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Forbes
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
The 3 ‘STALKER' Remasters Do The Bare Minimum, And That's Fine
The three S.T.A.L.K.E.R. remasters are great for console players, even when they, er, aren't. The ever-growing list of 2025 remasters continues this month, and it's now the turn of the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. trilogy to join the ranks of Tomb Raider IV-VI, Suikoden I & II, Lunar, and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. The S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy Enhanced Edition dropped on May 19, and having now completed the OG Shadow of Chornobyl and sinking a good 10-15 hours between Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat, I can confirm two things for PS5 and Xbox players (but I'm sure PC players, who've been modding it for years, may disagree): The three S.T.A.L.K.E.R. remasters have undergone a visual overhaul, with an impressive amount of detail devoted to lighting, which now adds effects such as godrays, screen space reflections, and global illumination — perfect for console players, given how atmospheric it's always been on PC, especially with mods. NPC models, weapons, and environments have been given a new lick of paint, while attention's also been paid to water shaders, wetness effects, and skyboxes. The cinematics look better than ever, too, thanks to 4K pre-rendering. Textures have also been edited, including the notable removal of Soviet-themed artwork (alongside, it seems, rubles as currency). Unlike GSC Game World's team, I've not lived in Ukraine since it was invaded, so I can't judge on this decision, even if the rest of the game sticks remarkably doggedly to the source material. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder They kept the ferris wheel in, at least. Console players on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S can pick between quality and performance modes, but you really should stick with performance, as the frame rate absolutely trumps whatever meager details are boosted. Consoles also receive keyboard and mouse support, as well as that all-important integration for cross-platform mod sharing. For PC players, there's Steam Deck optimization, Steam Workshop mod support, full gamepad compatibility, and cloud saves. Most importantly, owners of the original games on Steam or GOG receive the corresponding enhanced editions for free (the original's upgrade appeared in my GOG library on release day). Those buying remasters on PC will get the classic games for free. When you jump into the first S.T.A.L.K.E.R. — I'd be surprised if anyone started with the other two — there's a good chance you'll've forgotten how good the voice acting and music are. The cinematic boosts are fantastic, even if they still feel like an early-stage PS3 game, much like the wider experience. Finally, we also get a weapon wheel, but one that makes ammo changes or gun modes unpredictable. That's pretty much where the UI improvements end, and you realize GSC Game World sticks to the source material like glue. The left analog stick and D-pad work independently, making navigation a chore; picking missions, finding your place on the map, and item interactions are a drudge; interactive switches or levers aren't labelled as such; save state dates are weirdly pegged to 2012; and you have to wait for the slow fade-in of '(X) Talk' to interact with other stalkers. Most egregiously, and going against basic accessibility standards we really should expect from remasters, absolutely no attention has been paid to the STALKER games' unusual subtitles, which rarely (if ever) reflect what's being said. This ranges from minor omissions to significant gaps in the voiceover, such as key locations or your next steps. In the weirdest moment of all — Call of Pripyat's opening sequence — the narrator says entirely different dates and years to the subtitles. Sure, this was the case in the original, and people might see it as a quirk of the series, but subtitles exist for a reason, and it feels lazy. Despite everything that's dropped on consoles recently — and with the impending release of the Switch 2 next week — I couldn't stop playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy Enhanced Edition. I've had to uninstall it, because despite all the recommendations I've had for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Blue Prince, and Revenge of the Savage Planet (plus the incoming Switch 2), I was utterly unable to leave the Zone. The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. trilogy needs no (re)introduction, and certainly doesn't require another review to rake over 16-to-18-year-old faults; what matters is that GSC has brought a brutal, weird, and truly unique game kicking and screaming into the modern era, with just enough spice to make it incredibly attractive and playable on consoles. The support adds something extra for those willing to mess with, and inevitably break, a game that already has its fair share of odd problems. Ah mate, not this prick again. I'm not a Soulsborne guy. Still, put me in any FPS, and I'll clear it on veteran, unless it's S.T.A.L.K.E.R.. It encourages you to learn without really teaching you, and it's keen to punish you for not taking advantage of absolutely everything it doesn't fully explain. I save-scummed my entire way through the Sarcophagus, despite playing on novice difficulty, and had two medkits and one anti-rad pack to my name before the credits rolled. I lost 10kg of bullets, medicine, and throwables in the final hour, and it was all worth it for the inevitable 'greedy' ending I always get. After I tried and failed to review S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 — a game so broken before launch that after 45 hours reviewing it, its developers dropped a day zero patch that voided 90% of my notes and broke the game in different ways — the S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy Enhanced Edition reminds you that the better experiences are often simpler, even if you constantly feel like you've been dragged through a hedge. It's far from perfect and won't hit the heights of PC community mods, but for newcomers and veterans who want a peek at what it's like on PS5 or Xbox, it's absolutely worth a go.
