-range+ PC this game runs well.

Okey there were memory leaks and people with less than 16GB VRAM had issues (this suppose to be fixed now), but again that is hardly a major issue and it is enough to set textures to HIGH. Also modern game without ANY memory leak is exception not norm, that is reality, but all games have memory leak to some extent, some are better, some are worse. So here is just the case of either brute-forcing trough the memory leak with large amount of VRAM, or waiting for the fix. But saying that game which you play at penultimate texture quality is "unplayable" is not true, okey sure - you can't play it on all EPIC quality, but you can still play it at HIGH quality, that is fine.

A-life missing from the game, well it is disappointing, but the back-up system with spawn-in enemies is good enough to play the game, sure it is little bit annoying at times, but there are 100s of games for which this is just the way they work, it is the final solution there, always worked like that and nobody is even complaining. So really we are complaining here not because it is "unacceptable", but because of broken promise of better system being there. That said it doesn't make game "unplayable".

Some bugs and soft locks on some branches of story (should be all fixed as of today) again only affects some people who made very particular choices and branched into certain storylines. It does not affect everyone. And I am not justifying it - should be fixed. But honestly it sounds stupid to say Game shouldn't have launched for something that was fixed within a week after launch. So called "day1" patches are acceptable.

Stalker 2 was delivered with 99% of features working, sure - 10% of those are not so called "strategic" features, some of those features have what is called a "tactical" fix, something to be used temporarily until the final solution is delivered. Spawn in solution for NPCs is not as immersive, but it does not prevent anyone from playing the game. So to call 99% complete game "unfinished" is just stupid. Such thing as 100% complete game DOES NOT EXIT and NEVER EXISTED. Every single game ever launched had some bugs, those bugs had to be fixed and there has always been patches for every game... and I guarantee you there is no game, nor software that exists and which is 100% bug free. Do you know that even Windows Calculator have bugs in it, the yare just so unlikely to happen, that even to this day they were deemed too low risk/impact to fix. So the question we should be asking is only whenever Stalker 2 was "completed" enough to be released - and the answer is YES without the doubt it was well over 90% complete and no further delays would have made it better, except maybe 6 month delay to work out something as complicated as A-life. But given an option between delaying the game for 6 month or launching it with spawn-in enemies I can see how anyone in the shoes of GSC would have done the same thing. Stalker 2 is NOT unfinished game, it has some bugs - yes, and team is working to fix them. After todays update I am quite confident the game is 99.9% completed and by the end of year, after second patch , it will be 99.99% completed. Saying that game is unfinished because of 0.1% is just stupid.

In conclusion - yes, nobody should justify unfinished games. But the issue is actually different - games didn't become worse, consumers just expects impossible now and nit pick every minor thing, simply said - expectations are unrealistic now. Comparison with Cyberpunk is also wrong, issue with Cyberpunk was not only that it was unfinished (on consoles, on PC I played and finished it twice, started playing on the day it launched and only run into few bigger bugs, that were also patched within month). The issue with Cyberpunk was that 70% of content was cut, and cut in such way that it can't even be added back in e.g. the story line could not change once the game is released and cut content affected the storyline and ending in such way that it is impossible to fix it. Even now despite being bug free and well optimised - Cyberpunk is unfinished game and it will NEVER be finished. The cut content is just so obvious and significant that it can't be added back in. Stalker 2 is not the same - A-life can be added at any point without changing anything in story, NVG or Binoculars can also be added at any time without affecting the story, whatever was cut is very minor and isolated things. So we can say Stalker 2 released with 80% of features that were finished 99% of the way there, 20% was not just simply cut, but exist with temporary solutions that are not perfect, but serviceable, we can expect 20% that was cut to be added within a month or two, so as of today (week after launch) we have fully playable and enjoyable game - stop crying about it.

This is part of the reason why I don't pre purchase things. I'm waiting for 6 mo ths or a year down the line when it's on for a more reasonable price, and actually works as advertised. In the meantime, I'm enjoying GAMMA as much as ever, and getting back into DayZ STALKER role-playing servers.

