Massive Stalker 2 patch starts chipping away at the notoriously glitchy game's worst problems, including over 80 cutscene problems and nearly 2,000 more bugs

Stalker 2 released this November with a swarm of game-breaking bugs attached to it, so developer GSC Game World just issued an enormous update to start the arduous pest control process. 

"Just before Christmas and New Year's, we are ready to present Patch 1.1," the developer writes on Steam, the first patch of its kind. It apparently impacts over 1,800 issues, starting with a much needed upgrade to the FPS survival horror game's NPC AI system A-Life.

NPCs should now no longer be able to suddenly spawn behind you or out of thin air, ending many players' frustrations with Stalker 2's unstable combat scenarios. NPCs won't appear so unnatural anymore, either (outside of their radiation tumors, at least). Improvements to a wide range of visual problems – including mutants flying like planes after being killed with a shotgun, or NPCs being unable to find their way through battlefields of corpses – make sure of that.

Along with NPC looks and behavior, GSC Game World also updated Stalker 2 by fixing 250 main mission bugs, 500 problems with visual effects like foliage and flickering, and it addressed 80 cutscene issues with facial animation, Haptic feedback, and missing NPCs. The developer made performance improvements through resolving some game freezes and FPS drops near bodies of water, too, and so many more alterations. If that doesn't make you feel like a kid on Christmas morning, I don't know what will. A glass of warm milk, perhaps?

In any case, GSC Game World knows its Patch 1.1 is a lot to take in. "We understand that the size of the patch is huge and the process of downloading will take some time," the developer explains on Steam. "We would like to thank you for your understanding, and we will work on this aspect as well."

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