Metro
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
Stalker Legends Of The Zone Trilogy Enhanced Edition review
The original three Stalker games are remastered for consoles and PC, so the classic mix of first person shooter and survival horror can thrill another generation. Hollywood has an increasing addiction to remakes and sequels. Disney's creatively bereft live action remakes, the endless retellings of Spider-Man's origin story, and the unstoppable juggernaut of Mission: Impossible films have clearly inspired the games industry, which although not yet on the same scale, has recently seen a noticeable uptick in the recycling of familiar intellectual property. In the interests of preserving video games as interactive art, remasters of older titles is perfectly welcome. With a graphical refresh and improved controls, a well-constructed remaster can bring creaky old games back to life in a way that more closely resembles our memories of them – more so than actually playing the original would. That was certainly the case for Oblivion Remastered. Its raft of subtle upgrades made it a more engaging experience without losing any of its character and idiosyncrasy. Fortunately, the same is true for S.T.A.L.K.E.R., a franchise made by Ukrainian developer, GSC Game World, that emerged in the early 2000s and which recently saw the release of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2. The first in the series, Shadow Of Chornobyl, came out in 2007. It's a wonderfully bleak first person shooter-meets-survival horror, set in a fictional version of the irradiated exclusion zone surrounding the non-fictional nuclear reactor that exploded in the 1980s. Infused with mutants, lethal supernatural anomalies, and bands of marauding humans, your time in the zone is at least as much about staying alive as it is about exploration and trading. It remains a real period piece, its menu system built around a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) a device that was instantly made obsolete by the launch of the iPhone, also in 2007. You use your simulated PDA to check the map, quest objectives, and rank as a stalker – which to start with has you right at the very bottom. Beginning the game with no memory of who you are or how you got into the zone, all you know is that you have S.T.A.L.K.E.R. tattooed on your arm and a mission to 'kill Strelok'. What you do next is entirely up to you. There's a scattering of people around, who you discover belong to different factions, and completing missions for them or killing their members goes on to affect your reputation with each group. More worrying are the aggressive mutated beasts you meet, whose howls and grunts are especially unnerving when experienced nearby in the dead of simulated Ukrainian night. They remain at least as disturbing in the Enhanced Edition, which brings upscaled textures and character models, re-rendered cut scenes, and more generous auto-aim. However, like Oblivion, you still couldn't mistake it for a modern video game. Muddy colours, stilted conversations, cruelly rarified ammo supplies, and the lack of pointers about what you should be doing or how to complete even rudimentary tasks, hark back to a less sophisticated era. They're also instrumental in creating the game's atmosphere of authentically unsmiling post-Soviet grimness, something that was also deployed to excellent effect in the Metro franchise, a series created with the help of several developers who cut their teeth on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. The game's inherent clunkiness is part of that ambience and even though there's now a weapon wheel, that makes swapping guns and equipment more convenient, and competent use of the DualSense's adaptive triggers and speaker, it remains true to its origins, which is to say it's still awkward and often dismally dark. It's astounding how much its prequel, Clear Skies differs, despite coming out only a year later. There's an evident graphical leap forward, but its biggest change is that it drops the survival horror in favour of a focus on warfare amongst groups of human survivors, complete with a page in your PDA that portrays each faction's comparative manpower and equipment level as a set of power bars. You work for Clear Sky, who are researching the zone, hoping to harness some of its weird properties on behalf of wider humanity. It's a more optimistic and less oppressive milieu than Shadow Of Chornobyl, despite notionally occupying the same setting. Ammo's plentiful, you can modify weapons to make them less appallingly imprecise, and there's even a fast travel system, something notable for its absence in the first game. Despite all these helpful changes, and the improved graphics, it's a less satisfying game to play, lacking much of the character that made the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. such a singular and unsettling experience. So it's a relief that Call Of Pripyat sees a return to its forbidding, more merciless roots. It abandons the factional power bars, letting your influence or infamy with each group unfold in a more organic and fulfilling manner. More Trending It also delivers another graphical improvement over Clear Skies, despite again being released just a year later, retaining and building on its weapons mods. That's useful because even by the third game gunplay is punishingly inaccurate, with weapons' wooden handling and tinny sound effects contributing to a general sense of flimsiness. Upgrades help mitigate that, if only in the effectiveness department, but they still sound and seem laughably puny. On the other hand, each gun has its own distinct strengths, with