Don't buy this, it's not worth it at all.
All the good stuff you unlock 2 hours before you finish the game fully.
Most content you get from this is locked behind areas you cannot unlock until you get to that part of the story.
If you try there are glitches that hopefully aren't patched, if not you'll get insta killed by the border guard.
"Open world" by the way.

It's kind of crazy how clueless these people are. What worries me even more is the people proclaiming that "Battlefield is back" with such a cope that they managed to raise this POS game to a level.This isn't a Battlefield game but glorified Call of Duty, in every way possible, from maps,gameplay,mechanics to skins. It's depressing from growing up with BC2,BF3 and BF4 to get something like this at this time an age, where they know EXACTLY what we want and how we want it. Remaster BF3? No just make a 2022 instead of 2042 with subtle changes.

It's very disappointing how people behave, that this game is a Masterpiece, worthy of leading the franchise and being mentioned. That's simply, not true in any way shape and form. After 15 years this game was released, and after 15 years it's missing, every single thing that made STALKER the games we love and replay today.

I'll start with most important, for me, which is Lore. In games I love lore, it's what connects me to the game, it's what gives me reason to play and be interested.
The lore in Stalker 2 just really sucks ass, and it's so badly, limply attached to the Original games, it's depressing.
Cliche story line of the main character that gets the McGuffin item that solves the problem, or is the key to everything in existing situation. Our character Skif, receives a piece of the Monolith crystal, that somehow travels all the way from Chernobyl, to his place of residency destroying his apartment. Despite the fact that..artifacts in lore and the games, are found in anomalies with the mixture of their surroundings, radiation, material and weather, to create a specific artifact. In lore it's UNHEARD of, for an artifact, to fly from one point, to another, especially out of the zone, because it would loose all it's aspects and abilities.
If that's not much of a cliche, here's another, the biggest foothold in the zone, holds the Ward, and main scientist, is in the zone, not for reasearch, not for the better of human kind, but to find his father, who worked on the C-Conc. Another cliche is a uber soldier boss battle, because, stalker is so famous and known for boss battles, having to fight a powered up, exo skeleted with blast protection shields with a couple of waves, fantastic I know.
But that's not the only one, for each ending, there will be two maybe three boss battles..because, yeah. Other games do it.

So you have a story Line that has nothing to do with previous games, leaving crumbs and bits of previous lore, just so it could say it's a continuation, let's talk about Factions.

Factions have been completely butchered, original factions tossed aside, to forefront the new factions and subfactions that are..so disappointing and were absolutely needless, but to support the boss battles in the end or better say, different ending choices.

Loners, the people zone is mostly consisted off, people who scavenge, explore, find, have been reduced to mere standard residents that don't travel much else above cordon, Lesser zone or anywhere else, because, well the Ward says so. The Ukranian Military was replaced with another multi big word company, because, yeah. Duty has been reduced to ♥♥♥♥, having the most close ideal as the military, they were turned against, reduced to ♥♥♥♥, and it's ground was given to Freedom beacuse, to stop the conflict apparently. And let me repeat, the Ward and new name for military, sided, with freedom, the people who want to open the zone for everyone, that it's a gift to mankind, instead of Duty, who are the opposite, want everything in the zone to stay in the zone, destroy it because of it's danger.
Alright, what about Bandits? You'll find them the most around, alive and well, kicking, attacking you on sight, some minimal missions around them, nothing fantastic, because somehow Bandits managed to get a firmer hold in the zone, rather than the Loners, or Duty, or ♥♥♥♥ even Freedom.
Mercs? Redcuced to dust, apparently the border guards thought the issue in the zone weren't mutants, people who want to open the zone, literal bandits and criminals, but Mercenaries, who are there to make money off of jobs like escorts, assasinations or artifact hunting. That's much worse.
Monolith, was of course used to teach Skif who they were, oho look we're not evil aha here i go brainwashed again, and they start killing people again. Strider, who was a character that survived in the OG trilogy, was killed off, in the most disappointed, most wasteful way, made me ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ angry.

