I started a new Stalker 2: Heart of Chernobyl run this past weekend, and like most of my decisions, I now look back on it with pain and regret. Had I waited just a couple more days, I could have begun anew with the roaming FPS’s new Expedition update, which is out now and spans everything from difficulty modes and inventory tweaks to enemy behaviour reworks and yet more upgrades to its A-Life simulation system.
Expedition, a.k.a. Update 1.7, is detailed in full over on Steam. I consider Stalker 2’s Zone to be brutish enough that I likely won’t be braving its new Master difficulty, though the Expedition modifier – which can be applied on new games at lower difficulties – sounds interesting. It limits your saves and forces you to hang out with guitar-strumming fellow stalkers at camps in order to record your progress, a twist that brings back (mostly) fond memories of Fallout 4’s Hardcore mode. Though in a clear oversight, you can’t cover Stalker 2’s map in improvised bedrolls just to create a web of sleep-operated savepoints.
Meanwhile! GSC Game World, in their ongoing quest to build a society of persistently simulated gopniks, has refined how their A-Life system handles faction territories. The Zone’s various militias can now cede ground if they lose the wrong fights in the wrong places, and mutants – who have lairs of their own – will get involved in these border wars as well. Outdoor gunfights may also, to quote the patch notes, “feel fair at last”, as baddies will no longer possess perfect sight through bushes, tall grass, and reeds. Sneakier Skifs can, thus, hide in the veg to evade or ambush passing goons – a marked development for Stalker 2’s otherwise limited stealth play.
Other highlights include an Immersion Mode that instantly switches off the HUD, a couple of new (if relatively non-murderous) anomalies to stumble into, and a light rejigging of the inventory screen that adds some extra detail to item stats and status effects. I also enjoy how knocking back energy drinks like an embittered Twitch streamer will now induce an aim-ruining tremor; perhaps it’s those health freaks at GSC Game World encouraging you to drink water instead. There’s a bunch of bug fixes and minor performance optimisations too.
I’d say there’s enough here to restart my restarted playthrough, thankfully and annoyingly, though in my heart of hearts I was never in the wait-for-updates camp to begin with. I found Stalker 2 an enthralling wandering sim from the off, so thick with eerie, post-apocalyptic atmosphere that you could reach out and pull handfuls of radioactive muck from it. And that’s a hard thing to pull off, especially when your country is being invaded by a dictatorial petrostate, or someone is trying to pinch your helicopter models.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
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