Comparing Starfield and STALKER 2: Which is the superior open-world experience?

I spent the better part of the end of 2023 playing Starfield. Now, I’m spending the better part of 2024’s final stretch playing STALKER 2. Though the two games are extremely dissimilar from one another, certain aspects of them do rhyme, and I feel this is well worth discussing.

I’ve got a long, storied, and complicated history when it comes to long-form sandbox and survival games. Notably, none of them actually deliver exactly the sort of thing I want to experience in one such title. I’ve discussed certain aspects of this self-imposed problem in my prior Destiny 2 and Starfield article, where I compared the two in a way that I bet you wouldn’t see coming.

Now, let me state in no uncertain terms that I think STALKER 2 is genuinely better than Starfield in some very fundamental ways. It’s got heaps of problems, to be sure, but there’s grit and a soul present in this game that you’ll be hard-pressed to find in Starfield. At the same time, Starfield does some things a tad better than STALKER 2 does, and mashing the two together really would be the ideal scenario, if we could pull that off.

This article isn’t interested in discussing which is the better game, however. Instead, I’d like to check which is the superior survival experience, taking mods and other player-made content into consideration.

Screenshot by Destructoid

How are Starfield and STALKER 2 alike?

If we reduce both of these games to their absolute basics, they are both about exploring dangerous and anomalous areas with guns in tow. They are both absolutely massive open-world sandbox titles with a heavy emphasis on status management and a deliberate slant toward violence for conflict resolution. Is that just a nice way of saying you get to kill stuff a lot? Yes, yes, it is.

These games invite their players to explore to their heart’s content. It’s an opportunity to jump straight into some of the most hostile yet beautiful places there ever were. Sheer exploration for the sake of exploration isn’t something many games pull off, but these two do (and you can add No Man’s Sky to the mix, for that matter), and that’s definitely worth celebrating.

Both of these games also have a number of true survival mechanics in place that facilitate a more interesting moment-to-moment gameplay loop. Whereas a more straightforward shooter might just let you go from A to B willy-nilly, both STALKER 2 and Starfield add layers of resource, stat, and inventory management to the loop. The player then needs to weigh these tidbits and decide for themselves the how, the why, and the where of their progression. It’s neat, though it’s not for everyone.

This, however, is where the similarities end.

Screenshot by Destructoid

Comparing Starfield and STALKER 2 should be quite easy on paper. The games are extremely similar to one another, as outlined above, but they really couldn’t be any further apart when you actually play them.

Starfield is effectively the exact opposite of STALKER 2. It is a safe, curated, and deeply inoffensive experience that will accommodate the player in every way possible. Only rarely does a quest’s outcome lock you out of a particular reward, and you’ll almost always be capable of brute-forcing your way through a difficult encounter. STALKER 2, on the other hand, is bloody punishing. It’s the kind of game that’s perfectly content with letting you not experience something just because you can’t figure out how to, say, access a particular area. Heck, NPCs can up and die in the middle of a quest, making it impossible to progress or earn a reward.

The differences go beyond the gameplay loop, mind. Starfield is the puddle-deep ocean to STALKER 2‘s lake-deep lake. Due to the fact that virtually all of Starfield is procedurally generated, it’s hard to shake off the feeling that nothing about it matters. On the other hand, STALKER 2‘s brimming with hidden easter eggs, valuable hand-placed loot, and just a bunch of interesting locations to explore.

The end result is that STALKER 2‘s Zone ends up feeling larger and more substantial than Starfield‘s literal galaxy of planets. How’s that for a weird end result?

Screenshot by Destructoid

How do Starfield and STALKER 2 deliver such different survival fantasies?