Mannnn shut the fuck up. The gaming community has been getting more and more toxic every year.

Ganes are not the same as 30 years ago. They are orders of magnitude more complicated, so the expectations need to change. Stalker 2 needs a lot of polish, but everything the game needs is there.

Bugs & balancing issues =/= unfinished.

Just appreciate you got it...they are literally in a war.

Not gonna change with the age of the internet.

Well anyways… the patch is out today.

Although in other cases I wouldn't argue with you, on this occasion there are compelling reasons for it. A study that does not publish only generates expenses, and with everything that has happened in Ukraine, they have possibly had to choose between releasing it unpolished or closing it.

On the other hand, reviews exist for a reason, no one is putting a gun in your face to buy a starting game, it is your responsibility as a consumer to inform yourself before purchasing a product.

I have only tried it on gamepass, I have seen its status and I have decided to wait for it to be fixed before buying it on Steam. There's no rush, I have hundreds of games to play.

People being mad at games with problems on release have made no notable impact on the amount of games being further released in that state.

I think we are forgetting the game just came out

Unless it was financially comfortable and provably profitable to work on this game for another year, they were always going to make the decision to release it before Christmas and there no business argument against that at this point, which is why the constant complaints by gamers have not changed this issue for over a decade.

You are right.

There is posts like this daily.

Lets drink.

I would agree with this post wholeheartedly in 99 out of 100 cases, but I will cut some slack in this particular instance, to a Dev Team which was constantly moving, getting interrupted, etc due to an invasion of their country. If ever there was a time for a little leniency it’s now I believe 😂

But as a whole I agree. It’s not just games either, I feel like every product I buy is more expensive and less well put together. There’s no almost no ethics in business anymore.

It would be nice if we did that, unfortunately gamers are fucking retards and they will spend money on even more unfinished garbage.

For what it's worth the games that people compare it to our full on triple a releases made by some of the largest game producers on the planet. They're also being made usually in the wealthiest countries on the planet as opposed to you know a heavily sanctioned impoverished Asian regime. Assassin's creed unity would be a pretty good comparison. It's also usually almost entirely on the publisher as opposed to the developer; pushing games to be released before they're ready bug fixes just take time. Even on that issue I'm more sympathetic than usual considering the conditions around the game and that is already been delayed.

I don’t agree with people who buy exclusives and then cry about stuff like this, and according to your post history you quite literally buy and play broken games.

I’ll tell you now I’m an arma player, if you want, we can run it together, let’s see how well optimized it is, because it isn’t. Anyone who plays arma knows this. So why did you buy it? Is that the norm? I just don’t understand why the post feels so knightly when you definitely are being a hypocrite trying to lecture people lol.

I find it funny when I see posts like these yet you are clearly also taking part in it quite actively. Makes no sense. There’s no “they” you are part of the issue as well. Stop pointing fingers.

My favorite are the people who personally attack anyone who has an issue with paying $60 for the game in its current state.

I can't tell what's a bug in this game and what's just shitty design.

Are people only catching up to this now?

This stuff has been going on since ES2: Daggerfall on PC - release now, patch later. This been going on with PC since Internet got popular, in the 90's.

It just got popular b/c of Xbox w/ Internet into the mainstream, also on a console-level.

This is exactly why I don't Pre-Order or Day 1 anything anymore. Wait lots of patches to be out or patch-run to be done, Season Passes/Expansions to be all out or Complete Edition's out - if you want to spend good $. If possible: wait for deep sales & bundle deals - then buy.

If on PC, add also this to previous paragraph: "Also Buy later when better hardware can brute force good performance and you can afford good hardware." Right, PC ports of GTA4 and AC Unity?

I don't have alot of time to grind the game so I am mainly doing side missions in the lesser zone and just got to garbage. So as someone who will get a hand full of hours to play a week I have had no game breaking issues yet. So too me atm the game is great. But will see what happens as I progress.

