Introduction

“Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl” marks the long-awaited return of the iconic S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, arriving 15 years after the release of Stalker: Call of Pripyat in 2009. We finally get to go back to the legendary Zone, a radioactive wasteland warped by the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster. The game takes you to a game world that’s full of dangerous enemies, rival factions, mutated creatures and deadly anomalies, uncovering the dark truths behind the Zone.

With its dynamic open world, advanced survival mechanics, and branching storylines shaped by player choices, Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl revitalizes the beloved franchise with cutting-edge visuals and a gripping narrative. Combining survival horror with deep storytelling, this long-anticipated sequel captures the essence of the Stalker series while also introducing new layers of tension and immersion.

Stalker 2 is developed by GSC Game World—the famous Ukrainian game studio. As game engine, Epic’s Unreal Engine 5 is used, which has the ability to deliver stunning visuals as we’ve seen in other releases this year. While the first Stalker games used DirectX 9 and DirectX 10, this year’s release is built with full support for DirectX 12. Unreal’s “Lumen” technology is used, but only in the software, shader-based, version. Unfortunately there is no support for hardware ray tracing.

The full range of modern upscaling technologies is included, such as NVIDIA DLSS, AMD FSR and Intel XeSS. You also get frame generation support using AMD FSR or NVIDIA DLSS 3—both can be enabled and disabled separately.

This review will evaluate the performance of Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl across a wide range of contemporary graphics cards, compare image quality settings, and analyze the game’s VRAM usage to provide insight into the hardware requirements needed for an optimal experience.