Following the good news that STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl has already surpassed one million units sold (not counting all Game Pass users who are playing the game), the Ukrainian development team has now outlined the main fixes that will be released with the first post-launch update. The game is rather buggy and unbalanced, so, understandably, they will focus on these areas first.
- 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.
Here's my take on STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl:
For now, here's my current take on STALKER 2: this is a game that knows precisely what it wants to be, although that doesn't mean it is balanced enough to be fun all the time. The feeling of playing a stalker thrust into this inhospitable world against seemingly impossible odds is always present, for better or worse. However, unless you're really dying to enter the Zone right away, I would recommend waiting a little longer while the developers (and possibly modders) fix and improve the game further. After all, you've waited this long; what's a few more?
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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