S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl (PS5) Review

A late arrival to the Zone

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl took the long road to PlayStation. After a troubled, war‑shadowed development and a PC/Xbox launch that made headlines as much for its bugs as its atmosphere, PS5 owners have had to wait roughly a year to finally step into the Zone. The good news is that this is a noticeably more stable and refined version than the one early adopters wrestled with. The bad news is that GSC Game World’s vision is still rough around the edges, and some of its design missteps remain baked into the experience.

On Sony’s hardware, though, the Zone feels right at home. The combination of fast SSD loading, DualSense tricks and strong 3D audio sells the fantasy of trudging through a living, hostile wasteland, even if the game never quite escapes its own technical gravity.

Visual modes and performance on PS5 and PS5 Pro

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 runs on Unreal Engine 5 and it shows. The Zone is thick with detail: rusted industrial skeletons, wet asphalt reflecting skyglow after a storm, foliage that looks like it could cut you. On PS5 and PS5 Pro you get the now‑standard choice between a Quality mode that pushes resolution and effects, and a Performance mode that chases a higher frame rate.

Quality mode prioritizes resolution, ray‑traced lighting and denser shadows. It looks fantastic in stills, especially at dusk or during electrical storms, but it hovers around 30 frames per second with dips during heavy firefights or dense anomaly fields. If you are sensitive to frame‑rate fluctuations, this mode will bother you.

Performance mode is the clear recommendation. Resolution takes a hit, foliage shimmer becomes more obvious, and some lighting detail is pared back, but the frame rate targets 60 fps and mostly sticks there in the open fields and smaller encounters. It can stumble in the busier hub areas, and there are occasional traversal hitches when streaming in big chunks of the world, yet the moment‑to‑moment gunplay feels far better here than in Quality.

On PS5 Pro the situation improves but does not transform. Performance mode is more stable and holds close to its 60 fps target even in larger battles. Quality mode benefits from a cleaner image and slightly fewer drops, but it still feels heavy compared to the snappier Performance profile. This is not a showpiece of razor‑sharp UE5 optimization on consoles, but compared to the launch state on Xbox and PC, the PS5 release arrives in a healthier, more consistent place.

Load times and streaming

The original PC and Xbox versions were notorious for long initial loads and occasional stalls when streaming the open world. PS5’s SSD does a lot of heavy lifting here. Booting from the main menu into your save now takes in the ballpark of 10 to 15 seconds, and fast travel between key locations is often under five. Respawns after death are brisk enough that failed runs at a tough anomaly or bandit camp never feel like a punishment in themselves.

Streaming stutters have not been eradicated, but they are much reduced. Sprinting or driving across larger spaces can still trigger a brief hitch as new areas stream in, yet it is no longer the half‑second freeze that plagued the early builds. The PS5 version feels like a game finally comfortable with its own scale instead of constantly tripping over it.

DualSense support and audio design

Plenty of ports slap in token haptics and call it a day. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 actually thinks about the DualSense as part of its fiction. Each weapon family has a distinct trigger feel; battered Soviet rifles bite against your finger with a stiff pull, while lighter pistols have a quicker break. Shotguns kick the triggers hard on discharge. It is not as fine‑tuned as the best first party shooters, but it meaningfully differentiates the arsenal.

Haptics track the environment more than you might expect. The controller thrums during distant thunder, pulses when a nearby anomaly crackles into life, and vibrates in uneven little stutters as Geiger clicks rise near a hot spot. Taking a heavy hit or getting caught in a gravitational anomaly feels unpleasant in the right way, as if the controller itself is fighting you.

Paired with Sony’s Tempest 3D audio, the soundscape is excellent. Wind groans through broken windows above you, dogs bark somewhere behind a ruined bus, a bandit argument leaks from inside a warehouse you have not entered yet. The old S.T.A.L.K.E.R. trick of making the world feel dangerous through sound alone works brilliantly on PS5, and playing with a good headset feels almost essential.

Has the bug hunt finally ended?

The most important question for any latecomer is whether the PS5 port has benefitted from a year of patching. The answer is mostly yes, with asterisks.