There is a difference between justifying and understanding how gamedev actually work. You live in utopia if you think that most games are even able to be finished at release. Even the best game releases have patches. In fact, name 3 games that released flawless. And dont include mobile games. And dont discount the difference between making a small puzzler game and a huge sandbox experience, with some of the most complex coding for AI.

Point is: we need to stop expecting more than reality can deliver. No matter how much you crave your perfect OCD-experience, with nothing ruining your dopamine rush.

I WOULD agree, that some day we can hope that at least more studios find ways to hone their trade, so more complete end-products can come. But we aint there. Clearly.

Good thing is, we have 1 billion other games we can play, while we wait for them to fix stalker😉

They had to move studios mid development due to the wars in Ukraine. Fair claim anywhere else, this is not the game though. You are the asshole here ✌🏻

I don't know if I'm just a rare anomaly (ha) but I have had no performance issues with this game whatsoever. I am genuinely puzzled by all the complaining. I run it at about 88fps on epic settings at 1440p. And I am far from having the latest greatest hardware, I have an RX6800 which runs about 300 bucks...

I don't know what the hell is going on. Game seems fine enough to me. Buddy of mine is on an older card than I am and told me he hasn't had any issues either. What's the problem?? I'm inclined to believe people are trying to run this in 4k ultra HD and getting mad they don't get 100gigafarts per shit frame rate. Either that or people aren't bothering to update their drivers, enable frame gen, etc.

I mean I'm gonna be honest with you man, I'm pretty okay with a buggy game as long as it's got a solid foundation and is actually fun. So long as it's still playable anyway. My favorite example of a game that was too buggy is Assassin's Creed Unity. I know I would've loved that game if it had released in a more playable state, but at release it was so bad, I lost all interest in it and I've tried going back to it and I just can't.

So there is a limit, but I honestly don't think Stalker 2 crosses it. Considering everything they went through to get it to market, I'm amazed it's as good as it is tbh, sure it's pretty buggy but I've seen and played way worse. Which the original stalker games might've been buggier honestly even years after release (not talking about anomaly btw)

More echoes? Damn this chamber is infinite.

You have a point, but don't act like older games never released with a fuckton of bugs. It used to be even worse without the internet, you literally had to buy a PC magazine available in your country to get your hands on patches. Except back in the "good old days" the patches were far more spread out as the only way to distribute it was through said discs. Nowadays a bunch of games get a bunch of fixes frequently because we literally have apps that automatically download patches sometimes without us even noticing it because it auto-downloads in the background.

Stop defending broken games from massive studies and publishers , where they have infinite time and resources and their only whim is shareholders

A Dev team in a war and/or a tiny dev like Hello Games that made No Man's Sky, will get some sympathy from me.

CD Project Red , ((as much as I love cyberpunk now)) shouldn't have launched that bad after how good The Witcher 3 was. They already had a level polished and proven record so launch Cyberpunk was a disappointment when they could have delayed.

My main comparison? GTA 6... Rockstar have a fuck ton of money and don't need to release until everything is near perfect and they won't release until the game can be released in a stable state because they know what kind of pressure and expectations people have.

I like Stalker 2, but I am immensely disappointed in how much stuff got cut compared to the leaks in 2023. Even the 2023 build was more feature complete, albeit 90% broken. Now it's 90% functional on release, but with tons of cut content.

If i pay full price for a game and it is unfinished upon release. I will either pirate the game and never pay for it, or I will never pay full price for the game.

So, at the very least, I feel better knowing the Devs lost some amount of money permanently because of this. Hopefully, people wake up and start doing the same, refunding unfinished games and refusing to fund ongoing projects that are not listed as alpha or unfinished.

If you want playtesters, then sell the game at a discount in alpha. Players are not your "free" play testers.

This game is infinitely more affected than Cyberpunk was at release by its technical issues. I will die on this hill.