Gunplay in the game sucks absolute ass, after 15 years, after so many games they could've seen what people like, mostly now people enjoy real weapons with realistic behavior, modding is a plus always, they decided, ♥♥♥♥ all that. A 9mm SMG will out preform a rifle caliber AR sometimes even a sniper rifle, the only dominating weapon being the Gauss rifle. Oh you would like to use weapons you like, just like in OG games? Well..too bad chief, if you don't want a naked stalker to take a headshot and live..better stick to that meta weapon with higher damage and pen. Weapon modification and choice is just..depressing, won't even want to talk about it, it's not even worth it.

A-Life, ah yes, the thing that put STALKER on the map, the most fantastic thing ever made, is nowhere to be seen in Stalker 2. For you fandom tourists, A-Life is a system original stalker games had. Basically Human and Mutant NPCs lived active lives in the zone, with genuine tasks and reasons to stay in the zone. Mutants would actively hunt when hungry, drag corpses to a spot to eat, or fall back if there are more enemies than they can fight. Sometimes mutants wouldn't attack you..if you simply avoided their territory, where they would growl, stomp and warn you to stay away. Stalkers, of each faction, would complete faction specific tasks. Loners would hunt mutants and hunt artifacts. Duty would do patrols and hunt mutants, Mercenaries would go around killing people or hunting artifacts, Bandits would sneak around or mug people.
And all of this, happened outside of your vision. I'm aware some were scripted some weren't, but it made the game, alive.



I'll stop assing and get to the point. The Original games, made you feel just another person in the zone. Your actions weren't out of this world, you weren't the all knowing all powerful being. You were another stalker in the zone, with your won path you learned through your actions. You weren't given anything at arms length and you earned everything.
Original stalker games didn't act like we were retarded, and needed everything explained like to a child.
Stalker games are about dread, hopelessness and survival in the literal hell on earth. And we loved it. Learning how each faction managed to survive, how they get by, and what would be the best choice for us.

Stalker 2 is missing all of it. We're just another cliche protagonist who's be all end all, his saying meaning everything. Skif is the one who got the artifact, skif is the one who would help with every problem, skif is the one that can hunt down any problem, skif is the answer, to everything.

We were never the answer to anything. We were simply a character that had a answer. Strelok researched the zone when C-Conc made a mistake, so he eventually came to and made his way back. Scar was there to stop Strelok, lied to by the Clear Sky higher ups, that were just C-Conc scientists, trying to hide everything and get close, to muddy the waters. Degtaryev was a military man, who came to find answers, and he did.

Not one man was holding all the answers, three men, held the fraction. But we apparently can get everything, and anything.

yes

You should absolutely get this game, if you like the Resident Evil games this is a really good remake. Of course they adjusted a few things here and there and redone bit of the story, but that doesn't change the fact that the game is amazing.
Me personally I haven't ran into a single bug in the game, it's really polished and optimized.
Gameplay is great it Melee feels great, gunplay feels great, movement feels fluid and natural.

A single minuscule issue that i have is that weapon attachments aren't attached on the weapon in the attache ( ha se what i did there) so you kinda loose space for no reason but, it's like, a smoll thing..overall the game is perfecto

I played so well i got DDOSed

I've been in this ♥♥♥♥♥♥ community since closed beta. I've been in their Super Tester team and saw how the developers work behind the scene and it's awful. Testers are basically skilless people who prefer pay to win options because they can't play the game right. The developers are just money hungry so it works for them.

Caliber was made on the premise of real world units with their real issued equipment with specific abilities. As the time went these abilities got more ridiculous and senseless and just broken and not fun. Now ontop of that they're going back on their word and original design and just making it CoD in third person. Assaults can use all assault rifles and switch optics, Medics can use all SMGs and Shotguns, Supports can use all LMGs and Shotguns and Marksmen can use all Snipers and DMRs.

So the whole premise of real units with real equipment that has good balance, good choice, good design is out the window, and now you have a very, VERY ♥♥♥♥♥♥ version of overwatch.
Skins and collections are EXTREMELY expensive, unreasonably expensive, same goes for the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ battlepass they offer.

PvP and PvE are bland as they can be, especially now. Game is a bland grind now a days, events are just trash.
Best description for this game now is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ third person version of Warface.

