I am now fully convinced that GSC lied about the state of their game prior to release to generate more sales. I believe that the people behind GSC are complete cowards, and am skeptical that they will do the right thing at all moving forward.

When criticizing the game on their discord and referring to them lying about the game, I got muted. Some one was trying to make an argument about them being Ukrainian and having devs die in combat. This is not a good defense for liars. RIP those guys, so sad truly. This is more than a good enough reason to continue to delay, release as "Early Access" or even not release it at all, however that is not what GSC did.

They advertised A-Life, a core game mechanic that makes the world feel alive, irrespective of you. They shipped the game without A-Life. They then claimed that it was bugged, and acting up when in fact they purposefully replaced it with a random spawner prior to launch.

Binoculars are unavailable, because you would always be looking at nothing. I believe the spawn radius is 80 Meters. This leads to some extremely immersion breaking moments fairly early. Night vision is not available, even though you get to see NPCs with theirs on probably because it was broken or not done prior to launch.

This game is not finished, it's playable, but it is not even remotely finished.

For everyone defending this game, please understand, I do not hold the position that this game can't be fun. I'm sure I could have fun playing STALKER 2. The problem for me is supporting the bad behavior from game developers. When you are promised a finished game, and developers knowingly release an unfinished game, that is not okay. It is not okay to lie to people, and when you do lie to people you need to be held accountable. I feel the easiest way to hold this company accountable for lying is to leave a review, positive or negative, but do not recommend this unfinished game to other people.

The acceptance of this garbage in unreal.