I’ve long thought of STALKER 2’s gunplay as an underappreciated component of the eerie survival shooter. It’ll never top anyone’s FPS all-timer list but its shootsticks are thunderously bangy, handling with both weight and smoothness, and your own barely-there mortality usually flavours encounters with a delicious high-stakes tension.

The only shortcoming is a lack of visual drama, but that can now be addressed with Cazanu’s new CinematicFX mod: where missed bullets hitting innocent masonry would previously amount to an understated thunk, scenery impacts now throw up vast clouds of dust, smoke, and debris. Cinematic effects, indeed.

I’ve given it a whirl and it works as advertised, imbuing STALKER 2’s action moments with some of the exaggerated wall-ruining flair you’d get from a FEAR, or a Trepang2, or a Black. God, remember Black? Anyway, the mod does well to reflect the specific texture of whatever you’re raking, so while brick buildings erupt into a shower of heavy ships, metal structures flash with gleefully over-egged sparks. I absolutely went around hipfiring at empty buildings just to see what it’d look like, albeit only for a few seconds at a time, quickly running of out ammo on account of it still being STALKER 2.

I also appreciate that this is a relatively small change, as far as STALKER series tweaks go, which to some might seem like I’m tentatively trying Baby’s First Mod. “Urgh, James, why did you never write about STALKER Gamma or Anomaly or any of those other massive mods that make the original games bigger and scarier and more apocalyptic?” Well, smart guy, it’s because I’m a coward. Ever think of that?