At launch on PC and Xbox, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was a bug zoo. Quest chains broke, saves corrupted, physics went wild, NPCs teleported or forgot how to pathfind, and performance could nosedive without warning. The PS5 build arrives after numerous title updates and hotfixes, and the difference is obvious.

In dozens of hours on PS5, the experience is no longer a constant fight against the engine. Critical quests generally complete as intended. The A‑Life simulation behaves believably, with factions and monsters roaming and fighting without completely imploding. Crashes still happen but are infrequent rather than nightly occurrences. You get the usual open‑world weirdness, like corpses jittering down stairs or enemies getting momentarily stuck on geometry, but the majority of these incidents are now darkly funny rather than progress‑destroying.

That said, not every legacy issue is gone. A few side missions can still bug out if you approach objectives wildly out of order, and the game is fussy about quick saving mid‑combat. There are also lingering animation glitches, particularly during cinematic conversations where lip‑sync and body language lag behind the dialogue. The PS5 version is no longer the technical disaster early adopters warned people away from, yet it remains rough compared with its more polished genre peers.

Balance and progression a year later

Beyond stability, the other major criticism at launch targeted balance. The early hours were a meat grinder with bullet‑spongy enemies, fragile gear and stingy rewards, followed by a mid to late game that could collapse into triviality once you min‑maxed a few systems.

The PS5 release benefits from several balance passes that make the opening stretch much more approachable without sanding off the series’ trademark harshness. Bandits are still dangerous and mutants still terrifying, but basic enemies no longer feel like armored tanks. Early weapons have had their damage profiles nudged upward, and armor values have been adjusted so enemies do not simply absorb half a magazine unless you aim badly.

Economy tweaks are also noticeable. You earn a bit more cash from quests and can find slightly more ammo and medical supplies in the world, which keeps you scavenging without constantly feeling destitute. It is still very possible to mismanage resources and dig yourself into a hole, but the game gives you more room to recover.

However, the late game remains somewhat lopsided. Once you are running high‑tier gear with strong artifacts slotted in, you can tilt the risk‑reward balance too far in your favor. Some anomalies that were genuinely intimidating early on turn into background noise, and elite human enemies rarely keep up with a well‑modded rifle. It is still a tense, deadly world, just less consistently menacing than it could be.

How the Zone feels on PS5

All of this would matter less if the core experience was not compelling, but S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 remains one of the most atmospheric open‑world shooters on the market. The PS5 version preserves that heart. Wandering off the critical path to investigate a flickering light across a marsh, only to stumble into a cluster of anomalies you have to carefully probe with bolts, is still a small story you will remember hours later.

The non‑linear structure survives fully intact. Factions jostle for territory, dynamic events pop up as patrols clash or monsters stray too close to settlements, and you are free to chase main quests or get lost in side contracts that spiral into their own little sagas. The writing is moody and often bleak, with a taste for dark humor that suits the setting. On PS5 the presentation finally does it justice instead of constantly distracting you with technical issues.

Combat feels weighty and dangerous, especially in Performance mode. Guns kick hard, enemies hit even harder, and careless positioning gets you torn apart. The analog stick aiming is not as silky smooth as some top tier console shooters, and there is a slight input latency that can make fine adjustments feel mushier than ideal, but after a few hours it becomes second nature. There is still that unmistakable S.T.A.L.K.E.R. rhythm of creeping, scouting, then erupting into sudden, lethal violence.

Verdict

A year after its rocky debut on PC and Xbox, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl lands on PS5 as the best console version of the game and a far more inviting entry point into the Zone. Performance and stability are substantially improved, DualSense and 3D audio meaningfully deepen immersion, and balance tweaks make the journey harsh but not hostile.

It is not a clean redemption arc. Even on PS5 and PS5 Pro this is a technically scruffy game with occasional bugs, a sometimes lopsided difficulty curve and visual compromises in its best performing mode. Players expecting the seamless polish of a Sony first party blockbuster will bounce off the jank.

For everyone else, though, the PS5 version finally lets S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2’s strengths shine brighter than its flaws. The atmosphere, worldbuilding and emergent stories are strong enough to carry the remaining roughness. If you have been waiting for the right moment to enter the Zone on PlayStation, this is it.

Score: 8/10