Spirit of the PC 2024: Stalker 2

Stalker 2 captured the Sprit of the PC this year—its vibrancy, inventiveness (and, yes, occasional jank). For more awards, visit our Game of the Year 2024 hub.

Joshua Wolens, News Writer: This might sound odd, but what I most love about Stalker 2 is how Stalker it is: how far it goes—even in dolled-up 2024 form—to preserve all the systemic strangeness and seemingly bizarre design priorities that made the original games great. Even with the A-Life system apparently busted, the world still feels to me like it lives, breathes, and vibrates with potential for complete lunacy—boss encounters can get cut short when the scary monster stumbles into an anomaly, packs of dogs can descend on your enemies to wipe them out before you can even unholster your gun, that kind of thing.

But it's the little touches, too. Why does GSC consider it necessary to procedurally generate names for every human you encounter, enemies and all? No idea, but where most studios would just label the schmucks you run across in the Zone things like 'Bandit' and 'Duty Patrolman,' Stalker 2 will give them names like 'Vanya Badass,' and 'Gena Sleepy'. It's an incredibly minor choice that ends up lending humanity both to your enemies and the game as a whole, a revival of that Morrowind-style approach of giving everyone at least a vague place in the world.

That's the handle, I think. It's gorgeous and, when it works, relatively slick (at least compared to the old games), but at its heart Stalker 2 is a beautiful caveman we thawed out of a block of ice: the last, dim torch of an uncaring, old-school philosophy of game design that GSC, god bless 'em, has been carrying for the last 14 years of development.

Fraser Brown, Online Editor: Yeah, like Josh I'm just enamoured with how much Stalker 2 transports me back to 2007. It's gorgeous as all heck, but it still has that weird, janky soul that ensures I'm perpetually being surprised.

It's exactly the sort of thing I would have taken a punt on back in my early 20s, when I'd spend ages browsing the shelves in Gamestation (one of the many brick and mortars that were killed off by digital distribution) to take advantage of the staff discount I got from being night manager at Blockbuster Video (which owned Gamestation, until it too went under). God, I'm really dating myself here.

Every journey into the zone is its own weird vignette. Will I get mauled by dogs? Will I get into a fight that ends when my enemies accidentally step into an anomaly and get flattened? Will I run out of ammo at the worst possible time and have to hoof it back to base, popping radiation meds, drinking vodka and wrapping myself up in bandages until I'm a post-apocalyptic mummy? Yes, to all of them.

Robert Jones, Print Editor: Stalker 2 crashed onto PC in rough shape and with tons of the series' trademark jank on display, including some uncool progress-halting misery and, for me at least, a weird as hell bug where a swarm of rats would follow me around wherever I went. Seriously, for a time I became the rat Pied Piper! But despite the myriad of bugs, patches and, at times, deep frustrations, Stalker 2 still delivers an incredibly unique, immersive, and gripping gaming experience that recaptures the bleak and bizarre beauty of the original game perfectly.

Stalker 2 is a game where you'll frequently find yourself having to fight against both the immense hostility of its virtual world, as well as the myriad of ways the game could go bad on you, which can sometimes feel so random to a point of comic cosmic unfairness, but you soldier on regardless, in the dark and without hand-holding or safety net, as when everything is working as it should, Stalker 2 delivers one of the most mature, beautiful, complex and challenging experiences in gaming today. It's a game that captures much of what PC gaming is all about and, in my opinion, is a worthy winner of this year's Spirit of PC award.