S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
Quick menu
Discover the vast Chornobyl Exclusion Zone full of dangerous enemies, deadly anomalies and powerful artifacts. Unveil your own epic story as you make your way to the Heart of Chornobyl. Make your choices wisely, as they will determine your fate in the end.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is a open world, fps and post-apocalyptic game
developed by GSC Game World
and published by GSC Game World (worldwide), SEGA (Japan) and 4Divinity & Cube Game (China and South East Asia).
Released on November 20th 2024 is available only on Windows
in 18 languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish - Spain, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese - Brazil, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Ukrainian, Arabic, Czech, Spanish - Latin America, Turkish and Serbian.
It has received 113,346 reviews of which 91,274 were positive and 22,072 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.0 out of 10. 😊
The game is currently priced at 59.99€ on Steam, but you can find it for less on K4G.
The Steam community has classified S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
Get an in-depth look at S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl through various videos and screenshots.
System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- OS: Windows 10 x64 / Windows 11 x64
- Processor: Intel Core i7-7700K / AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
- Memory: 16 GB RAM
- Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB / AMD Radeon RX 580 8GB / Intel Arc A750
- Storage: 160 GB available space
- Additional Notes: Graphics Preset: LOW / Resolution: 1080p / Target FPS: 30. 16 GB Dual Channel RAM. SSD required. The listed specifications were evaluated using TSR and comparable technologies.
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
Heartful S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 review STALKER 2 feels great but with unnecesary negative things about it that makes it questioning you - Why? Did they really test their game? They have all sorts of tools to make this game literally perfect gem, but they choosed to not do it. Game on stalker difficulty (PLAYED AT RELEASE VERSION) finished in 100 hours, on veteran difficulty (1.5 VERSION) 70 hours in with all content explored, enjoyed and tried out. 100% Achievements will be probably done in my 3rd or 4th run after some long pause. As one of my most favourite game series of all time, this was it that I really felt through my heart, it nailed the atmosphere I was hoping for, huge story uncovered but yet huge part is still unknown for me (waiting for Anomalous Dugout haha), overall it made my heart complete. I am thankful for devs for making this real and hoping for next big expansion, especially story expansion too. I recommend playing this game, but if you wanna have clean playthrough without some bugs or weird things, just wait for 1-2 years more ... My positives (+) + absolute cinema cutscenes + easter eggs and secret areas/stashes + route of different endings feels very good + continuation of previous games with multiple endings depending on your actions and decisions; tension in midgame storyline is great + game feels either serious or funny and I like it, game knows the timing + game feels really immerse and atmospheric even without perfect AI; with immersion, I am talking about using guns, hunting mutants, searching for artifacts in anomalies, huge explorability, dark areas feels scary as it should be, NPC animations, different weather conditions (those stormy and rainy days feels really good) + soundtracks, ambient music + graphics and visuals are stunning even on medium-high settings with decent PC + world terrain and whole map feels well-crafted + larger variety of anomalies; arch anomalies are amazing + main protagonist (Skif) finally talks + achievements + stealth + variety of NPC armor sets; NPC campfire guitar songs + upgraded mutants with tasty flavour + death screens for relevant causes of death + mod support My negatives (-) on game with all seriousness - optimalization is still unstable and unreliable (PLAYED AT RELEASE and 1.5 VERSION); crashes and freezes are more intense than in release state of game that I played; you still have to use FPS generator (FSR 3.1) to have 60+ fps, in other words a stable and playable game BUT it is a scam, it gives you FPS but with huge spike in your latency/ping so it feels like you are playing some online game, not a singleplayer offline game = BIG ISSUE - enemies are still spawning in small-medium radius ((PLAYED AT RELEASE and 1.5 VERSION), even in close radius where they spawn from nowhere and start shooting at you (happened multiple times); its really annoying.. just walking around, and suddenly a dog bites your cake.. just walking around, and suddenly in 80 meters in front of you, game spawns 4 soldiers (why cant they import somehow AI from old games? This is fundamental thing in these types of games, otherwise, its demotivating you to play as it could be a survival game, but no, with broken AI it feels like arcade game, and thats HUGE ISSUE to solve - placement of player stash in some bases is absurd - Duty faction just exists but nothing extra or special about it - cant go to CNPP - where are binoculars, night-vision or upgrade option for flashlight?; if there is so advanced faction as Ward, why we cant buy such equipment? - Skif isnt DAVID GOGGINS , and if we were him, he isnt drinking 20 redbulls per hour; exoskeletons should have separated endurance upgrades on their own, so you dont have to choose between endurance and other better in survivability upgrades - Arena in veteran difficulty is unplayable (its playable if you are lucky or have a will to waste your 1 hour or so for some little cash) due to buggy dogs that wiggle around and cant just move normally, I tried multiple times, but when multiple dogs are literally ,,spinning,, or ,,wiggling,, while moving, I am just gonna pass, not gonna waste an hour just for some little money from arena ... cant imagine the round with limited ammo against Chimera on veteran in this state of game LOL - if you give us broken (yellow/red) weapons from dead stalkers that we kill, why dont you give us some repair kit items? - cant drop/sell/store to stash Skifs pistol (for solution, allow us to sell that pistol or give it 0.00kg weight); other pistols may be usable depending if you really want to - but theres no point - automatic leaning to right/left side (if you are at the edge of obstacle) feels very console-like and not friendly to PC users, but frustrating - why does Ward (or Monolith) use weak SMGs like Bukets or weaker version of AKs? This is beyond being logical here - why moving stashes with important items (blueprints) to other places after an update from previous version of game? - while trading with random stalker, they just walk away from you but trading screen is still on - cant revive most friendly stalkers (yes I have medkits) - no faction wars; theres only one faction war that is somehow happening but its not dynamic, rather static .. Ward vs Spark factions through main quests - how comes that previous games didnt have any problems with optimalizations, when the world was DIVIDED by LOADING SCREENS? I think one of the main problems here is to have a large unstable and dead open-world, where of course its really complicated for technical reasons to maintain properly; I think NOONE would COMPLAIN , if stalker 2 would have many locations connected with each other with loading screen; Its okay to experiment new things, but not if its not an indie game, stalker franchise is not an indie game. - less variation of questions you can ask NPCs, theres just only 1 generic; less NPC interactions - ex-military main character and cant swim, drowns from 1 meter depth - dont loot Malachite Pass item unless you wanna get stuck with 0.5kg each whole game - during attack on Duga, my Ward comrades doesnt have helmets.. some special protection secret which I dont know about? - its sad that there is not option to travel with other stalkers to their destination (just like in CoP) - where is popular voice line ,,idi ku mne,, ? ,,idi do mna,, sounds really weird ngl - if you have sided with Ward and get to the point where main quest is in their main base, Chemical Plant, its a maze; funny when even Ward patrol is trying to get to their own base but cant find the right doors hahaha; Ward have gun merchant outside of their Chemical Plant base? - cant sell weapons or mutant parts to random NPCs - humanoid NPCs are getting stuck in each-other bodies Additional points (*) that I think would improve game * practical use of other pistols * cleaning/repair kits for guns and armor * binoculars, NIGHT-VISION and upgrade option for flashlight * FACTION WARS * anti-chemical (resist) pills * some mutant with wings, or mutated crows (with nests on tall buildings or towers) * more interaction with stalkers * COMPANIONS; special quest where stalker (or Doctor) tries to teach you through some quests on how to tame a pseudodog; you may ask, for what? for distraction * option to decline side quests in your PDA * bicycles, Warden vehicles * more possibilities to overcome some obstacles; add back laying down with ctrl+shift * an option to rebuild Zalissya for making a base more unique; good idea would be that they would implement mechanic from CoP where you get daily ammo/meds/food to your stash for your services Thank you for reading my review, some notes are my subjective thoughts, but some are just objective facts. Feel free to drop your opinion.
Expand the review
My favorite part is this really considerate feature where if the game feels like you could use a break, it will just crash directly to desktop for you, like a bartender cutting you off.
