Stalker 2 has become so popular in Ukraine that its launch slowed down the entire country's Internet for hours

Stalker 2 had been eagerly anticipated before its release. Stalker 2 was so hotly anticipated that we named it the number one most desired game at our PC Gaming Show, Most Wanted 2023. Did you count? This is four times the word'most desired' repeated in a single sentence. This is how much it was wanted.

We were all excited about the game, but our excitement couldn't compare to the excitement in Stalker’s native country, Ukraine. Ukrainian players were so eager for the game to be released that the sheer volume of downloads they did on the release day caused widespread internet problems. Two internet providers Tenet and Triolan confirmed (via ITC), that the downloads of Stalker 2 caused slow internet speeds in Ukraine.

"It's a bad situation because the internet is so important," GSC Game World's creative director Mariia Gyogorovych told Eurogamer. "But at the same time, it's like wow!"

Grygorovcych has mixed feelings, of course, about the slowdown in her homeland's Internet. No doubt, the state of Ukraine's Internet is due to Russia's ongoing invasion. Eating up bandwidth at a time when Ukrainians use it for communication and coordination outside the country must cause a range of ambivalent feelings for its developers. It's still a sign of how much their work is appreciated.

"For us and for our team, what's important is that some people in Ukraine feel a bit happier than before their release," said Grygorovych. "We did something good for our country, for them."

They did it, if you ask my opinion. Stalker 2 has bugs, but they are getting better every time a patch is released. It was even worse before the day-one patch when I played it for our Stalker 2 Review. It's still my game of the Year, despite everything: a brilliant janky weirdo with a lot of heart that refused to sacrifice any of what makes Stalker unique in its transition to UE5 -- even A-Life which GSC claims is just broken, not gone.