New major patch brings over 1200 improvements to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl — details of update 1.3

Following the February 1.2, the post-apocalyptic shooter S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl from the developers at GSC Game World received another impressive patch with more than 1000 fixes.

Image source: GSC GAME WORLD

Update 1.3 has been released on PC and Xbox consoles. The patch contains over 1,200 changes and improvements to all aspects of the game, including balance, story progression, sound, performance, AI, the A-Life life simulation system, and more.

In particular, the developers fixed about 100 EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION errors and memory leaks when using inventory / inspecting loot that caused crashes, and also implemented a dozen optimization fixes.

One of the new death screens

What else does patch 1.3 for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl include:

• The movements of mutants during combat became smoother;
• Improved NPC reaction to footstep sounds;
• Adjusted the balance of legendary “modified items”;
• Collisions within the A-Life system have been made less frequent;
• Increased the durability of unique weapons that can be found during missions;
• Added new death screens (varies depending on the cause of death);
• Improved facial animations in the main storyline;
• Added new musical compositions;
• Added descriptions explaining the difference between armor-piercing and expanding ammunition;
• Made the light from NPC lanterns brighter at night;
• Improved shadows cast by the player’s flashlight;
• Added the ability to reconfigure the melee weapon attack button.

The patch also includes over 400 fixes for story and side missions. Version 1.3 also added squirrels, although the official changelog does not reflect this (see video below).

GSC Game World emphasized that such a large volume of fixes would not have been possible without the numerous reviews and comments from players on Steam, the Reddit forum, Discord, and other platforms.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is out November 20, 2024 on PC, Xbox Series X and S, and Game Pass. In addition to future patches, the game is also getting two major story expansions — GSC recently revealed what to expect from them.