Stalker 2's first major update arrives this week

Published November 25, 2024 8:26 AM, by TJ Denzer

This week might be just as important for Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl as its release date last week. In a handful of days, GSC Game World will be launching the first major update for the game, improving and fixing numerous aspects of its enjoyable, but sometimes buggy adventure. The update is supposed to launch sometime this week and will roll out with a set of patch notes when it arrives.

GSC Game World announced the details of Stalker 2’s upcoming update this past weekend. There, the team discussed the details of what’s coming in the update. Game crashing bugs, progression blocking issues, and gameplay balance are some of the priorities on this week’s agenda, which should hopefully go quite the distance in making Stalker 2 a more enjoyable experience (although some of the bugs are pretty funny).

Here's the rundown of issues and areas that will be fixed in Stalker 2’s first major update:

Crash Fixes, including:

•     Issues and memory allocation failures, which previously caused the game to exit unexpectedly, particularly around rendering, skeletal meshes, and quest-related cutscenes.

Main Quest Progression Fixes, including:

•     Several bugs blocking the main quest progression, NPCs getting stuck in objects, incorrect quest markers, and issues with quest cutscenes.
•     Revision of the main quests (like Visions of Truth or A Minor Incident) to ensure smooth transitions, avoiding rare cases of players not being able to proceed further.

Gameplay & Balance Adjustments, including:

•     Fixing the price of the weapons with upgrades installed compared to their value without attachments.
•     NPCs behavior, including the way they act when lacking a shelter during the Emissions.

Cutscenes & Visual Fixes, including:

•     Rarely missing facial animations, misplaced NPCs, and visual inconsistencies like detached heads and clothes clipping.
•     Quality and stability improvements of the visual effects.

Softlock Fixes, including:

•     Issue where players were unable to close the trade screen after putting ammo in a wrong slot while playing on a gamepad.

User Interface Improvements, including:

•     Quest notifications now showed correctly during dialogues.
•     Corrected texts and missing interaction prompts.

Noted to be addressed in future updates:

•     Analogue sticks dead zones bugfixes.
•     A-Life system bugfixes.

As we wait for the exact patch notes, stay tuned here at Shacknews for further Stalker 2 news and updates, as well as guides to help you in your adventures.