In The Zone – How S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl’s Brilliantly Unforgiving Setting Presents Horror As Normality

In The Zone – How S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl’s Brilliantly Unforgiving Setting Presents Horror As Normality

As I cowered in the rafters of an abandoned farmhouse, my mind reckons with the type of game that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is going to be. My torch is switched off, both my pistol and my stomach are empty. Beneath me, a gunfight plays out in the darkness, and gruff, Ukrainian voices echo over the wind. I tuck into a tin of suspicious looking meat and wait it out. Some moments pass, and silence falls across the dark field. I deem it safe enough to apprehensively venture out and pick at the bodies for scraps, torch still off. In that moment, I am unceremoniously mauled to pieces by mutant dogs.