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STALZONE

STALZONE Game Cover
67%Game Brain Score
Most mentioned positive aspects:story, gameplay
Most mentioned negative aspects:grinding, monetization
67% User Score Based on 17,279 reviews

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STALZONE Game Cover

About STALZONE

STALZONE is a single player and multiplayer open world role playing shooter game with post-apocalyptic and science fiction themes. It was developed by EXBO and was released on December 9, 2022. It received mostly positive reviews from players.

Stalcraft is a dynamic survival horror MMOFPS set in the open world of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

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Reviews

67%Audience ScoreBased on 17,279 reviews
story742 positive mentions
grinding1.7k negative mentions
  • The game offers a highly immersive post-apocalyptic atmosphere with strong audio-visual design, including unique music and sound effects that enhance tension and mood.
  • Gameplay features a solid MMO shooter experience blending survival, extraction, and crafting elements with engaging character progression and a diverse selection of weapons and gear.
  • The storyline and side quests are well-crafted and provide meaningful choices, replayability, and an engaging narrative for players who enjoy exploration and character development.
  • Progression is heavily grind-focused and repetitive, especially in mid to late-game, often compounded by time-gated materials, frustrating PvP encounters, and pay-to-win monetization that impedes fair advancement.
  • The game suffers from numerous technical issues including bugs, crashes, poor optimization in late-game or PvP areas, and problematic boss fights that sometimes rely on luck due to mechanics and lag.
  • Monetization is widely criticized as aggressive and predatory with microtransactions that create power creep and frustrate many players, overshadowing otherwise free-to-play accessibility and community enjoyment.

  • story

    3,386 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    22% positive mentions, 71% neutral mentions, 7% negative mentions

    The story in this game offers a decent, sometimes intriguing narrative with well-crafted side quests and meaningful choices that enhance immersion and replayability. However, many players find the main story missions frustrating due to poor design, excessive grind, unfair difficulty spikes, and PvP camping hindering quest progression. While the early game story and quests engage players, the later stages devolve into tedious, repetitive tasks compounded by technical issues and imbalanced PvP encounters.

    • “The game has an interesting storyline, a lot of PvP and a lot of activities.”
    • “The storyline and side quests are well-crafted and offer a lot of choices, making the game engaging and replayable.”
    • “This game did improve a lot in great ways, seriously great ways, no joke I love north, going there and exploring and doing mini conquest objectives super fun, wide space to move around nicer, but man oh man, base game still sucks, not going to lie I wished it was optional to do the story and skip it all and go right to the north just to be a loot goblin and goof around... but alas, you need 900 dopestone in that hellhole of a bar that isn't fun to be in.”
    • “Many of the main story quests (which place you into a singleplayer environment) - especially late game, are really poorly designed in my opinion; are either very unintuitive, frustratingly trial and error, or simply throw an absurd number of aimbot enemies at you and say 'good luck'.”
    • “The quest line has no continuity and makes no sense; it has more text to read than Everquest, yet you somehow have to google every quest in the game because the game tells you almost nothing about what you're supposed to do in 99% of the quest steps, and then by the time you figure out what to do, an emission event happens and you die 2km away from your last base.”
    • “The main story mission stuck soooooooooooo much bro not even worth playing for that reason, the whole game is just better as PvP; the story is terrible and the boss fights are just tanked up dudes that have no fun gimmick to them.”

  • grinding

    1,689 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    0% positive mentions, 1% neutral mentions, 99% negative mentions

    The game is heavily grind-focused, requiring extensive farming of resources and repetitive tasks that often feel tedious and time-consuming, especially in mid to late-game stages. While some players enjoy the survival tension and crafting progression, many note that grinding can be exacerbated by frequent player-versus-player interruptions, time-gated materials, and occasional pay-to-win elements, making progression frustrating and slow. Overall, grinding is a central but polarizing aspect—rewarding for those who embrace it, yet a significant barrier for casual players due to its length, repetition, and the risk of losing hard-earned materials to other players.

