With Tuesday’s announcement of a 1.0.3 patch, STALKER 2: Heart of Chernobyl has now received its third post-launch substantive code update. Taking into account the so-called “day zero” patch sent to reviewers in the hours just before the game officially launched on November 20, that means the game has been updated every two and a quarter on average. working days. It’s an impressive pace, especially considering the extenuating circumstances of the high-profile game’s release.
STALKER 2 went live on November 20 to a flurry of reviews – including here at Polygon – highlighting the game’s rough state at launch. My own experience over some 40 hours included everything from major audio issues and bizarre glitches during cinematic cutscenes, to abhorrent AI behavior, to minor animations and graphical glitches. As I continued to play the game (I’m now 65 hours into it), more and more bugs emerged.
For example, on Sunday evening I spent over 6,000 coupons to de-escalate a situation with a salesperson, only to see him drop dead when he went through an invisible wall. This bug, and a handful of others, are featured prominently in today’s patch notes. It almost seems like publisher GSC Game World is pacing the community, first addressing issues from earlier in the game before moving on to the later issues.
That seems logical to me, because STALKER 2 is best played slowly. It’s a game about exploration and the intimate challenges that arise as you move from point to point over land in an extremely hostile environment. If you’re trying to race to the end of the game, you’re honestly doing it all wrong.
But most of all, it shows the incredible commitment and dedication of the developers, which continues 1013 days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where the studio is based. Consumers, meanwhile, vote with their dollars. Even now that the game has been included in the Xbox Game Pass program, meaning the game is free to subscribers, STALKER 2 has reportedly sold more than a million copies within 48 hours of launch.