When Stalker 2 came out last week I was hoping it would have some new survival systems alongside its anomalies and artifacts. It's been almost 15 years since the last Stalker game and the survival genre has really grown a lot in that interval. Maybe, I thought, Stalker 2 will have a real crafting system this time, or weapon and armor repair I can do myself instead of paying an NPC, or a more complex nourishment system than just shoveling uncooked food into my face when the hunger icon appears.
Spoiler alert: it doesn't have any of that. Stalker 2's survival systems haven't evolved over the past 14 years. That's fine! I'm enjoying being back in The Zone even though (or maybe because) nothing much has changed. But I'm still looking for a new game to really scratch my survival itch, and I think I found it this week.
