It's no secret that Stalker 2 is a hardcore game. Going into the Zone is far from a forgiving experience, and players can expect combat encounters to be as brutal as the environment they're exploring.
Getting blown up by a grenade in a gunfight, torn apart in mutant encounters, and vaporized by a spatial distortion are all common occurrences in the Zone, and you'll probably spend just as much time healing in Stalker 2 as you will reloading a previous save file. If difficulty is an issue for you, here's a quick overview of what you can expect going into the game.
All Difficulty Settings in Stalker 2
Before we go deeper into the difficulty settings, we need to make one thing clear: Stalker 2 is a hard game by design, and players are expected to take advantage of everything, like free equipment or tactics that are otherwise considered cheesy in other games. Dying is completely normal, and victory is often the result of good preparation, awareness, and experience. Difficulty settings mainly affect how forgiving the game is by shuffling in-game stats around, and as far as enemy behaviors go, they remain mostly the same across all levels.
There are three difficult settings in Stalker 2:
- Rookie: Designed for series newcomers and narrative. Enemies deal less damage.
- Stalker: The normal difficulty setting. Combat is less forgiving.
- Veteran: Suited for those who have played the previous games. You deal less damage to enemies.
If this is your first Stalker game, then we strongly suggest going with Rookie difficulty first. As mentioned, preparedness, awareness, and experience are the most important things you need to have when exploring the Zone. Rookie difficulty makes enemies and anomalies slightly less lethal, giving you more chances to learn from mistakes without the frustration of repeatedly dying.
How to Get Detention Center Sheltered Stash in STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl
This guide will help fans reach the Sheltered Stash in the Detention Center, a location in STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl’s Garbage Region.
For everyone else, we recommend sticking with Stalker difficulty. Playing on Veteran difficulty is hard to recommend, because as of the game's launch version, there are two issues players need to be aware of:
- Enemy patrols can spawn right behind you.
- Mutants are extremely tanky.
Getting ganked by bandit or military patrols that materialize out of thin air is downright unfair, and with how much more deadly and accurate hostile Stalkers are on Veteran difficulty, this can severely dampen your experience. Likewise, if you get jumped by a Bloodsucker or a Poltergeist in Stalker 2 early on, you likely won't have a chance to fight back. They can take about 4–5 shells of buckshot to the chest before going down, and since they're almost impossible to spot while invisible, you likely won't have the chance to shoot until they're already attacking you.
Beating the game on Veteran difficulty isn't impossible, and for actual veterans of the franchise, this is likely going to be the definitive way to play Stalker 2. The Zone and its inhabitants are unfair and unforgiving, after all.
There are already Stalker 2 mods that attempt to make the game more fun without making it less difficult.
What's The Difference Between Difficulty Levels?
So far, the only noticeable differences between difficulty levels are AI enemy aggression, quest reward quantity, equipment deterioration rates, and damage values. Modders found that players deal more or less damage to enemies based on difficulty level, and have promptly made mods that equalize damage taken and damage dealt for a fairer experience.
In previous Stalker games, difficulty affected enemy accuracy, the distance at which they can throw grenades from, player damage resistance, and loot quantity. It's hard to tell if any of these factors also affect Stalker 2, but it would be safe to assume that they do. Playing carefully and managing your inventory wisely in Stalker 2 are going to be important on Veteran difficulty anyway, so it's best to act like such factors do get affected by the difficulty setting.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl
- Released
- November 20, 2024
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco
- Developer(s)
- GSC Game World
- Publisher(s)
- GSC Game World
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 5
- Franchise
- S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC
- Genre(s)
- First-Person Shooter, Open-World, Post-Apocalyptic, Survival
