Stalker 2’s Massive Campaign: How Long Will You Survive in Chornobyl?

Suppose you’ve been eagerly waiting to dive back into the eerie Exclusion Zone with Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl. In that case, you’re probably wondering how much of your life this survival experience will consume. Spoiler alert: it’s a lot. With a sprawling open world, gripping missions, and countless anomalies, this game demands dedication from even the most seasoned stalkers. Here’s everything you need to know about the time investment required for this thrilling adventure.

Main Campaign: A 40-Hour Odyssey

The heart of Stalker 2 lies in its robust campaign, which spans approximately 40 hours if you focus solely on the main story. This makes it significantly longer than most FPS or horror games, more than doubling the playtime of any entry in the original trilogy.

The primary missions are packed with narrative depth and strategic combat, ensuring that you’re in for an engaging ride even if you stick to the core storyline. Some of the key missions include:

• There and Back Again
• A Needle in a Haystack
• Chasing Ghosts
• The Assault on the Duga (Parts 1 & 2)
• The Last Wish

These missions are peppered with tense moments, tough decisions, and encounters with deadly anomalies that keep you on the edge of your seat.

Side Content: 60–70 Hours of Exploration

For those who love straying off the beaten path, Stalker 2 offers a treasure trove of side quests and activities. Completing these can stretch your playtime to 60-70 hours, and here’s why:

1. Side Quests:
   Some side missions, like the Poppy Field quest, come with unexpected twists. One wrong step, and you might find your character asleep—permanently.
2. Artifact Hunting:
   Strange anomalies hide powerful artifacts, but farming these requires specialized detectors and scanners. The best rewards often lie within the most dangerous areas.
3. Stashes:
   The game rewards exploration with hidden containers and stashes scattered throughout the Zone. These hold consumables, rare weapons, and upgraded armour pieces. One notable side quest involves finding 12 Journalist Stashes, which contain preset gear upgrades.

Completionist Nightmare: 100+ Hours

If you’re a completionist, buckle up. Seeing everything the Exclusion Zone has to offer will take 100 hours or more, especially if you want to experience all four endings. Since these endings hinge on critical decisions made throughout the campaign, you’ll need to replay the game multiple times to uncover every possible outcome.

What Makes Stalker 2 So Long?

Two key factors contribute to the game’s hefty runtime:

1. Walking Everywhere:
   While Stalker 2 includes a fast-travel mechanic, it’s limited. You must rely on guide NPCs to travel between specific settlements, and not every location has a guide. This means you’ll spend a lot of time walking—sometimes kilometres—between objectives. While this adds realism, it also makes traversing the sprawling map more time-consuming, especially during critical missions.
2. Immersive World Design:
   The Exclusion Zone in Stalker 2 is several times larger than the combined maps of its predecessors. The game’s expansive world encourages players to explore every nook and cranny, adding to the overall playtime.

Bugged Progression: A Hidden Time Sink

While the game has received multiple patches, some bugs still lurk in the shadows. During playthroughs, players have reported issues that block quest progression, forcing restarts or reloads. These hiccups can unintentionally extend your playtime but are being addressed with frequent updates.

What Missions Await in Stalker 2?

Here’s the game’s extensive mission list:

• There and Back Again
• A Tough Awakening
• A Needle in a Haystack
• A Race Against Death and other Emission-related occurrences
• Answers Come at a Price
• The Price Goes Up
• Deal with the Devil
• Back to Slag Heap
• King of the Hill
• Hot on the Trail
• Chasing Ghosts
• Dead Frequency
• In Search of a Guide
• Ad Astra Per Aspera
• Extreme Simplicity
• A Long Overdue Visit
• In Search of a Miracle
• The Forge of Progress
• Wishful Thinking
• To the Last Drop of Blood
• Just Like the Good Old Days
• An Invisible Threat
• The Hornets’ Nest
• Dawn of a New Day
• The Assault on the Duga Part 1
• The Assault on the Duga Part 2
• A Minor Incident
• In Search of Past Glory
• Happiness for Everyone
• Visions of Truth
• Dark Times
• An Act of Mercy
• Legends of the Zone
• Subtle Matter
• Busting Myths
• Dangerous Liaisons
• Escape from the Cage
• The Boundary
• The Road to the Foundation
• Down Below*
• The Last Wish
• Let No One Leave Unsatisfied

Keep in mind: Just like many other games, the final mission will trigger a display informing you about it a point of no return. All unfinished side tasks will automatically fail if you go farther down a particular location. After that, you’ll have to keep going until you reach the campaign’s last section.