What you need to know
- GSC Game World’s new open-world survival shooter STALKER 2 finally launched a few weeks ago and has been met with a positive reception, but it came out with lots of bugs and performance issues.
- The developers have been hard at work addressing these, with their first two post-launch patches to the game implementing over 600 fixes. Now, a third update, Patch 1.0.3, has gone live as well.
- Aside from taking care of multiple crashes, mission glitches, and other problems, Patch 1.0.3 also squashed a rare, but severe bug that was causing saves to get erased after players restarted their Xbox or PC.
- On PC, the update also disables mouse smoothing and acceleration by default, which should generally make aiming smoother and more intuitive for most players.
GSC Game World’s new open-world survival shooter STALKER 2 finally launched a few weeks ago after multiple delays brought about by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and while the game was met with a positive reception from critics and fans, many lamented its various bugs and performance issues. The Xbox and Windows PC exclusive’s dynamic AI simulation system A-Life 2.0 isn’t currently working, for example, and widespread issues with Xbox gameplay due to the absence of controller deadzones were prevalent as well. Some players have also experienced severe instances of stuttering that make the game feel unplayable, preventing them from enjoying what is arguably one of the best open-world FPS titles ever released.
Luckily, the developers have been hard at work addressing problems like these and many others, with STALKER 2’s first post-launch patch deploying 650 fixes last week and a smaller 1.0.2 update taking care of a few additional bugs over the Black Friday weekend. On Tuesday morning, GSC also pushed Patch 1.0.3 live, with the update now available to download on Steam, the Epic Games Store, and GOG; the update “will be arriving soon” on Xbox and the Microsoft Store as well.
The 23.13GB patch isn’t nearly as large as the 1.0.1 update was, but it does fix some major issues. Chief among these is a rare, but devastating bug that could erase one or more of your saves if you restarted your Xbox or PC — that one has been understandably driving a fair few players crazy since launch. Another big change is the decision to disable mouse smoothing and mouse acceleration by default, which should make aiming on PC feel better for most people; previously, you had to paste code into one of STALKER 2’s .INI configuration files to turn it off.
The rest of the patch is comprised of fixes for “ACCESS_VIOLATION_ERROR” and “LowLevelFatalError” crashes, a variety of bugs and glitches affecting multiple main and side quests, and a handful of other minor issues. For the full patch notes, make sure to read through the section below.
GSC Game World has also asked players to use its Technical Support Hub on the official STALKER 2 website to report “anomalies,” as this will make it easier for the studio to identify and develop fixes.
“Thanks again for your support. We will continue working on future updates, reading your comments and feedback, and fixing ‘anomalies’ if they occur,” reads the update’s page. “If you detect any — report them to our Technical Support Hub. That will help us investigate your particular case and implement fixes faster.”
Ultimately, it’s great to see major improvements like these come to STALKER 2 quickly after launch, and I hope future patches to address outstanding issues are able to come soon, too. Until they do, keep in mind that the first STALKER 2 mods are already rolling out and that many of them implement unofficial, but effective band-aid solutions to smooth out the game’s rough edges.
STALKER 2 Patch 1.0.3 update: Patch notes
Here are the official Patch 1.0.3 patch notes, taken directly from the update’s news article on Steam.
Crashes and memory leaks:
- Multiple ACCESS_VIOLATION_ERROR fixes.
- Multiple LowLevelFatalError crash fixes.
Controls adjustments:
According to your feedback, we adjusted following parameters/values to decrease input lag on keyboard+mouse input:
- Mouse Smoothing is disabled by default.
- Mouse Acceleration is disabled by default.
Additionally, default values of mouse sensitivity were updated to allow a predictable default experience for our players with new values of two parameters mentioned bellow:
- Camera sensitivity: 25%.
- Aim sensitivity: 15%.
Main and Side missions:
- Fixed issue with Monolithians that were able to chase player outside the X-5 lab during the In Search of Past Glory mission.
- Fixed an issue where the NPCs Hamster and Ricochet would die after trying to enter a building during the mission On the Edge.
- Fixed issue with Bayun cat which could despawn before player loots a collar from it during In the Name of Science mission.
- Fixed issue with player potentially locking oneself during Dangerous Liaisons mission.
- Fixed issue with Roosevelt becoming hostile upon noticing a player goign stealthily through the Commissary during King of the Hill mission.
- Fixed an issue when Sava despawns in front of the player after the dialog in the bunker during A Heavy Burden mission.
- Fixed issue with NPC’s despawning when player successfully finishes Legends of the Zone mission.
AI:
- Fixed an issue with mutant bodies stretching after a shot from an automatic weapon.
- Fixed an issue that caused NPCs to block the doors during the Back to the Slag Heap mission.
Balance:
- Fixed issue with Sidorovich not selling certain ammo types.
Saves:
- Fixed issues with missing player saves after a hard reboot of the PC/Xbox.
STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl has arrived on Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC, and is one of this year’s best Xbox games and best PC games. It has a $59.99 MSRP, but notably, you can get it for a discount at CDKeys right now. You can also play it through Xbox Game Pass, PC Game Pass, and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.
