Stalker 2 developer GSC Game World has released the game’s first major update, patch 1.1.
The update makes over 1,800 fixes and adjustments, GSC said, including the first iteration of A-Life fixes.
Stalker 2 launched late last month to a positive reception on Steam and one million sales. It’s a success for the Ukrainian studio, a miracle, really, considering the harrowing circumstances that followed Russian’s full-scale invasion of the country in 2022. But Stalker 2 suffers from well-documented bugs; chief among them A-Life 2.0.
A-Life was a key feature of the first Stalker game that governed AI behavior across the game world. At a high level, it is a system for simulating life in the Zone that works its magic seemingly independently of the player’s actions or whereabouts. It helps to create convincing AI and the emergent gameplay Stalker is famous for.
GSC had said A-Life 2.0 would make the Zone feel alive as never before, that it would fuel emergent gameplay on a scale previously thought impossible. Indeed for some fans, A-Life 2.0 was Stalker 2’s biggest selling point. But when Stalker 2 actually came out players discovered that A-Life 2.0 didn’t work properly, with some questioning whether it was even in the game at all.
In an interview with IGN, GSC explained what went wrong with Stalker 2’s A-Life 2.0, and vowed to fix the system. Patch 1.1, then, is the first step on that road.
A-Life fixes added with patch 1.1 include the issue with spawning NPCs behind the player’s back. Players can now encounter roaming NPCs across the Zone more often, and the distance at which A-Life NPCs are visible to the player is greatly extended.
Elsewhere, there’s a long list of AI improvements, balance changes, and loads of other fixes Stalker 2 fans will benefit from. This patch fixes mainline missions, story progression and side missions, crashes, and many, many bugs. It also improves performance and optimization. The patch notes, posted to Steam, are well worth checking out if you’re playing.
GSC warned that patch 1.1 is a massive download, so players should brace themselves for that. “We understand that the size of the patch is huge and the process of downloading will take some time,” the developer said. “We would like to thank you for your understanding, and we will work on this aspect as well.”
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
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