Is that to say the Zone has experienced a tad bit of inflation? Or rather a price-adjustment-in-the-other-direction? An announcement such as this could put the entirety of the Zone community into an uproar, much as a Geiger counter would near an anomaly.
As from August 7, the Standard Edition buyers of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl can now upgrade and pay for Deluxe or Ultimate editions, with the prices being discounted by 30% for a week, until August 14. Just a little detail here—extra content, weapons, and suits; random post-a-pocalyptic goodies, really.
Hold a minute before you fish out your wallet for those upgrades with the community’s reaction being…well, mixed bolts and screws.
On the positive view: people really want that preorder bonus content; SinsofCha0s tweeted, “I’d like to get the pre-order stuff… I’d be happy to have it.” Then we have Winx_Club_Swinga taking it up a notch with “Виходьте нових карт! Слава Україні!”
Well, then there are the others… ohhh the others. Gargus gave its sickly side to the debate: “Why not just release the entire game instead gating it off in sections across different versions?” Oof. That probably hurt more than radioactive burns. ORWELLIAN_PSYOP didn’t fall for it either: “No, no, no. You have to have a functional primary game BEFORE you peddle the DLC.” Double Oof.
And then there’s the poor Craptain_Crunch who’s been waiting nine months for the physical edition he paid for, asking loudly, “Hey, so like, where’s that physical edition I paid for 9 months ago?” Yikes.
The weapon debate actually got heated. Basil the rogue hunter asked whether the upgrade weapons were just skins or were actual new guns. To that, Gren FDGO-Ultra Monkey2k3 responded with a whole breakdown about stats and performance. Basil replied, “How silly..pay to win😔” — which, okay fair, nobody likes P2W in single-player games.
Concerns over performance were also aired, as Fisam87 complained about “Micro-jerks. Broken ALife. Bugs” and went on to tell them, “You know how to scare your fans away.” Ouch. Studd Sav just wants the PS5 version optimized, which… same, my dude. Same.
Some other folks are out here asking the real questions — like, “Where’s the multiplayer?” Jeferson W. hit ’em with, “Where the multiplayer? Kkkk,” (that’s Brazilian laughter, for context) before admitting, “the single player experience is fantastic so far.”
Anther MVP was questioning the existence of upgrade paths between editions, season pass sales, and controller support on PC. Derrame was begging for “controller support for generic controllers on PC please”—pretty much an anthem for all budget gamers.
So the verdict? The Zone giveth, and the Zone taketh away. One promotion with discounted upgrades available for those that want to buy more content for the game. On the other hand…well, the community has an opinion as to what is going on with their business. Whether you’re on “just take my money” or “fix base game first” all I can tell you is that the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. community might be as passionate (sometimes salty) as ever.
Now if you excuse me, [I intend to mull over those upgrade options to the sweet ambient sounds of the Zone drowning in my head. Just gotta decide if the Ultimate Edition is worth it or if I should spend them rubles on another bottle of vodka to survive the anomalies. Decisions, decisions.]
