It launched upside down and on fire, but busted and brilliant Stalker 2 has attracted 6 million players to the Zone in the last 3 months

The process of reviewing Stalker 2 will live forever in my memory—spending a solid week doing almost nothing but play it in order to get through it in time for release, battling through innumerable pre-day-one-patch bugs (weapon audio cutting out, dead enemies becoming beautiful distended masses of flesh) before finally hitting the end and summing the whole experience up as an 83% in our Stalker 2 review. The game was kind of on fire, sure, but it was also bold, brilliant, and beautiful.

But I gotta be honest, I wasn't certain the gaming public would necessarily share my enthusiasm for GSC's fireworks display of a game. More fool me. In a post to Instagram yesterday, the studio celebrated the milestone of 6 million players visiting the Zone. Enough people to fill Prypiat 120 times over.

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"Today we are celebrating the six million stalkers who have come to play Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl," wrote the folks at GSC. "Six million! A scope that is hard to comprehend, but it is real thanks to you. We are incredibly grateful and proud that each of you has left a unique mark in the Zone."

The key here is that GSC refers to "players" rather than 'copies sold.' Stalker 2 is on Game Pass, and the possibility of trying the game out for (kind of) free has probably helped a lot of people get over the fear of its release-day bugs. It's not quite as stonking a success as Monster Hunter Wilds selling eight million copies in three days, but it's damn good for a game in a series renowned (and beloved) for being a little busted, and whose development was interrupted by the actual invasion of its home country.

It's heartening to see, and I only hope the number continues to grow as GSC continues to put out giganto-patch after giganto-patch for the game, doing things like reviving its dormant A-life AI system and fixing all the malingering bugs still present in the code. Personally, I'm trying to wait for the game to be fully fixed and ship-shape before I go in for another playthrough, but I admit, I've been tempted more than once to fire up a new save.

Before I do that, though, I think I'm set for another playthrough of the original Stalker trilogy, especially since GSC dropped an early Christmas gift on us last year by announcing the PC versions would get patches to bring them up to snuff with their more recent console releases. Good hunting, stalkers: All six million of you.

One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.

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