GSC GameWorld has released the third patch for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl and shared its complete changelog. This update is 19GB in size on PC, and it fixes 19 issues in total. So, let’s take a look at it.
Title Update 1.0.3 fixes multiple ACCESS_VIOLATION_ERROR and LowLevelFatalError crashes. As such, the game should be more stable now on PC. Moreover, it disables the mouse smoothing and mouse acceleration. Thus, mouse movement will be now more precise and accurate.
Patch 1.0.3 also comes with a number of quest fixes. Some of them contain spoilers, so I won’t be sharing them. What I can say, though, is that the update fixes an issue with player potentially locking oneself during the Dangerous Liaisons mission. It also fixes an issue with NPC’s despawning when player successfully finishes Legends of the Zone mission.
It’s also worth noting that this update fixes issues with missing player saves after a hard reboot of the PC/Xbox. And although it has a couple of AI fixes, it will not overhaul its A-Life 2.0 system.
A-Life 2.0 is still a buggy mess in STALKER 2, and I don’t really know when – and if – the devs will be able to fix it. In a recent interview, they claimed that they dumbed down the A-Life 2.0 system in order to make the game run better on both PC and consoles. This “optimization” brought one hell of bugs and issues. As such, the devs will have to rewrite the whole A-Life 2.0 system to make it more efficient than before. And, honestly, I don’t see this happening anytime soon.
The good news is that by increasing the A-Life radius, modders will be able to make that system work better than in the vanilla version. And that’s precisely what some have done. It’s not perfect but given GSC GameWorld’s statement, this is the best we’ll get. At least for now.
Lastly, this update does not also improve the game’s performance. So, don’t expect it to run better than before. As with the previous patches, this one focuses on fixing quest blockers and other minor gameplay issues.
Like always, Steam will download this update the next time you launch its client. You can also find its complete changelog here. As I said, though, it contains spoilers. So, consider yourselves warned.
Speaking of STALKER 2, I also suggest taking a look at these mods for it. Let’s start with the Draw Distance Mod. This mod will reduce the pop-ins of trees and vegetation. However, it comes with a pretty big performance hit. On my NVIDIA RTX 4090, I got a 10-20FPS performance hit. So, use it only if you have a high-end GPU.
Then we have this mod that attempts to restore most of the online A-Life functionality. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than the vanilla version. This is a must until GSC GameWorld fixes A-Life 2.0. Let’s also not forget this mod that adds a Parkour-like climbing system to the game. This is another must-have mod for all STALKER 2 players.
Finally, you can download a mod that will remove the inventory carry/weight limit. I’m not a fan of this last mod but hey, some of you may like it. Oh, and there is a mod that enables real-time dynamic flashlight shadows.
Stay tuned for more!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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