I do genuinely enjoy Starfield for what it is and believe it’s a reasonably compelling game as far as Bethesda RPGs go. Embracing these games also means embracing the fact that they’re often very juvenile in how they handle in-game conflict and narrative. This has always been a thing with Bethesda’s first-party titles, but nowhere is it more apparent than in Starfield. Specifically, this is because whereas The Elder Scrolls and Fallout come with a whole suite of old-school lore and written materials (i.e., in-game books and such), Starfield has been effectively scrubbed clean of these things.

What you get in the end is an extremely safe kind of FPS/RPG sandbox. Suspension of disbelief is crucial here because almost every situation you find yourself in feels more like a vague, gamified representation of it rather than something that should be given as-is. I’m not about to veer off into an extensive critique of what Starfield is here, but Bethesda had to choose very early on to sanitize and make the game as safe as it ended up being.

This is important to understand because it’s also the key difference between Starfield and STALKER 2. Playing the latter, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that it often succeeds at doing what Bethesda might’ve been trying to achieve with its latest flagship. Crucially, Starfield isn’t necessarily trying to deliver a different survival fantasy than STALKER 2 does. Both of these games are hybrid FPS/RPG titles that lean towards different aspects of the niche (no, STALKER 2 isn’t a tactical shooter). It’s just that one of them pulls this job off remarkably well despite its many other problems.

Screenshot by Destructoid

To be clear, though, STALKER 2 is a far cry from being a perfect game. It does handle exploration, combat, and interaction much better than Starfield if we’re being honest, and that’s the kicker.

Once again, I feel it necessary to point out that I do enjoy Starfield for what it is. One has to admit, however, that enjoying Starfield necessitates keeping in mind the caveat that it’s a very safe and surface-level game. Even mods can’t do anything about story problems, stilted characters, and a severe lack of hand-produced content. Mods fine-tune existing gameplay systems and loops, yes, but that only gets you so far. The sheer believability of these games’ respective open worlds is the bit that cannot be easily changed, and Starfield fails in this respect.

That really is the crux of my comparison: believability. Starfield fails at delivering a believable and genuinely immersive game world, and STALKER 2 succeeds at this job phenomenally well.

It’s not the graphics, really. It’s not even the physics of the games’ respective engines. The narrative and the characters are somewhat irrelevant when it comes to this, as problems found in these aspects of Starfield would’ve been a way smaller deal had the game been truly believable.

Starfield is a genuinely excellent game from a technical point of view, and there’s really nothing stopping it from being (almost) every bit as immersive as STALKER 2. Instead, it was Bethesda’s game design choices that shaped Starfield into what it ended up being. And that, I feel, is what makes it a less compelling option, even if you’re into space-bound sci-fi experiences.

Which is the better survival/exploration experience?

The Zone is, oddly enough, a far more delightful and alien place than anything you’ll find in Starfield‘s entire galaxy. It’s a hostile place, to be sure, but it’s not necessarily malicious. STALKER’s lore delves deep into pseudo-scientific theories of the yesteryear for its world-building (i.e., the concept of the Noosphere) and stays true to it every step of the way. The Zone is entirely believable, even with its abject rejection of physics as we understand it.

Starfield, on the other hand, gives its players hundreds of planets to explore and fool around in. None of them are even half as atmospheric and interesting as a simple trudge through the Kordon. Of course, The Zone is an anomaly unto itself, but STALKER 2‘s interesting design language and curated locations are a joy to explore, even when there’s literally nothing going on with them. It’s made me realize just how much of an oomph is missing from Bethesda’s latest and greatest.

In the end, it’s a really simple equation: STALKER 2 immerses you into its world from the get-go, while in Starfield, you have to suspend your disbelief to stay immersed. If exploration and the sense of being in an alien and inhospitable yet astonishingly beautiful place is what you’re looking for, I’d go for the game you don’t have to fight against every step of the way actively.

I’m still going to enjoy Starfield for what it is because there definitely is much to enjoy here. Yet, at the same time, STALKER 2 gives me a taste of what it could’ve been.

---

Destructoid is supported by our audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a small affiliate commission. Learn more about our Affiliate Policy