Simply put: an excellent addition to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2's overall story.
The story follows a conflict between Duty and Freedom, which emerges after some trouble occurs to one of the parties in the Iron Forest.
Throughout the story, Skif will mostly work with Zulu and Mavka - helping both to try and reach an end of the war: but in the end, decisions will have to be made, and the player will not beat around the bush - there will be someone to call a friend, and someone an enemy. That is all that I will say: I do not wish to spoil much, just the general set-up and structure. But the story itself? It's great! In my opinion, honestly, better than the main game even. It feels much more connected, it makes you feel attached to these characters and doesn't feel disjointed at all - unlike how the Main Story can feel at times. Both paths of the story are good, albeit I would have to say the Duty part is better - as Mavka is a character with some questionable motives at times.
One thing I wish there was more, on the other hand, are notes, journal entries, archives and so on: it feels like there's too little of it which is a shame for lore-seekers like me. But there is still a sizeable amount of new information in this format in the DLC. There are two endings, and both are very good: even though I totally definitely can't ever go ahead Iron Forest
On a visual and sound basis - peak. Gameplay-wise? Great, but I just wish it had a tiny bit more dangerous mutants. It's for sure one of the most compact regions in the game - every 50 meters there's a new PoI to explore - and honestly that's a really good breath of fresh air from some of the base game regions. There's many anomaly fields, stashes behind safe-code puzzles, interesting buildings with good loot. There's even some new very cool anomalies, like the Wires - which can yoink your gun from your hands if not careful. The coolest addition must be Faraday, an anomaly that can transmit radio messages, and there's around 300 unique ones, which I found simply amazing for the lore-thirsty stalkers like me.
CNPP: Without a doubt, the best region in the whole game in my opinion. The visuals, the atmosphere, the music... everything is top notch in that regard - but that's not even mentioning its contents It has tons of buildings to explore with interesting stuff to find, a couple of really great side quests, and an Arch-Anomaly that I simply find amazing (both gameplay-wise and visually).
A "Clear Sky" type faction war and how progress unlocks A-life in this region are two things that automatically make this region the best in my opinion. It just never happened in the game for the player to have such an impact on changing the dynamics of a region. After unlocking full A-Life, seeing the buddies you went with to the CNPP become roaming, real-living NPCs going out to kill mutants, and so on, is the most amazing feeling I've ever had in this game. SIRCAA, Lymansk, X-16, and other base game locations
These new areas in the new map are just as good as the new ones. SIRCAA (this time, its ruins) feels amazing to explore through again, only that this time the vibe is completely different. It's hard to talk about it without revealing much, but it's great - and it has one of the best set pieces in the whole game.
As for Lymansk... I will say nothing, because this was my favourite part of the whole experience overall. It's something I'd love for everyone to just experience on their own because the vibes... the story elements.. chef's kiss.
X-16 feels.. very different - almost completely if I am being honest. It is a cool lab to re-explore, and it is a very good story beat overall. It is hard to get into details without spoiling, but it felt pretty lacking in the music department. And it also didn't have many interesting notes, so one of the weaker moments story-stuff aside (but don't get me wrong, it is still really good).
There's many other locations the player will visit, both in the main quest of the DLC, and new side quests that happen on the base game locations. I will not talk about them to keep it spoiler-free, but the experience there is overall pretty good too.
There's 12 Main Quests (or 14 technically, but it depends on the choices you take). The mission design overall feels very much improved even from the base game. There's tons of set-pieces, unique and memorable moments and overall... it just feels very nice to play. They've tried some new things, sometimes it works really great, sometimes it is a bit weird due to the AI screwing itself (note: your experience may be much better, since our review build was pretty old and obviously, a work-in-progress).
There are some boss-like moments too, like in the game, and they're pretty good. Besides one of the last ones which feels pretty boring and easy, I did not like that one much at all. There's a particular mission happening at the Perimeter Dam (already teased in the Marketing Material), which I remember pretty fondly, because it was one of the most epic fights I've ever had with a swarm of NPCs.
As for side content, Great add-ons, but they feel more of the same. They are not really advanced like CoP's ones (besides one of them in CNPP). It's just good additional narrative content, which will definitely be appreciated since the game is lacking in this department, especially in the base game areas. There is a side quest however which I now consider my favourite, because it is very unique and has very cool gameplay implications after its completion, but not much to be said without revealing all.
The Kadaver is absolutely the best enemy in the whole game - just... extremely fun to fight always. I am sure a lot of you will be both terrified and impressed by it. There's also moldy blind dogs now, emitting radiation - a nice variation to the already-existing ones And another mutant that.. I will not spoil. But in total? three new mutants (mostly two), which is pretty good
Back to the Zone — 2.0 Update
I've been playing on the 2.0 version for some time now (170 hours-ish), so I already have a great idea of it.
It is monumental.
Visually? It feels like the game has just transcended a whole generation ahead. 1.9 to 2.0 feels like a PS4 to PS5 difference. The new foliage and lighting is kino, it's really really great. It makes the whole world looks so much better, lived in, realistic and it just has more of that... S.T.A.L.K.E.R. feel they've wanted to achieve since the beginning, but couldn't. It's the original artistic vision come to life.
The performance improvement is also significant. I am on 1080p, which is small-res sure, but still hitting 200fps at times is something I never thought I would in this game.
The new weapons are peak, of course... especially my BELOVED GP3A. And the new binoculars are really good, they're really well done and feel good to use. The Statistics page in the PDA is also pretty fun, just a small add-on adding up to the adding list of features. A lot of people will be disappointed by the online A-Life range remaining 100 meters, but don't fret.. there's a tons of improvements to the whole system itself, stuff that will only truly be noticed when playing the game.
I do hope (and I am confident they will do this) that the 100 meters online range is increased eventually, and I'm thinking they were planning on doing that, but couldn't get it ready for Summer. But the future is bright, and many more updates are still planned to come - the beginning was a long time ago, but this truly feels like the "actual beginning".
FINAL VERDICT
It's an excellent addition: and honestly, there is nothing much bad to rate about it that wouldn't be a complaint about the main-game overall (which I now rate at 8.0-8.5)
It is a MUST-PLAY for anyone already-playing the game in my opinion, especially if you're already a fan of the game.
STALKER 2: COST OF HOPE - 9/10 - MUST-BUY