As soon as I read our official Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl review I knew I needed to play this long-in-the-making sequel. However, like many PC gamers will no doubt have experienced, it's not exactly been smooth sailing at launch, with would-be Stalkers having to fight through a plethora of game-breaking bugs and mega patches to find fun and immersion.
There's another thing that's also been dampening my enjoyment of Stalker 2 as well—just how long I've been having to wait to actually get playing it. Thanks to a smorgasbord of intro videos as well as a forced Unreal Engine 5 shader compilation every single time you boot up the game, it's been a severe trial of patience, and especially so when trying to play on my gaming laptop, which isn't as fast and powerful as my main rig.
