Before release, Stalker 2 was hotly anticipated. So hotly anticipated, in fact, that we named it our number one most wanted game—the most wanted most wanted—at our PC Gaming Show: Most Wanted of 2023. Did you count that? That's four repetitions of the words 'most wanted' in a single sentence. That's how wanted it was.
And yet, despite how much we were looking forward to the game here at PCG, our anticipation couldn't hold a candle to the hype over in Stalker's home country, Ukraine. Ukrainian players were so eager to play the game that the sheer amount of downloading they were doing on release day caused nationwide internet problems for hours. Two internet providers, Tenet and Triolan, confirmed (via ITC) that downloads of Stalker 2 were responsible for overloading the country's network, causing slow internet speeds.
"It was hard for the whole country and it's a bad thing because the internet is important," GSC Game World creative director Mariia Gryogorovych told Eurogamer, "but at the same time it's like whoa!"
Grygorovcych, of course, has mixed feelings about slowing her homeland's internet to a crawl. The state of Ukraine's internet is no doubt down to Russia's ongoing invasion of the country, and eating up bandwidth at a crucial time when Ukrainians are using it for communication and coordination with the outside world must cause a whole range of ambivalent emotions for its devs. Still, it's a sign that their work is much-appreciated.
"For us and our team what's most important is, for some people in Ukraine, they feel a little bit happier than they were before release," said Grygorovych, "We did something for our home country, something good for them."
And if you ask me, they pulled it off. Yep, Stalker 2 is buggy—although that's getting better with every patch—and it was even worse when I was playing it for our Stalker 2 review, before that day-one patch. But despite all that it's easily my game of the year: a brilliant, janky weirdo full of heart, and that absolutely refused to sacrifice anything that makes Stalker what it is in its transition to UE5—even A-Life, which GSC promises is just busted, not gone.
