A new report indicates that STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl was so popular in Ukraine that it caused some internet outages for a few hours. STALKER 2 is one of the biggest games to be made by a Ukrainian developer in years, so it’s understandable that it would attract a lot of attention in the country.

STALKER 2 was originally announced by GSC Game World back in 2010, but eventually canceled. The project restarted in 2018, and the popular FPS was finally released on November 20, 2024. Despite being available on services such as Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, STALKER 2 sold over 1.4 million copies on Steam in only four days, and was considered a massive hit.

However, it seems that STALKER 2’s success caused internet outages in Ukraine, affecting several cities for five or six hours during the day when the game was released. These issues seemingly varied in severity, with multiple people having major problems with network stability and internet connection speed during the event. According to ITC, reports from two local internet providers, Tenet and Triolan, confirmed that the problem was caused by the enormous number of people downloading the popular FPS simultaneously. Speaking to Eurogamer, GSC Game World's creative director Mariia Gryogorovych acknowledged the situation, saying that it was hard to see the country having internet issues during such a difficult time, but was also impressed with the launch.

While STALKER 2 had a huge launch, it’s also likely that the ongoing war with Russia made the problems worse. Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the country has been struggling to keep its infrastructure working due to damage caused by the conflict. This is not the only time that the war with Russia affected the game, though. Last week, reports alleged that STALKER 2 was being review bombed by Russians paid to tarnish the game’s image.

In general, however, STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl has had positive reviews, and it currently stands with a 74 score on OpenCritic. While most critics like the game, there’s also a consensus that it’s fairly bugged and that some systems are not working well.

Among the most noteworthy bugged features in STALKER 2 is the A-Life 2.0 system, which simulates more lifelike NPCs. Recently, STALKER 2 developers revealed why A-Life is not working, explaining that some sacrifices had to be made to optimize the game, and A-Life was too demanding on performance.

Posted: Dec 08, 2024 1:37 pm
Related Forum: Xbox Forum

Source: https://gamerant.com/stalker-2-launch-ukraine-internet-outages/