This game perfectly reflects DICE and EAs inability to do proper work
The whole life cycle of the game is absolutely horrible, doing everything but what is supposed to be done
And recently they added a new half assed anti cheat, that if you're missing files, that they failed to put in properly, BSODs your PC due to the Kernel Level AC access.

In my case if you shut off the game, doesn't matter how, it'll BSOD, same goes for BFV, really splendid work I must admit

The latest update perfectly describes what to expect from SCUM Project Manager and the developers. The partial wipe is a ironic way of showing how they actually release and do their work, partially.

With this new update, more was broken than done

The hordes are here? Epic, the puppets are now bugged where they will keep spawning behind you in urban areas, as their spawn was decreased in open areas. You killed a whole town? No problem, another puppet will be right there to punish you and more to come. One spawns and screams spawning many many more. This artificial difficulty is absolutely horrible and could've been done so much better, but then again all their work was half assed for the past five years, nothing else to be expected here.

They keep adding more weapons, even though the ones in the game are absolutely awful, placeholder sounds, unity store assets and god awful animations for a 40 euro game. The models clipping, sound looping and of course handling badly.
In the new update, they added a new .45 suppressor because "realism" considering their attachments in the game are laughable and the way they're implemented. While that was the only realism take they had with weapons, magazine sizes, reload animations, handling and sound, have nothing to do with either realism or weapons them selves, somehow games focused less on realism did it better.
There's currently a bug where your magazines disappear after reloading. The magazine can be found on the nearest loot box, puppet, later in your inventory or even above your bed, if you placed it, or somewhere around your base. And they have no idea how this happens or what causes this.
This is because they cram as much ♥♥♥♥ as they can without actually finishing any of it. They made a new weapon? Chances are the animations are ass, model is incorrect, sounds are placeholders and it's behavior is awful.
Any weapon in the game is a perfect example, MP and UMP reloads are a disaster, pistols are horrible with models clipping through reloads, incorrect weapon behavior in general and of course, assets.
There is nothing wrong with a game using assets, not at all, but those assets are usually a simple placeholder until something new gets added. This is not the case in SCUM, the MK18 is a unity asset that was here since the gun was added, same going for the M16 suppressor, which is the most common suppressor model you can find in any asset flip game. Exactly the same with the EoTech optic they went with.
Of course i can go on how much their attachments and their system is ass, but that's not even worth it at this point.

Movement in SCUM is awful, walking, running, jumping, hitting, climbing, everything feels so stiff, uncomfortable and more of a robot than a human.
When you run and switch between first and third person, your running and stepping sounds are miss synced while animation remains the same, jumping is basically moon gravity or something you'd have in a dream, jumping so high and long in the air before falling down. In a game where survival is the main goal, decent movement should be the base of everything well done, but like everything else, it's half assed.

They decided they want to do in depth vehicles which is okay, repairing sides, engines, wheels, chassis, doors and so on, however their actual performance is awful, the vehicles look and drive like toys, the only terrain difference being the snow area, the vehicle will behave the same way everywhere, hitting a slight bump you'll do barrel rolls, flips front flips, and all sorts of acrobatic moves while loosing a few HP in return where a couple of ton vehicle behaves like a RC car.


Us old players bought in for the survival aspect of the game, where it was a game show and what not. Now the game is nothing like it was originally advertised and has completely turned. You can't find something? No problem, farm money and fame and just buy it, it's easy and simple. You died? Oh well, i have around 100k in my account because you can do at least 25k a run per a military zone. Or even hospitals with meds. It's hilarious. This game doesn't know what it wants to be, but whatever it is, it's a unfinished buggy mess.

I am absolutely fine with EA projects and their slow development, but i am not fine with those who abuse it and in return dish out half assed buggy messes.
DayZ is in EA for a very long while, however new content they add they do as much as they can to release it finished.
New weapon? no problem, proper animations, proper models, proper sounds, proper ballistics and behavior.

No game starts with a big budget and experience, but 5 years of adding half finished work is slowly catching up.

5 years of development to make a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Rust copy, insane