The Zone contains horrors you wouldn’t believe. I spoke to an invisible man. I knew he was real because I saw his military style headphones floating there, assessing me and nodding in response to what I said. I have seen bottles, bread and sausages floating inches above a dining table.

Oh, the horrors. The horrors I saw.

I’ve seen three men come out of another man. I fired my gun and saw the pink mist escape from his skull, but as he fell, there was another man with a gun ready to leave, about to die. He goes down and another one comes. And one more. And one more. When I close my eyes, I can still see the men, duplicating like a splitting cell.

Sometimes people talk to me on the radio and their voices break away from the electric airwaves and plant themselves in the space next to me, filling it up as if they were in the middle of the room. Then, even worse, sometimes MY voice takes over the static of the airwaves and escapes into the airwaves until MY voice comes over the radio, despite coming out of MY mouth, attached to MY face.

I will never escape the horrors I have seen.

It’s the kind of psychological terror most directors could only dream of. If only it was intentional.

Usually there are two types of guys when it comes to beloved cult media. For Stalker, there’s one guy, and he’s probably pumping his fist like a sick person after reading that.

Stalker 2 is a faithful sequel, from the gameplay to the bugs. Like the original game, it hilariously breaks down at launch. Like the original game, it will probably be great in ten years when modders have fixed it. The developer has also planned a major day-one patch, which will increase the already 150 GB download size and power fix some of the worst bugs, but it doesn’t fix what’s fundamentally broken.

The game puts you in the middle of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, which has become a hotbed for mutants, robbers and supernatural forces since radiation entered the country. It plays like a Eurojank version of a Bethesda RPG (much less polished), with an open map littered with NPCs to talk to, enemies to shoot, and strange anomalies to avoid or get killed by.

Stalker 2 seems to be a brutal game. The sick know it. The environment around you – from the radiation to the mutants and strange anomalies – is trying to kill you at all times, so you’re encouraged to take your time. There’s no fast travel or vehicles, just traversing irradiated wastelands and damp swamps wherever you need to go.

You’re supposed to use throwable bolts to find a safe passage forward so you don’t get torn apart by unseen dangers. In the middle of the game you’ll be careful of the nuclear winds and just sprint towards each objective, saving quickly instead of progressing slowly while throwing bolts into environmental traps because it’s laborious.

I’m all for friction in games – I love when systems create their own stories, and travel is its own reward because of what happens along the way – but Stalker 2’s systems rarely overlap in interesting ways. They just feel like landmines. Having a weapon jam should add some extra excitement to the combat experience, but here it just makes me sad that I have to walk back to the nearest town to get my weapon fixed. It’s less of an obstacle and more of a detour. I feel the same way about the invisible threats that intersect every route to a goal. Like I said, they’re landmines. Sickos will probably love that.

It’s a brutal game, but the moment-to-moment play isn’t strong enough to keep you going. Even if weapons work, you may find yourself fighting setbacks due to damage inconsistency and sub-par enemy AI. Remember when three boys came from another man? That’s because they have a hive mind, and they all have the same ideas and the same path, so when they move and shoot they often end up in the exact same place.

If you climb to the top of a tower during a battle, enemies will eventually gather at the base of the tower and throw grenades at themselves, which is a great way to conserve your limited ammo. If someone lands a grenade next to you, there’s no warning indicator, so good luck with that. On the other hand, they will shout, “I’m hiding here” when they try to hide from you, which is nice of them.

Sometimes enemies will be looking at you with their weapons down, so you assume they’re friendly, but they’ll shoot randomly if you cross an invisible threshold. Stealth doesn’t fare much better because the enemy’s viewing distance, hard cover blocks their view, and what they can hear is inconsistent. You’ll quickly give up trying to crawl through connections when you realize how limited and seemingly random it is.

It’s disappointing because the world itself – while lacking in variety, being a nuclear wasteland and all – is beautiful. During one mission, I frantically searched for a cellar door in the middle of a poppy field that confused my senses and caused hallucinations and brief blackouts as a storm raged and lightning licked the ground around me. The atmosphere is near perfect and the weather effects are some of the best I’ve ever seen, but the game play in the world doesn’t live up to the brush strokes.

I really wanted a win for this development studio. The Ukrainian developer has weathered a pandemic, escaped a war zone and developed this game under unprecedented pressure. If I could score a match for the heart, it would be a ten out of ten. Maybe one day it will happen, but it’s not there yet. One for the sick.

Rating: 5/10

Tested version: PC