Whether it’s Fallout, State of Decay, or Dying Light, when it comes to post-apocalyptic shooters, you want to feel like the entire world is against you. Tough enemies. Realistic weapon behaviors. A dynamic environment where NPCs and monsters live out their lives of their own accord, seemingly indifferent to your suffering. These are the core components of a survivalistic FPS. Six months since it was released, Stalker 2 is still going strong. But GSC has a lot more it wants to achieve. From the combat to the trademark A-Life system, the new Stalker 2 update makes the entire game feel more alive and more dangerous.
Formally speaking, this is Stalker 2 patch 1.4, and it introduces more than 700 changes, fixes, and tweaks. The focus, however, is on combat. Though it’s renowned as a story-driven survival game, at its mechanical center, Stalker 2 is an FPS – at its best, it’s a realistic, tactical shooter where leaving cover a second too early or neglecting to maintain your equipment can lead to your demise. With that in mind, GSC turns its attention to enemy AI.
As of the new Stalker 2 update, out now, enemy NPCs will always use available cover, and make sure that they’re behind something before they start shooting at you. They won’t rush forward unless it’s absolutely necessary, and if you’re fighting out in the open, they’ll now seek out trees to use as defilade. Animations have been reworked so that enemies will enter and exit cover more fluidly, and they’re also more intelligent when it comes to flanking your position.
If they’re trying to flush you out of your own cover, Stalker 2’s enemies are now more likely to use grenades. They will also communicate with one another and organize attacks more clearly. The improvements in the new update don’t only apply to human enemies, however. Mutant behavior in combat has been generally enhanced, and they now have a new ‘alert’ state if they sense something or someone nearby.
Outside of gunfights, the A-Life system has been further evolved thanks to smarter pathfinding for all NPCs. They won’t wander into restricted areas anymore during offline mode, and patrolling characters won’t clip into one another anymore.
The full Stalker 2 update patch notes also include balance changes for the RPG (it’s more powerful now) and dozens of minor fixes for quests and visual bugs. All told, the game’s already-nail-biting combat should feel a lot tougher and more believable now. Combined with the upcoming Stalker trilogy remaster, this is reason enough to return to GSC’s survivalist epic.
Otherwise, try some of the best apocalypse games, or maybe the best horror games on PC.
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