Every STALKER 2 guide to help you navigate the game, starting from the very beginning, are here. We’ve covered everything from the best gear and weapons and how to repair them, all the way to survival tips and how to make the best choices in certain quests. STALKER 2 Heart of Chornobyl is an intense survival horror set in an incredibly harsh open world. For new players, it can certainly feel a little overwhelming, and at times, brutal. There’s a lot to consider straight off the bat if you want to survive, especially given how many dangers there are across this massive game. To name but a few, we’re talking invisible bloodsuckers, bandits, mutant dogs, and lethal radiation.
The game also features an array of NPC conversations that more often than not will pose you with a choice, letting you decide how you’ll respond to a situation that’ll change the Zone. You might even get different rewards depending on how you act, too. With all this in mind, the STALKER 2 guide below will lead you, carefully, through your first steps into this not so beginner friendly game.
Fair warning, there’s STALKER 2 spoilers below as we’ve linked to guides covering main story missions and choices.
Stalker 2 beginner guides
STALKER 2 is a pretty merciless game that throws all kinds of threats at you, from hostile mutants that want to tear your face off to blinding anomalies and invisible tornados. That all means it’s not the most beginner-friendly experience, so reading up on our early-game advice should help:
- Our STALKER 2 Tips and tricks are essential to bear in mind as you trudge across the wasteland, offering tips that’ll help you stay alive and get you in the right mindset to prevail in Heart of Chornobyl.
- For PC players, the STALKER 2 Compiling shaders message can get in the way of your experience with the game. We’ve explained why this happens in our guide.
- STALKER 2 starts with a relatively brief tutorial and prologue mission to set up the story and introduce the basics of the game but involves navigating through dark sewer pipes and a fairly open area filled with dangerous bandits. It’s a bit of a trial by fire, so our STALKER 2 opening walkthrough should help you breeze through.
- Just as you start your adventure properly, you’ll find yourself trapped in an anomaly prison and need to escape using bolts. Knowing how to escape the STALKER 2 anomalous fieldnot only lets you get to the rest of the game, but also sets you up nicely for other anomalies you’ll encounter!
- With limited stamina, traveling on foot in Heart of Chornobyl can be quite slow, but by reaching major settlements, you should find the odd guide who can help you use STALKER 2 fast travel for a fee.
Stalker 2 gear and weapons
Ensuring you’ve got some powerful and functional weaponry on you is crucial to not getting turned into mutant lunch while out in the Zone, so our weapon guides should be able to help you out in that regard:
- When starting out, getting some of the best STALKER 2 guns for the early game will be very useful.
- Maintaining weapons is vital, otherwise they’ll jam in the heat of battle, which is a massive inconvenience. Use our guide to learn How to repair guns in STALKER 2.
Missions and puzzles in Stalker 2
STALKER 2 has a lot of stashes, side missions, and other activities to do alongside Skif’s main quest, though they can be quite obtuse at time, often requiring you to solve some sort of puzzle or find a different path. Below, we’ve got guides for some of the sticking points you’re likely to run into early on:
- Getting the STALKER 2 Journalist's Stash in the roof is one of the earliest loot crates you can get, and it’s well worth picking up early.
- If you’ve been helping Nightingale, you might need some help to learn be a bit confused by the STALKER 2 Bulba dog collar near the imploding anomaly.
- Once you’ve reached the Garbage region of the Zone as part of the main questline, you’ll be sent to get a STALKER 2 workshop keycard.
- The STALKER 2 No Honor Among Thieves door is a bit of trick as you need to parkour around to get inside.
Choices in Stalker 2
As many individuals and factions vie for influence and treasure in the Zone, there are lots of choices to be made in STALKER 2’s missions and side activities. We’ve covered some of the most notable ones in the early game, covering important main quest decisions as well as final outcomes for minor side missions:
- You’ll be tasked with retrieving some sensors from Squint, but before he gives them to you, you’ve got to decide whether you’ll help or kill Squint in STALKER 2.
- However you deal with Squint, you then need to choose if you’ll give the sensors to Richter or Zotov in STALKER 2.
- Rounding off the first part of the game’s main quest, you’ll infiltrate a base to shoot or knock out Solder in STALKER 2.
- If you’ve started a side mission to look for a missing squad, you’ll have to make the STALKER 2 Lost Boys Ninth or Dew choice at the end.
- For the STALKER 2 Poppy Field Religious Icon choice there’s a creative solution to get the maximum rewards.
STALKER 2 review
Our reviewer thinks STALKER 2’s atmosphere is incomparable, but it’s let down by “bugs and technical issues shatter that immersion at every turn, making this the best but most broken game I've played all year.” If you’re after a bit more nuance, be sure to read the full STALKER 2 review.
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