Developer GSC Game World has deployed another rather chunky patch for Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl.
On the game’s initial launch last year, Stalker 2 was criticised for its performance issues. However, in an interview with Eurogamer, GSC Game World’s CEO Ievgen Grygorovych said delaying the game was not an option. “You’re so tired that you would just die if you say let’s run an additional marathon,” Grygorovych said at the time.
The team has remained committed to sorting the game’s various niggles and what not since then, with two already sizeable patches already out there, and this most recent update is a continuation of that.
Patch 1.3, as it is known, comes with “over 1200 changes and improvements” to all aspects of the game, including performance, combat and more.
With this patch in play, Stalker 2 players will notice multiple new death screens which “vary based on the cause of the death”, as well as improved facial animations, a new night music theme for Slag Heap and a new type of a visual anomaly.
On the combat side of things, GSC has made mutant movements during combat smoother and improved the reaction of NPCs to the sound of footsteps.
You can find the full patch notes via the Stalker 2 website here.
For more on the series, be sure to check Eurogamer’s interview: “It all felt a bit like running a street gang”: The story of Stalker, and the Stalker 2 that never was.