GSC Game World posted a message today thanking everyone for purchasing Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl, and also letting us know what to expect from the patch that will be released “in the next week.”
The first patch will mainly address major crashes and game-breaking progress freezes that prevent people from continuing the game as it is now. Although there are certainly other requested changes, such as the value of weapons with upgrades installed and the behavior of NPCs while taking shelter during Emission events, in addition to some improvements to the graphics and UI.
Despite bugs, Stalker 2 has been a pretty big success, selling over 1 million copies and with even more players joining from Game Pass. I can’t imagine how long it took for the first game, Shadow of Chernobyl, to sell a million copies, but it certainly wasn’t “overnight.”
The main bugs that people will likely be disappointed to hear are in the “to be addressed in future updates” category are bug fixes for the signature A-Life system. The game system that tracks and monitors what people and animals do in The Zone while you’re not there has been shaky since launch, and there are some very strange NPC spawning behaviors in videos shared on social media.
GSC has confirmed that the A-Life system is in Stalker 2, but it has also confirmed that there are indeed a number of issues that need to be resolved.
“There are several known issues with the A-life 2.0 system that we are aware of and are working on fixes/improvements,” GSC Game World community manager Mol1t wrote to the Stalker Discord. “We know this system is very important to the Zone’s immersive atmosphere, and we will do our best to resolve the known issues.”
“We want to reassure you once again that we will do everything we can to continually improve your STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl experience. We are truly grateful for your feedback and suggestions for improvement,” GSC said as part of the upcoming changes post.
Here is the list of changes that GSC Game World has confirmed are coming in the update:
- Crash fixes, including:
- Memory allocation issues and errors that caused the game to quit unexpectedly earlier, especially around rendering, skeletal meshes, and quest-related cutscenes.
- Progression fixes for Main Quest, including:
- Various bugs blocking main mission progress, NPCs getting stuck in objects, incorrect mission markers, and issues with mission cutscenes.
- Overhaul of key quests (such as Visions of Truth or A Minor Incident) to ensure smooth transitions, avoiding rare cases where players are unable to proceed.
- Gameplay and balance adjustments including:
- Determining the price of the weapons with upgrades installed compared to their value without attachments.
- The behavior of NPCs, including how they behave when they have no shelter during the emissions.
- Cutscenes and visual adjustments including:
- Rarely missing facial animations, misplaced NPCs, and visual inconsistencies like loose heads and clothing clipping.
- Quality and stability improvements to the visual effects.
- Softlock solutions including:
- Fixed an issue where players were unable to close the trading screen after placing ammo in the wrong slot while playing on a gamepad.
- User interface improvements including:
- Quest notifications are now displayed correctly during dialogues.
- Corrected texts and missing interaction instructions.
- Please note that this should be addressed in future updates:
- Analog sticks dead zones bug fixes.
- Bug fixes in the A-Life system.