Stalker 2 revives A-Life with a mondo-huge 110 GB Christmas patch that marks the game's first major update
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and the Christmas gift he's delivering is «the first major patch for Stalker 2.» Patch 1.1 is out now, and its bulging, anomalous sack is full of over 1,800 fixes for AI, game balance, crashes and, most importantly, the first pokes at the game's busted A-Life simulation systems.
The bad news is that, in inimitable GSC Game World fashion, the full patch comes in at 110 GB, so you might actually be waiting until Christmas Day for the whole thing to squeeze itself down your net pipes.
It looks like it'll be worth it though. If you're not up to date, Stalker 2's A-Life system has been iffy ever since the game out a month ago. In previous Stalker games, A-Life was the thing responsible for making The Zone feel actually alive: Full of weird goings-on and little dramas that the games' systems spawn in and play out completely separate from you as a player.
GSC didn't quite get the whole thing working in UE5 for Stalker 2's release, though, leading to players wondering if it had been yanked entirely.
Luckily, it was just delayed. Per Stalker 2's 1.1 patch notes GSC has «Fixed the aggressive optimization issue that prevented A-Life NPCs to exist in Offline (out of player's visualization range).»
Plus, «In Offline mode, A-Life will continue to advance towards their goals over time» and «Players may now have opportunities to encounter A-Life NPCs they've previously met by following in the same direction as the NPCs.» The inner life of NPCs is back, baby. We're stalkin' again.
On top of that, NPCs should now be more keen to «expand territory and actively attack enemies and mutants,» and you should encounter more—and more varied—people as you travel around The Zone. That last one is most noticeable for me, to be honest. The Zone still felt pretty alive when I played Stalker 2 before this patch, but I did notice that I hardly ever ran across factions like Duty and Freedom in my adventures.
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