Playing STALKER 2 Made Me Realize The One Thing That Starfield Is Really Missing (& No, It’s Not About Loading Screens)

I’ve just recently delved into the dark & unsettling world of STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl and have been having a blast learning more about the narrative and exploring the game’s fascinating environments. Beyond the minor bugs that have since been fixed by the recent patch, it’s generally reinvigorated my passion for these sorts of first-person survival titles while simultaneously reminding me how much the “biggest” game of 2023 actually lacks.

Bethesda’s Starfield is different than STALKER 2 in a ton of ways, but it also shares a pretty close resemblance in how it introduces new NPCs and provides quests and dialogue. Although I might be biased to some degree, as I’ve always preferred the barren post-apocalyptic wastelands of a future Earth more than the vast expanse and intrigue of space, I can’t help but kick the feeling that STALKER 2 clearly illustrates what Starfield truly lacks.

STALKER 2’s Missions Feel Like They Have High Stakes

I Want To Explore The Side Missions

Something that Starfield is significantly lacking is the connective tissue between its most compelling side missions and the overall world in which the game takes place. There are a few stimulating missions that can stand alone, like “Operation Starseed,” which sees the player meet unforgettable characters like Amelia Earhart, but these quests are few and far between.

And even when the side missions in themselves are interesting, the stakes in these quests feel inconsequential, with no greater impact on the universe. Don’t get me wrong — the stakes in Starfield are high. After all, the fate of the universe(s) hangs in the balance. That said, I can’t shake the recurring feeling that nothing that I do in the game actually matters.

Certain Starfield quests like “Mantis” and “Juno’s Gambit” are very compelling, but more often than not, they feel disconnected from the rest of the events in the Settled Systems. Perhaps this is a result of the game genre itself, as the vacuum of space is much larger comparatively than the various zones in STALKER 2. That said, ultimately, the experience feels larger in STALKER 2, with the content within missions encouraging further exploration and experimentation.

Stalker 2 Encourages Exploration & Discovery

Procedural Generation Needs To Die Already

Although so far, I’ve spent a fraction of the time in STALKER 2 when compared with Starfield, I feel like I’ve been much more methodical with exploring everything the fairly huge map has to offer. I’m not sure if this is a result of handcrafted environments, compelling narratives, or just a more exhilarating setting for most of the points of interest, but it’s probably a combination of all of those things. So far, I’ve advanced from the Lesser Zone to a zone called literally Garbage, but the initial area that you start in has enough compelling side content to keep you in it for a bunch of real-world hours.

So far, I’ve had to explore a spooky cave and got attacked by a mutant, tracked down a ravaged group of Stalkers in “The Lost Boys,” and I generally try to hunt down any lost stashes and any blue exclamation marks that end up showing up on my map. Unlike Starfield,STALKER 2′s side quest content always feels like it’s leading somewhere, and I don’t feel bogged down by the individual tasks within the mission.

To be clear, procedural generation can or even should be used in certain cases, but over-reliance on the tool leads to boring, repetitive, and plain uninteresting content based on a number of random variables. This method of level-making pales in comparison to the imagination of a human level designer.

I think this aspect of chaining smaller tasks in a mission for a bigger goal is an important key, as this quest structure is nothing new, but doing it in a compelling and interesting way is an art form that not all creatives have seemingly gotten down. This is made fairly apparently, as STALKER 2‘s main questline isn’t really that complex — I lost an artifact, and now I need to get it back, but the path to take there can have a ton of different variables and may end up differently from my friend, depending on how I approach situations.

I’m Not Struggling To Follow The Narrative

A Somewhat Complex Story With A Simple Goal

Although STALKER 2‘s narrative is more dense than Starfield‘s in some respects (especially since I’ve never played the other games), it doesn’t feel like NPCs in the game are spewing dialogue my way. Sure, it’s not perfect, and there are some confounding aspects to the story (especially for a first-time player). That said, discovering the lore in the game is something that I want to do, and it doesn’t feel like a job.

STALKER 2‘s main story and side content feel like it has some level of stakes. Either a character dies, or some piece of interesting lore is discovered, but the quests themselves feel more important, with player autonomy thrust to the forefront. These don’t feel like artificial choices, either — as pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable or moral in the ravaged wasteland in The Zone is one of the more compelling aspects of the game.

Random tasks tenuously string together this tissue in the case of
Starfield
, where players are commanded to do this random thing on this random planet — the drive of which is some convoluted reason in order to achieve a goal someplace else.

Decisions people make in the game feel logical, and even though it falls into the trope of “meet this person” only to have that guy say “meet this other person,” I never really feel baited or like what I just did was a giant waste of time. When it comes to Starfield, I can’t say the same thing.

Stalker 2 Proves Starfield’s Problems Aren’t All Technical

You Can’t Blame This On Bugs Anymore

Perhaps the most stark thing that I’ve realized since playing STALKER 2 and Starfield is that there are so many “issues” with Starfield that it brings focus away from what I think the biggest problem actually is. It’s not the technical limitations of Starfield that are holding it back — it’s really the lack of a compelling narrative.

Starfield and STALKER 2 are both different games in different settings, but there’s one connective thread that ties them together, and that’s the story and drive behind the things that players do in the game and the effect it has on the characters in the world. Random tasks tenuously string together this tissue in the case of Starfield, where players are commanded to do this random thing on this random planet — the drive of which is some convoluted reason in order to achieve a goal someplace else.

In STALKER 2, the stakes are much more in your face and gritty — just like the game’s aesthetic. Although more straightforward in some ways, it ultimately pushes the player along and compels them to complete the mission, not for the reward at the end of the tunnel, but just to discover what exactly happened to cause the often savage result. It’s this ability of STALKER 2 that, at least in my opinion, makes the storytelling much more compelling than it is in Starfield.

In a game where you can immerse yourself as the main character of the story, Starfield does a pretty poor job of actually fleshing out the character from a truly comprehensive emotional perspective. Even though Skif — the seemingly nameless and faceless character you play as in the game — has an established story that you learn little about, STALKER 2 still feels like the more immersive and compelling game.