    • “Gives you the ability to work at your own pace and isn't too grindy for things like weapons.”
    • “Game is very fun, progression is also good, not too grindy, haven't tried PvP though.”
    • “It's not too grindy until you get to mid-late garages with the stupid cables that you have to hoard home after digging it out just to become obsolete when you get to the real grindy part, the bar. Definitely play with someone who is willing to grind with you because the PvP side of things is not fun when you are focusing on the PvE side of things.”
    • “Keep in mind, you are intended to use veteran gear against him here, as grinding master equipment would take weeks, and the reward for beating it is a free veteran suit - not a master.”
    • “It's honestly a solid MMO shooter with elements of extraction shooters like Tarkov, Anomalies and world ripped out of Stalker, and a solid material farming gameplay loop.”
    • “The fun starts to disappear when grinding for higher tier loot as it gets really repetitive and a lot of walking back and forth.”

  • gameplay

    1,547 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    34% positive mentions, 58% neutral mentions, 8% negative mentions

    The gameplay offers a unique blend of survival, MMO, and extraction shooter mechanics with an immersive post-apocalyptic atmosphere and solid gunplay. While the core loop of exploration, looting, and progression is engaging for many, it tends to become repetitive, grind-heavy, and punishing, especially due to issues like unbalanced PvP, pay-to-win elements, and frequent technical problems. Despite its potential and some enjoyable mechanics, many players find the gameplay frustrating and hindered by design flaws and frequent bugs.

    • “It's honestly a solid MMO shooter with elements of extraction shooters like Tarkov, Anomaly, and a world ripped out of Stalker, and a solid material farming gameplay loop.”
    • “The gameplay loop of unlocking new gear is kind of fun, but there's a huge pile of annoying game design and functionality issues that get in the way.”
    • “The gameplay is smooth, addicting, and the graphics have been updated and the style is nice.”
    • “But all the smaller problems created to build that atmosphere create a frustrating, annoying experience that made me lose interest after backtracking multiple times across the same highway, wandering a burned farmyard for hours hoping item spawns had reset, and dying repeatedly to poorly explained mechanics.”
    • “The gameplay loop is terrible as most of the time you're running back to your corpse after grinding for an hour, running around circles putting hundreds of rounds into mutants because even the dogs sponge bullets, or trying to do a mission but you can't because some players camp one of the only passages you can use to progress.”
    • “Final boss fight is such a buggy mess that it is literally pure luck if you kill him or not. Horrible pathing where he constantly gets stuck and refuses to chase you— a main mechanic you need to abuse during this fight— and 50% of the time he won't be stunned by flash grenades as required to kill him, resulting in guaranteed instant death.”

  • graphics

    874 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    44% positive mentions, 50% neutral mentions, 6% negative mentions

    The graphics of the game are characterized by a distinct blocky, voxel, or "Minecraft-like" art style, which is a point of contention among players; while some find it charming, atmospheric, and fitting for the game's setting, others view it as simplistic, awkward, or off-putting. Despite the stylized graphics, many reviews highlight impressive lighting effects, detailed textures on weapons, and solid optimization allowing smooth performance even on low-end PCs. Overall, the graphics support immersion and atmosphere effectively, though they may require players to overlook conventional realism to appreciate the game's aesthetic and gameplay fully.

    • “The graphics stand out the most and the textures are pretty decent too.”
    • “The graphics and sound design are top-notch, immersing you in the action.”
    • “The graphics are solid, really immersing you in the post-apocalyptic world.”
    • “Worst most boring game ever, and it's built so badly; I hate the graphics, the story, and the enemies. The game will die in a year.”
    • “Game is aight, it's pretty clear they tried to copy Stalker's soundtrack, and the graphics plus voice acting are horrible.”
    • “Graphics card is unsupported and will yield lower performance than old Nvidia/AMD GPUs, causing extreme stuttering even in safe zones.”

  • atmosphere

    486 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    57% positive mentions, 41% neutral mentions, 2% negative mentions

    The atmosphere is widely praised as the standout feature, successfully capturing a tense, immersive, and haunting post-apocalyptic vibe reminiscent of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series. Despite blocky visuals, sound design, environmental effects, and detailed locations create a compelling and moody experience that deeply engages players. However, some note that gameplay frustrations and technical issues occasionally undermine the overall atmospheric immersion.