Expand the review
Is the game fun? Yes. I've been playing it since the release day. But it has A LOT of problems. The problems include performance and balancing problems, graphical and AI bugs, and (according to other people because I didn't experience any until now) softlocks and game breaking bugs. While waiting the devs to fix them, you can try to band-aid some of the problems with mods, and that's what made the game actually playable for me. Here's a list of some of these problems: [The mods I mention are all from Nexus Mods] PERFORMANCE AND GAMEPLAY PROBLEMS Input lag/high latency: The game for some reason has a very high input lag/latency problem. If you turn frame generation on, it gets way worse. [Some mods try to make it better and the game was unplayable without them in my experience.] Low FPS/FPS drops: The performance is actually just terrible. It gets way worse in settlements. [Some mods try to fix that, helping in some cases, but they just didn't work for me. I'm currently playing the game with 13~25 FPS on a 3060 Ti without frame generation to avoid the input lag.] Mouse input: The devs for some reason decided to make mouse smoothing and mouse acceleration enabled by default, with no option to change it other than in the .ini files/modding the game to disable them, which makes the game horrible to play in my experience and even worse because of the input lag/high latency problems. [Again, there are mods to disable mouse smoothing/acceleration.] Edit: Devs listened to the feedback and disabled mouse acceleration/mouse smoothing by default in the new 1.0.3 patch. Ledge grabbing height: You cannot vault/ledge grab in a height that you'd expect you would, and I think that is an oversight from the devs because there are stashes in places that you cannot get to without jumping inside through the roof of the house/building. [There is a mod that changes the ledge grabbing height, making the game way less frustrating] AI/A-Life 2.0 is horrible: The AI spawns really close to you, sometimes respawning on top of enemies you just killed, or spawning behind your back somewhere you just passed. They don't seem to do stuff around the map like previous games, they just spawn really close to you so you can see them there and then go in a random direction or try to attack you. The AI also does not seem to react as much as the ones in the previous games, for example after killing enemies they not loot them anymore, they just walk away, and they also don't seem to care if you loot their dead friends. The AI constantly spams grenades making combat very frustrating, and sometimes just decide to turn their back on you in the middle of a gunfight for no reason at all. [Some mods try to band-aid these problems, but they're mostly stuff we'll need to wait for the devs to fix themselves.] The devs for some reason made the decision to make the shaders be compiled every single time you open the game, which is not really necessary and might be an oversight, and it can take up to 10 minutes. [There is a mod that disables it, but you should know what you're doing if you intend on using it.] BALANCING PROBLEMS Bullet Sponge Mutants: Mutants (especially Bloodsuckers in my experience) are bullet sponges, tanking multiple magazines, which is even bigger of a problem in the early game considering you won't have much ammo. [There is a very good mod that balances mutants HP, resistances and damage.] Weapon durability/repair cost: Weapons lose durability way too fast and are way too expensive to fix (apparently the devs tried to balance that better in the new patch, but I haven't tried it yet). [There are mods to make the durability go down slower and mods that make repair/upgrade costs cheaper too.] Missions would pay too little, but they seem to have tried to balance that better in the new patch (again, haven't tried it yet). Also it's good to mention that at least until now there is no New Game Plus feature, and multiplayer was also not released yet. So, should you buy the game? If you're interested in it, have a decent computer, is willing to deal with all of these problems and feel like modding the game for a few hours, yes , the game is very fun to play and after the devs finally fix these problems and add new content it'll be an even better experience. If you don't feel like dealing with these problems, don't buy it for now and wait a while for the game to be fixed first. I might update this review once in a while.
Expand the review
1. Atmosphere and sound - Amazing 100/10 2. Bugs - didn't find anything critical 3. Optimization - it's just bad. Waiting for patches. 4. A-LIFE - there's no A-LIFE. Game just spawns enemies within 50-100 meters. Hope patches will make it work like in previous games, because without it it's not STALKER and the world is empty and lifeless without it. 5. Enemies are just sponges for bullets. Need rebalance. 4 mags to kill a bloodsucker? Really? Other things to mention that I would like DEVs to change/add: - Day/night cycle is too short - No sleeping bags - It costs a fortune to repair weapons and suits - No dymanic shadows from the flashlight - eneimes just spam you with grenades all the time - would be cool to have more food/drinks options and cook monster parts like in GAMMA or order some meals in the bars - weapons/suits condition goes down waaaaay to fast (shot 2 mags from AK and got -3%. Whaaaaaat?) - when you sit at the campfire you cannot eat/drink/open PDA/inventory etc. - you get hungry every 5-10 minutes. I assume longer day/night cycle would be a great option as well to fix the issue. - mutants AI is strange. If you're being chased by the mutants and jump of the car for example they just run away. When you get down they appear again. They don't try to jump or at least swarm around the car waiting for their meal. For now the game is medium rare. Waiting for the DEVs to cook it properly and then it will be the game of the year for sure.
