Staggering onto Steam, veins bulging, sweat dripping from its elbows, GSC Game World has dropped an unlimited, humongous, actually fairly substantial replace for Stalker 2. Delivering a whopping 1,700 fixes to its open world survival shooter, patch 1.2 is so gargantuan that the Steam replace would not truly listing your complete changelog.
Described merely as “a large one” by GSC Game World, the patch touches “all features of the sport”, addressing stability points, adjusting areas, tweaking quests, fixing crashes, refining the collection’ distinctive A-life programs.
It’s laborious to know the place to begin, however maybe the largest particular person adjustments are to the A-life and NPC AI. GSC has fastened a number of points right here which have game-wide ramifications. NPCs can now correctly loot corpses, selecting up the perfect weapons and armour from them, together with from defeated Stalkers allied with different factions. NPC taking pictures has additionally been reconfigured, and whereas it is not completely clear what these adjustments do, they appear geared towards making NPCs much less robotically deadly, including “randomisation of correct photographs” in bullet sprays, and decreasing wall penetration from sure ammo varieties. Finally for this specific facet of the sport, stealth has been adjusted to make NPCs barely much less eagle-eyed, whereas the mutants have acquired varied behavioural tweaks, akin to guaranteeing mutants that may leap will truly use that potential.
Outside of those systemic adjustments, the principle beneficiary of the patch is the central storyline. I’m not going to listing these right here, partly as a result of they’re plagued by spoilers, however primarily as a result of there are 300 adjustments on high of those truly listed. The upshot is GSC has addressed a great deal of points that would trigger quests to fail or not work correctly, or for NPCs to react in bizarre methods throughout main missions.
Elsewhere, Stalker 2 has acquired a number of technical tweaks, such because the participant’s flashlight now correctly casting shadows, extra constant NPC relationship shifts, and “improved transitions from cutscenes to gameplay.” You’ll additionally see a greater parkour animation from a crouch state, and correctly choreographed deaths for NPCs after they get caught by anomalies.
Despite the Zone’s penchant for weirdness, the listing of bug fixes is surprisingly smart. There are a number of entertaining ones, although. “Fixed grenade disappearing when throwing it at one’s toes” has me questioning whether or not Stalker 2’s playerbase is doing okay, whereas “Fixed a difficulty the place taking pictures at mutant limbs might stretch them,” sounds prefer it must be a characteristic. I additionally like “Fixed an issue that made it tough for rats to maneuver in slim locations”, if solely as a result of there are few ideas as pitiful as a claustrophobic rat.
This is often the place I write one thing like “You can learn the complete changelog right here.” But in a shock twist, you may’t. The Steam replace solely offers the highlights of this voluminous replace. If you wish to get a cramp in your index finger by scrolling by way of the full listing, you may have to pop over to the Stalker 2 web site.
We have been already keen on Stalker 2, with Joshua Wolens giving it a decent rating of 83% in our overview. As was the case with the unique video games, the sequel’s greatest flaw was its instability. Hopefully, this megapatch will easy out most of these rougher edges, supplying you with a cleaner, extra reliably inhospitable Zone.