    • “The atmosphere is incredibly familiar and immersive, perfectly capturing that haunting, post-apocalyptic Slavic charm.”
    • “One of the main positives is the atmosphere, it pulls you in completely like everything is actually happening for real.”
    • “From the moment you step into the game, the atmosphere grips you.”
    • “But all the smaller problems created to build that atmosphere create a frustrating, annoying experience that made me lose interest after backtracking across the same highway multiple times, traipsing across a burned farmyard for hours with a metal detector hoping the item spawns had reset, and dying twice in a row and losing all my barter items for the third time due to poorly explained mechanics.”
    • “It's incredibly disappointing because the atmosphere and core concept are great, but the execution constantly makes you want to uninstall.”
    • “I like it but the community kind of lacks social skills like no one uses VOIP; it makes for a boring and dead feeling atmosphere, especially when you're in a safe zone surrounded by players asking for help with game-related questions. I put in 46 hours and spent some money but have no real drive to go back. Could be me personally, but man Tarkov brings me back, Arma brings me back. All these titles have what this is lacking: a community of people that engage with each other. This just feels overly serious and sweaty when it visually does not.”

  • monetization

    188 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    5% positive mentions, 64% neutral mentions, 31% negative mentions

    The game's monetization is widely criticized for its aggressive, predatory, and pay-to-win nature, featuring excessive microtransactions, loot boxes with low drop rates, and costly premium passes that heavily impact progression and grind. Many players feel it turns the experience into a frustrating cash grab that prioritizes revenue over fair gameplay and endgame content, though a minority note cosmetics and premium benefits as more reasonable and non-intrusive. Overall, monetization severely undermines enjoyment, especially at higher levels, fostering frustration and division within the community.

    • “This is a free game, of course, but that doesn't equal scummy monetization.”
    • “Microtransactions are pretty minor and the game doesn't feel pay-to-win or locked behind paywalls, which is rare nowadays.”
    • “Honestly such a cool little game, it's free to play, and you can get through the whole game without paying a penny; the premium version offers non-intrusive benefits, and most other forms of monetization in the game are purely cosmetic. The game also runs really cool events, making it highly recommended for players into this type of game.”
    • “The monetization goes way deeper than just buying gear outright; it borders on psychological manipulation.”
    • “The amount of crammed-down-your-throat microtransactions that are just there to serve as power-creep make up about 70% of the damn game.”
    • “The starting NPCs are far beefier than players, not all enemies even drop loot, NPCs don't drop their guns when killed, virtually everything is locked behind map progression and levels to prevent you from having fun with different weapons; horrid non-cosmetic monetization that makes Nikita (Mister Tarkov) look like one of the least greedy vampires in the world, and just tons of other god awful choices that come with making an MMO.”

  • optimization

    171 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    46% positive mentions, 40% neutral mentions, 14% negative mentions

    The game’s optimization receives mixed feedback, with many users praising smooth performance and good graphics on average and even lower-end hardware, while others report significant issues such as stuttering, crashes, poor server performance, and lag spikes in crowded areas. Performance generally holds up well in early or less populated zones but often degrades in late-game content, PvP, and dense environments. Overall, while the game can run smoothly for many, optimization remains inconsistent and is a key area needing improvement.

    • “The excellent optimization is particularly impressive: the game runs smoothly, without any lags or feeling of overload.”
    • “Performance is pretty excellent, with fps hanging around 150-200 in populated areas with medium settings on a Ryzen 5 2600/GTX 1070.”
    • “Well optimized; on my average computer everything works stably and smoothly; interesting mechanics with barter and farm spots.”
    • “Poorly optimized, horrendous default control scheme, awful tactile experience with interacting with anything in the game.”
    • “"Egregiously poorly optimized" would be the understatement of the decade.”
    • “The game already feels like a second job, and when you mix that with terrible optimization, it becomes a complete nightmare for your PC.”

