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Arkane founder and Dishonored co-creative director
Raphaël Colantonio says the Metacritic scoring ecosystem encourages devs to make “safe, boring games,” while launches like Stalker 2 suffer in overall scoring at launch due to bugs and technical problems. Colantonio calls lower launch scores impacted by bugs “misleading” because these technical issues can be fixed further down the line, while the overall score remains the same.
“The Metacritic ecosystem encourages devs to make safe, boring games,” Colantonio begins. “As long as a game is polished at launch, you’re guaranteed a 80%, no matter how boring the game might be. Meanwhile Stalker 2 gets a 73 because it’s a bit rough on the edges at launch. Unfair, misleading.”
As of writing, Stalker 2’s PC version has an average rating of 74 out of 100 from 60 critic reviews, with the Xbox version coming in at a 78 average from 19 reviews. One of the biggest pain points with the FPS game, as outlined in our own Stalker 2 review, is the myriad technical issues at launch.
“A bad game with no bugs has a better score than a great game with bugs,” Colantonio continues in the replies to their post. “It means the essence of the game is not taken into consideration, it means that three months later, when the great game is patched, it still has a shit score. [Does that make] sense to you?
“[Metacritic] encourages devs to play it safe by making easy games that are easier to polish. As soon as you offer games with tons of possibilities, you open yourself to a harder game to polish at launch.”
One commenter brings up Fallout New Vegas, which like Stalker 2 launched with a fair amount of technical problems, but continues to be one of the most beloved games in the whole series. “[Fallout New Vegas] is a great example of one of the best games ever made with a Metacritic that doesn’t match the reality,” Colantonio adds. “A fantastic buggy game can get patched, a boring game will stay boring.”
Colantonio left Arkane in 2017 and later went on to form WolfEye Studios, but not before also directing Prey at the former developer.
Stalker 2 developer GSC Game World has a lot of fixes planned for the game, though, with the A-life system at the top of the list. In short, Stalker 2’s A-life system gives all the NPCs their own rich inner lives, and allows them to do their own thing no matter what the player is up to.
Right now this system isn’t working as intended in Stalker 2, but GSC Game World is committed to improving it. “We know that this system is very important to the Zone having an immersive atmosphere, and we will do our best to fix the known issues. We are fixing it and we will fix it.”
As you explore the Zone we’ve put together all the best Stalker 2 weapons, alongside exactly where to find each of the Stalker 2 artifacts.
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