'Massive' Stalker 2 patch adds A-life updates and 1,700 other fixes to GSC's survival shooter, so many you'll need to go a little quest to read them all

Staggering onto Steam, veins bulging, sweat dripping from its elbows, GSC Game World has dropped a vast, humongous, really quite substantial update for Stalker 2. Delivering a whopping 1,700 fixes to its open world survival shooter, patch 1.2 is so gargantuan that the Steam update doesn't actually list the entire changelog.

Described simply as "a massive one" by GSC Game World, the patch touches "all aspects of the game", addressing balance issues, adjusting locations, tweaking quests, fixing crashes, refining the series' distinctive A-life systems.

It's hard to know where to start, but perhaps the biggest individual changes are to the A-life and NPC AI. GSC has fixed several issues here that have game-wide ramifications. NPCs can now properly loot corpses, picking up the best weapons and armour from them, including from defeated Stalkers allied with other factions. NPC shooting has also been reconfigured, and while it's not entirely clear what these changes do, they seem geared toward making NPCs less robotically lethal, adding "randomisation of accurate shots" in bullet sprays, and reducing wall penetration from certain ammo types. Finally for this particular aspect of the game, stealth has been adjusted to make NPCs slightly less eagle-eyed, while the mutants have received various behavioural tweaks, such as ensuring mutants that can jump will actually use that ability.

Outside of these systemic changes, the main beneficiary of the patch is the central storyline. I'm not going to list these here, partly because they're littered with spoilers, but mainly because there are 300 changes on top of the ones actually listed. The upshot is GSC has addressed loads of issues that could cause quests to fail or not work properly, or for NPCs to react in weird ways during primary missions.

Elsewhere, Stalker 2 has received several technical tweaks, such as the player's flashlight now properly casting shadows, more consistent NPC relationship shifts, and "improved transitions from cutscenes to gameplay." You'll also see a better parkour animation from a crouch state, and properly choreographed deaths for NPCs when they get caught by anomalies.

Despite the Zone's penchant for weirdness, the list of bug fixes is surprisingly sensible. There are a few entertaining ones, though. "Fixed grenade disappearing when throwing it at one's feet" has me wondering whether Stalker 2's playerbase is doing ok, while "Fixed an issue where shooting at mutant limbs could stretch them," sounds like it should be a feature. I also like "Fixed a problem that made it difficult for rats to move in narrow places", if only because there are few concepts as pitiful as a claustrophobic rat.

This is normally where I write something like "You can read the full changelog here." But in a shock twist, you can't. The Steam update only provides the highlights of this voluminous update. If you want to get a cramp in your index finger by scrolling through the full list, you'll need to pop over to the Stalker 2 website.

We were already fond of Stalker 2, with Joshua Wolens giving it a respectable score of 83% in our review. As was the case with the original games, the sequel's biggest flaw was its instability. Hopefully, this megapatch will smooth out most of those rougher edges, giving you a cleaner, more reliably inhospitable Zone.