  • humor

    152 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    97% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 3% negative mentions

    The game’s humor is widely appreciated, especially its funny voice acting, quirky characters, and amusing in-game moments, often blending tension with comedy. Players find the Russian dialogue and quirky NPCs particularly entertaining, while the community’s interactions and unexpected funny incidents add to the charm. However, some jokes come from frustrations with grind and bugs, which players sometimes describe ironically or with dark humor.

    • “A lot of funny references in the story dialogues.”
    • “The funny thing about Stalzone is that most of the moments I remember were never part of a quest.”
    • “The lip sync is funny, honestly worth downloading the game just for that.”
    • “I don't think the game is supposed to be funny but I find myself laughing at some serious moments.”
    • “Getting ganked, camped and seal-clubbed all the time is just not funny.”
    • “Hazbin Hotel is not funny.”

  • music

    122 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    33% positive mentions, 63% neutral mentions, 4% negative mentions

    The game's music and ambient sounds are widely praised for perfectly complementing the eerie, immersive atmosphere, with many enjoying the in-game radio featuring a mix of Russian rock and eclectic tracks that players often listen to outside the game. While some find the soundtrack occasionally repetitive or niche due to its heavy Russian influence, the overall audio design—including firearms and environmental sounds—is lauded as high quality and a standout feature that enhances the gaming experience.

    • “The soundtrack in the base radio is immaculate.”
    • “The music choices for the safe zones actually slap, and I am now listening to a lot of those outside of the game itself.”
    • “The sound of distant gunfire, the eerie anomalies, the subtle background music — it all blends into this immersive, haunting experience.”
    • “Game is aight, it's pretty clear they tried to copy Stalker's soundtrack, and the graphics + voice acting is horrible.”
    • “The music in the game is also pretty bad, nothing notable about it unless you want to laugh at terrible Russian music.”
    • “Music: repetitive and has random notes that hurt your ears (they're so out of place and disruptive they get really annoying really fast as the music is a tad repetitive).”

  • stability

    121 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    10% positive mentions, 1% neutral mentions, 89% negative mentions

    The game suffers from pervasive stability issues, including frequent bugs, glitches, crashes, and lag, especially during key quests and boss fights, which often feel unpolished and frustrating. Many users report game-breaking bugs, unresponsive AI, and server instability, with some critical problems remaining unfixed for years, severely impacting playability. Despite these flaws, a few players note it runs well on certain setups, but overall, stability is a major concern limiting the game's enjoyment.

    • “The game runs great, it works flawlessly on Linux for me via Proton.”
    • “The gunplay is wonderfully fun, the game is pretty bug free and I thought I was already seeing most of the game's map until I opened it and realized how absurdly massive this world is.”
    • “Would recommend overall, sure the climbing sucks and there is a lot of holding shift + W with nothing happening, but the world is rather immersive, it runs great and gunplay is solid with decent quests.”
    • “Final boss fight is such a buggy mess that it is legit just luck if you kill him or not. Horrible pathing where he constantly gets stuck and refuses to chase you (which is literally a main mechanic you need to abuse during this fight) and also 50% of the time won't be stunned by your flash grenades (which is literally required for you to kill him). If he refuses to get stunned after he's about half HP, it's just guaranteed instant death because he runs at you so fast you can't even get a second one off before he's barrel stuffing you.”
    • “Once you spend a couple of hours troubleshooting, crashing because you disabled a single option in the settings, and finally finding a solution to fixing the textures disappearing, you will die to the next set of things: the worst case was a completely lagged out instance where for the entire non-boss part of the mission, the server load of the instance was stuck at 125% causing about a 1 second delay on everything, and during the boss fight packet loss climbed to about 95% every couple of seconds for about an hour or two making the fight unbearable. It fixed itself but then the boss started ignoring its own mechanics, not getting stunned during the second part. The mechanics seem interesting but the lag made it undoable and then the buggy mechanics made me quit the fight. You could argue it's my internet but I'm not on wifi and everything else in the computer and network was running just fine.”
    • “Game is still so buggy it's not even funny. Just spent 2 hours grinding the last bit of the main quest just to get kicked back to the main menu after I died and then the game force respawned my checkpoint all the way back to the bar, wasting 2 hours of my time due to a bug. This was not the first time this has happened. The level design is terrible, there is rarely a sense of where to go, sometimes the areas just loop back around to waste your time, and other times the way forward is on a super small plank with a Minecraft-style jumping challenge.”