Expand the review
So far, the game is really good. There are some bugs and issues, but it's been about an hour and they already released a patch. Just give it time, the studio has been through a lot and things aren't great in the Ukraine right now - a lot of people working on this game did not get to see this day, let's try to appreciate it for what it is. In the first 10 minutes, you can clearly see it is a good game and everything the old STALKER was, if not more. It's a good game.
Expand the review
Similar games
View all
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat is the direct sequel of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. As a Major Alexander Degtyarev you should investigate the crash of the governmental helicopters around the Zone and find out, what happened there.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky – standalone prequel for the acclaimed S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, which tells you story about the Clear Sky group, that want to research the Zone and understand it better.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl tells a story about survival in the Zone – a very dangerous place, where you fear not only the radiation, anomalies and deadly creatures, but other S.T.A.L.K.E.R.s, who have their own goals and wishes.
Metro Exodus
Flee the shattered ruins of the Moscow Metro and embark on an epic, continent-spanning journey across the post-apocalyptic Russian wilderness. Explore vast, non-linear levels, lose yourself in an immersive, sandbox survival experience, and follow a thrilling story-line that spans an entire year in the greatest Metro adventure yet.
Survival Classic
Try to survive the harsh realities of the cold Siberian countryside. Live long and always remember, man is man's enemy. You can trust no one but it is almost impossible to survive on your own. Choose your path and go to finish. Firefights, transport, crafting and survival.
Metro: Last Light Redux
It is the year 2034. Beneath the ruins of post-apocalyptic Moscow, in the tunnels of the Metro, the remnants of mankind are besieged by deadly threats from outside – and within. Mutants stalk the catacombs beneath the desolate surface, and hunt amidst the poisoned skies above.
Fallout 3
Vault-Tec engineers have worked around the clock on an interactive reproduction of Wasteland life for you to enjoy from the comfort of your own vault. Included is an expansive world, unique combat, shockingly realistic visuals, tons of player choice, and an incredible cast of dynamic characters.
Fallout: New Vegas
Welcome to Vegas. New Vegas. Enjoy your stay!
SurrounDead
SurrounDead is an open world survival game. Taking place in a world ravaged by an apocalyptic catastrophe. The dead reign free and will stop at nothing to kill you.
Xenus 2. White gold.
Caribbean islands; islands full of secrets, mystery and the spirit of romance. These islands are both beautiful and lethally dangerous. Centuries ago the waters of this region were teeming with pirates and adventurers... and frankly, not much has changed since then.
Frequently Asked Questions
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is currently priced at 59.99€ on Steam.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 59.99€ on Steam.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl received 91,274 positive votes out of a total of 113,346 achieving a rating of 7.96.
😊
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl was developed by GSC Game World and published by GSC Game World (worldwide), SEGA (Japan) and 4Divinity & Cube Game (China and South East Asia).
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is playable and fully supported on Windows.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is not playable on MacOS.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is not playable on Linux.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is a single-player game.
There are 2 DLCs available for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl. Explore additional content available for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl on Steam.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is fully integrated with Steam Workshop. Visit Steam Workshop.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl does not support Steam Remote Play.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl.
Data sources
The information presented on this page is sourced from reliable APIs to ensure accuracy and relevance. We utilize the Steam API to gather data on game details, including titles, descriptions, prices, and user reviews. This allows us to provide you with the most up-to-date information directly from the Steam platform.
Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.
Last Updates| Steam data | 03 September 2025 16:08 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 10 September 2025 15:04 |
| Steam price | 13 September 2025 20:56 |
| Steam reviews | 13 September 2025 11:53 |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl
- SteamCharts - Analysis of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl compatibility
Game modes
Features
Online players
2,930
Developer
GSC Game World
Publisher
GSC Game World (worldwide),
SEGA (Japan),
4Divinity & Cube Game (China and South East Asia)
Release
20 Nov 2024
Platforms
By clicking on any of the links on this page and making a purchase,
you may help us earn a commission that supports the maintenance of our services.