No, but I would have if I had fewer hours played just to get a proper experience from the start and consequently less of an item stockpile etc. Grok's less loot in stashes won't apply retroactively for example.

They're definitely not pushing the engine to its limits and it's a shame. No Ray Reconstruction for example and no hardware ray tracing. I was wondering why shadows and reflections lacked clarity at first. This is apparently why.

It's a weird one though because despite all the flaws I can't stop playing the game. Maybe I just love STALKER that much. I also have a bunch of mods installed, granted.

I recommend going through what's trending on Nexus and seeing what appeals to you. Apart from fixing the timescale I installed some rebalancing mods that make enemies less bullet spongy and combat more lethal, as well as a mod attempting to improve A-life and stealth. Also installed all of Grok's mods. and this Medkit and Consumable rebalance.

As long as they're not lying about the existence of A-life in the first place I'm hopeful. If the framework of it actually is there but not working I have hope they'll fix it.

Otherwise yes, I'm still enjoying having more STALKER after all these years. I've installed maybe a dozen mods and am now having a lot of fun with the game, but even so there are a lot of things missing and/or lacking. Even stuff like factions. You can't see the faction of corpses anymore when you loot them, and you can't keep track of your relations in your PDA. Aren't factions supposed to be important? Puzzling.

What makes the older STALKER games special is the way the zone lives its own life independent of the player. That's what makes you feel small and insignificant, just wandering a hostile wasteland. As you're heading to your mission you hear gunshots in the distance, NPC Stalkers are fighting bandits perhaps? As you head over you arrive as the fight is over and they're looting the bodies, after which they start heading off towards the nearest encampment. Unscripted stuff like this is missing in the game right now.

The devs kinda have to put their money where their mouth is in terms of A-life. Most of the other issues are already being addressed via simple .cfg mods so they should be easily patched (though I have no idea how some of them ended up in the game, was it not QA tested at all?).

A-life is what makes the Zone feel alive in all the previous games. The devs have said it's not working right, so now they actually have to prove that the framework is there at all and can be fixed.

I'm praying the successful sales gives the team the resources to fix the games many problems in coming patches. Unlike the author of this article I have a lot of issues with the current state of the game and find many design decisions to be not in the spirit of classic STALKER. Finally, the broken at best and absent at worst A-life (simulation of what NPCs and mutants are doing off screen for those unfamiliar) is a massive issue.

The bones of a great STALKER game are there, but it's quite a ways away from it in its current state.

You know what, I agree. And I would love to see the look on Todd Howard's face if Fallout: London wins GotY. It should be eligible for that reason alone.

That's fair, it was completely unacceptable. And the game itself was so shallow and lacking that the hype for '23 never really got going, despite it actually being a significant improvement.

That actually kinda sucks. F1 Manager 2023 had its flaws, but I still enjoyed my time with it and was planning on picking up 2024 at some point (so yes I suppose I am part of the problem). The game felt like it had potential and I was hoping it would be come genuinely good after a few more iterations.

Sorry, I thought you were blaming Remedy and not Epic.

No, they decided that Epic was the best bet to get the game done at all as they were willing to finance it, and this is the unfortunate outcome.