  • emotional

    35 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    97% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 3% negative mentions

    The game evokes a strong and complex emotional experience, blending moments of tension, frustration, and heartbreak with a surprisingly wholesome and supportive community. Players often feel vulnerable and emotionally impacted by harsh gameplay mechanics, sudden deaths, and challenging PvP encounters, yet many appreciate the immersive atmosphere and camaraderie that make overcoming these trials rewarding. Overall, it is a game that deeply engages emotions, though its difficulty and occasional design flaws can provoke significant frustration.

    • “I finally got to the master of the zone, and after what was a very emotional week of trying to beat him, I finally did.”
    • “The original trilogy is emphasized on the 'fk around and find out', leaving the player without any indication other than quests and stashes location on their PDA, which made me feel lonely in a wild and unknown world.”
    • “You think about leaving a review a lot more when you alt-f4 the game after dying from someone you didn't see, and when you're pumped full of adrenaline from the atmosphere just to have an NPC or worse an orc stamp it out randomly, we can get emotional :)”

  • replayability

    17 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    41% positive mentions, 41% neutral mentions, 18% negative mentions

    The game offers strong replayability through diverse character builds, faction-specific starting points, and a wide array of weapons, gear, and questlines. Well-crafted side quests and multiple story choices provide engaging variety, while ongoing updates and events further enhance the experience. However, some users note limited replayability in parts and criticize repetitive mission designs and monetization elements.

    • “There's quite good replayability in trying different builds, weapons, and questlines with each faction.”
    • “So much to do and great replayability, an incredible selection of quests and a vast variety of guns, melee weapons, armour, backpacks/containers, not to mention the ridiculous amount of consumables, ammo utility and so on.”
    • “The game also has a lot of replayability, with different difficulty levels and various choices that affect the story outcome.”
    • “This game is tight, but it's got limited replayability at the moment.”
    • “I don't want "replayable" quests that are just the exact same mission over and over again.”
    • “Steam awards 2023 edit: the game certainly has gotten some good updates over the months, the dead man marathon event for Halloween is one of my favorite events with how much replayable it is, although the lootbox system is still terrible.”

  • character development

    10 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    30% positive mentions, 40% neutral mentions, 30% negative mentions

    Character development in the game is straightforward and integrates well with exploration, combat, and resource gathering, appealing especially to fans of similar titles like Stalker. Players appreciate the balanced progression and engaging events, which allow for gradual growth without excessive early-game stress. The development process contributes to an immersive experience, with players feeling personally involved in their character's evolving challenges and decisions.

    • “I really liked studying locations and engaging in character development; the game offers a compelling progression system that keeps you invested.”
    • “Character development is done well with interesting events and players having their own level of equipment, making gameplay dynamic and engaging.”
    • “The game offers a rich and engaging gameplay experience with a mix of combat, exploration, and character development.”
    • “Character development is not difficult.”
    • “You walk, destroy mutants and collect resources for character development and money.”
    • “The gameplay isn't too stressful at the beginning and middle of character development because everyone is pretty equal in terms of time to kill (TTK).”
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Play Times

23h Median play time
151h Average play time
6-150h Spent by most gamers
*Based on 126 analyzed playthroughs
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STALCRAFT: X Renamed STALZONE

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Frequently Asked Questions

STALZONE is a open world role playing shooter game with post-apocalyptic and science fiction themes. Common tags for STALZONE include free to play, science, story rich, combat and team-based.

STALZONE is available on PC, Windows, Cloud and NVIDIA GeForce NOW.

On average players spend around 151 hours playing STALZONE.

STALZONE was released on December 9, 2022.

STALZONE was developed by EXBO.

STALZONE has received mostly positive reviews from players. Most players liked STALZONE for its story but disliked it for its grinding.

STALZONE is a single player game with multiplayer and local co-op support.