every mod you add palpably affecting the gameplay. With the welcome return to a more survival horror flavour, the eerie atmosphere, augmented by more refined systems, makes this instalment feel as though it finally delivers on the promise of the original. Taken together, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. trilogy is a showcase for the talents of GSC World, and a fascinatingly unique take on first person shooters. Despite the fact that it's riddled with what, in most games, would be considered flaws, once you slip into its rhythms and unusual sensibilities, there's still nothing quite like it. Apart from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 that is, which the company managed to release at the end of last year despite working under Russian occupation. In Short: A spruced up, lightly streamlined refresh of the classic Ukrainian shooter-meets-survival horror series that retains every bit of its uncompromisingly bleak character and individuality. Pros: The weapons wheel reduces fiddly menu work and the graphical makeover adds to the deliberately grim atmosphere, which remains the game's strongest suit. Cons: Still fairly clumsy feeling, with gunplay lacking finesse. Very little that you need to do is explained properly. Score: 7/10 Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S, and PCPrice: £32.99 for the trilogy or £15.99 each – free for existing owners of the gamesPublisher: GSC Game WorldDeveloper: GSC Game WorldRelease Date: 20th May 2025 Age Rating: 16 Email gamecentral@ leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader's Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. MORE: People shouldn't complain about £80 games says ex-PlayStation boss MORE: Marathon delay predicted as concerns mount over the future of Bungie MORE: Putin prepares for Trump phone call by launching largest drone strike yet on Ukraine
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'Massive' Stalker 2 patch adds A-life updates and 1,700 other fixes to GSC's survival shooter, so many you'll need to go a little quest to read them all
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Staggering onto Steam, veins bulging, sweat dripping from its elbows, GSC Game World has dropped a vast, humongous, really quite substantial update for Stalker 2. Delivering a whopping 1,700 fixes to its open world survival shooter, patch 1.2 is so gargantuan that the Steam update doesn't actually list the entire changelog. Described simply as "a massive one" by GSC Game World, the patch touches "all aspects of the game", addressing balance issues, adjusting locations, tweaking quests, fixing crashes, refining the series' distinctive A-life systems. It's hard to know where to start, but perhaps the biggest individual changes are to the A-life and NPC AI. GSC has fixed several issues here that have game-wide ramifications. NPCs can now properly loot corpses, picking up the best weapons and armour from them, including from defeated Stalkers allied with other factions. NPC shooting has also been reconfigured, and while it's not entirely clear what these changes do, they seem geared toward making NPCs less robotically lethal, adding "randomisation of accurate shots" in bullet sprays, and reducing wall penetration from certain ammo types. Finally for this particular aspect of the game, stealth has been adjusted to make NPCs slightly less eagle-eyed, while the mutants have received various behavioural tweaks, such as ensuring mutants that can jump will actually use that ability. Outside of these systemic changes, the main beneficiary of the patch is the central storyline. I'm not going to list these here, partly because they're littered with spoilers, but mainly because there are 300 changes on top of the ones actually listed. The upshot is GSC has addressed loads of issues that could cause quests to fail or not work properly, or for NPCs to react in weird ways during primary missions. Elsewhere, Stalker 2 has received several technical tweaks, such as the player's flashlight now properly casting shadows, more consistent NPC relationship shifts, and "improved transitions from cutscenes to gameplay." You'll also see a better parkour animation from a crouch state, and properly choreographed deaths for NPCs when they get caught by anomalies. Despite the Zone's penchant for weirdness, the list of bug fixes is surprisingly sensible. There are a few entertaining ones, though. "Fixed grenade disappearing when throwing it at one's feet" has me wondering whether Stalker 2's playerbase is doing ok, while "Fixed an issue where shooting at mutant limbs could stretch them," sounds like it should be a feature. I also like "Fixed a problem that made it difficult for rats to move in narrow places", if only because there are few concepts as pitiful as a claustrophobic rat. This is normally where I write something like "You can read the full changelog here." But in a shock twist, you can't. The Steam update only provides the highlights of this voluminous update. If you want to get a cramp in your index finger by scrolling through the full list, you'll need to pop over to the Stalker 2 website. We were already fond of Stalker 2, with Joshua Wolens giving it a respectable score of 83% in our review. As was the case with the original games, the sequel's biggest flaw was its instability. Hopefully, this megapatch will smooth out most of those rougher edges, giving you a cleaner, more reliably inhospitable Zone. 2025 games: This year's upcoming releasesBest PC games: Our all-time favoritesFree PC games: Freebie festBest FPS games: Finest gunplayBest RPGs: Grand adventuresBest co-op games: Better together