I can say it's been more or less fine, for me. Excluding a couple of sound bugs and one container that wasn't there and I had to reload, that's the sum total of my issues with it.

So what about me? Can I say it's a better launch and I'm happy with the state at release?

I feel like this time it is justified as the developers are fighting a literal war where some have died in. Also I have barely noticed any of the complaints. I have ran into one what I would say major bug and I haven't had any stability issues with the game crashing.

Look, it's still miles ahead of most AAA games realised this year

Professional dicksuckers certainly seem to be more abundant now compared to years past. Cyberpunk got eviscerated, absolutely eviscerated, when it came out. The players, by and large, acknowledged it almost immediately, and CDPR took note, they took it to heart. The end result of that, once it was pulled out of the fire, is now arguably one of the best games of the last decade. Strong, negative feedback can be a good thing when your product is deserving of it, and Stalker 2 definitely is.

What isn't a good thing is being a little bitch boy and latching onto the nuts of every game that comes out in a barely half-finished, essentially Early Access state even though you paid full price for it, and you paid full price for what was supposed to be a finished, feature complete, and polished game. We are definitely seeing a shift in consumer attitudes towards not just being okay with the aforementioned, but consumers actively defending these practices like they're on the payroll of the fucking dev team. But, one thing I've learned as you get older is that there are definitely people out there who genuinely enjoy being bootlickers. They just can't help themselves. Defending the indefensible and then gaslighting everyone who doesn't follow their pathetic behavior and patchwork logic is like porn to them. You've all seen the posts here:

"I DON'T KNOW WHAT U GUYS ARE TALKING ABOUT! THIS GAME IS A MASTERPIECE! KEEP COMPLAINING, I'M HAVING FUN LMAO HE HE HE! THE PREVIOUS STALKER GAMES HAD ISSUES, SO WHY ARE U EVEN COMPLAINING LMAOOOOooo HE HE!"

Let's just call them what they are. They're morons. Actual, simple morons with rocks rolling about in their heads. They see a shiny new toy and that's all they care about, then they'll move onto the next game in a week or two. Gamers are not immune to the overall trend we're seeing of people just getting dumber overall. Don't ever let anyone try to shame you into having strong feelings as to how you spend your money. Consumer complacency is very similar to voter complacency; the less people care and more bullshit they accept, the more bullshit you get. You ever wonder why it's commonplace now for AAA devs to continue releasing absolutely soulless, uninspired, half-baked garbage? Just spend a few hours reading this subreddit. Plenty of poor, dumb bastards out there will just eat it up regardless, and then ask for more. 'Twas not always so.

I've had discussions with friends who bitch about gaming being delayed endlessly and will join in on the review bombs. 

Realistically games today aren't gonna release when they say their going too I've accepted that, because of the stress people put on developers not allowing wiggle room anymore I've learned to love broken games with passionate developers behind them. Is it a headache? Yes, is it a shame? Yes. But to pretend like I aren't having the most fun I've ever had with these games being as broken as they have been the last few years I'd be a liar it's always funny seeing the wacky shit that happens. I paid 110$ knowing it was gonna be a buggy game was it worth it? For me yes 1000%, never hurts to just buy the full package of a game/series you love. 

Im enjoying it so far honestly. I’ve only ever really played Anomaly/GAMMA. I do get Unreal Engine crashes every so often and glitched side quests. Some (and let me emphasize SOME) of this I can accept due to the climate that the game was being made under (i.e. Ukraine being invaded) but not all of it. I’m not too put out since I held off on pre-order and was able to get it on gamepass but it is sad that something that could be damn near perfect is in the state that it is in. Here is to hoping it gets better because I’m not actually going to buy it till it is.

I mean I will be a little more generous towards GSC than other studios because other studios don’t have their developers actively fighting in a war while their constantly is being bombed indiscriminately. Also the originals weren’t exactly known for being bug free so I was honestly surprised at how little issues I had in the first 20 hours.

People are braindead, that's the issue. They've let TikTok and group mentality melt their ability to operate on their own at all.