I'd like to write an early positive review (at 32 hours of game time) to thank the developers for their quick response and immense effort to patch the game and admitting their shortcomings publicly, which is rare.
STALKER 2 has quickly been the game for the decade for me. Not particularly perfect but it gets so many things right, and it is so full of content, it blew me away. For this review to be helpful, I'd like to make a list of things that I've found either annoying or just "could be better":

* The stash spawns have generally generated items that were too weak for me. In other words, I've gotten sick of finding a stash after some effort and getting a bottle of beer, a can of food and 5 cartridges of common ammo. The world spawns are a lot more generous; like I've recently made it to Zaton but I have 12 rounds of underbarrel launcher grenades already. But the stashes (that are located by the map) have been very disappointing.

* Underground levels could be more rewarding; like the way it used to be in the original game. Maybe it's been my RNG treating me poorly, but so far I don't feel like I've been rewarded sufficiently.

* I think the faction traders or specific traders could offer better trade rates as the player gains positive relationships with that faction / specific trader. So far if I'm not mistaken, all the traders have a flat and relatively poor trade rate.

* I've been having issues trying to tell stalkers from each others. And I don't mean night time situations; almost all the time, it takes me a while to identify a stalker's faction. I may have already attacked a friendly faction members because of this (and at the heat of the battle). I think the faction gears don't easily stick out. And obviously now is too late to "fix" that. But maybe the devs can re-introduce the faction indicator alongside with the nametag while searching a corpse; so I can learn different faction gears faster.

* After upgrading physical protection attribute of my Tourist Suit and equipping an artifact that supports that attribute, I've been getting a lot more bleeding effect during my firefights. In other words, a combat which wouldn't create so frequent bleeding effect turns out to generate a lot more occurances of bleeding after upgrading my armor's physical protection. I've had similar experience with Clear Sky back in the day. Is it just me or the does the formula get messed up with multiple variables?

The issues that were already addressed with 1.01 Patch:
* Repair costs are punishing
* Mission payouts are very low

Ultimately, thank you GSC and its beloved developers & personnel. STALKER has been such a treasure of fun and excitement for me for more than 14 years by now, and hopefully STALKER 2 will extend that. Congratulations on this awesome game. After all you've been through...

I'd like to write an early positive review (at 32 hours of game time) to thank the developers for their quick response and immense effort to patch the game and admitting their shortcomings publicly, which is rare. STALKER 2 has quickly been the game for the decade for me. Not particularly perfect but it gets so many things right, and it is so full of content, it blew me away. For this review to be helpful, I'd like to make a list of things that I've found either annoying or just "could be better": * The stash spawns have generally generated items that were too weak for me. In other words, I've gotten sick of finding a stash after some effort and getting a bottle of beer, a can of food and 5 cartridges of common ammo. The world spawns are a lot more generous; like I've recently made it to Zaton but I have 12 rounds of underbarrel launcher grenades already. But the stashes (that are located by the map) have been very disappointing. * Underground levels could be more rewarding; like the way it used to be in the original game. Maybe it's been my RNG treating me poorly, but so far I don't feel like I've been rewarded sufficiently. * I think the faction traders or specific traders could offer better trade rates as the player gains positive relationships with that faction / specific trader. So far if I'm not mistaken, all the traders have a flat and relatively poor trade rate. * I've been having issues trying to tell stalkers from each others. And I don't mean night time situations; almost all the time, it takes me a while to identify a stalker's faction. I may have already attacked a friendly faction members because of this (and at the heat of the battle). I think the faction gears don't easily stick out. And obviously now is too late to "fix" that. But maybe the devs can re-introduce the faction indicator alongside with the nametag while searching a corpse; so I can learn different faction gears faster. * After upgrading physical protection attribute of my Tourist Suit and equipping an artifact that supports that attribute, I've been getting a lot more bleeding effect during my firefights. In other words, a combat which wouldn't create so frequent bleeding effect turns out to generate a lot more occurances of bleeding after upgrading my armor's physical protection. I've had similar experience with Clear Sky back in the day. Is it just me or the does the formula get messed up with multiple variables? The issues that were already addressed with 1.01 Patch: * Repair costs are punishing * Mission payouts are very low Ultimately, thank you GSC and its beloved developers & personnel. STALKER has been such a treasure of fun and excitement for me for more than 14 years by now, and hopefully STALKER 2 will extend that. Congratulations on this awesome game. After all you've been through...