“We want to reassure you once more that we will make every effort to constantly improve your S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl experience,” says GSC Game World.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl has been out for some days now, and though it has got off to an impressive start with its sales and has garnered acclaim from many, it’s also been on the receiving end of some criticism, in particular for the technical state that it launched in. Developer GSC Game World has said it will be fixing the game up with several patches and hotfixes in the coming days and weeks, and the first of those is not far away.

GSC Game World has confirmed in a Steam post that it’s releasing the first update for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 this week, and that the update will include fixes for a number of critical issues reported by the players. That includes crashes, bugs that block progression in a number of quests, and more. You can also expect fixes for issues related to graphical glitches, the UI, and more. You can view more details on the fixes the update will bring below. More details will presumably be included in the upcoming patch notes.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is available on Xbox Series X/S and PC.

Crash Fixes, including:

• Issues and memory allocation failures, which previously caused the game to exit unexpectedly, particularly around rendering, skeletal meshes, and quest-related cutscenes.

Main Quest Progression Fixes, including:

• Several bugs blocking the main quest progression, NPCs getting stuck in objects, incorrect quest markers, and issues with quest cutscenes.
• Revision of the main quests (like Visions of Truth or A Minor Incident) to ensure smooth transitions, avoiding rare cases of players not being able to proceed further.

Gameplay & Balance Adjustments, including:

• Fixing the price of the weapons with upgrades installed compared to their value without attachments.
• NPCs behavior, including the way they act when lacking a shelter during the Emissions.

Cutscenes & Visual Fixes, including:

• Rarely missing facial animations, misplaced NPCs, and visual inconsistencies like detached heads and clothes clipping.
• Quality and stability improvements of the visual effects.

Softlock Fixes, including:

• Issue where players were unable to close the trade screen after putting ammo in a wrong slot while playing on a gamepad.

User Interface Improvements, including:

• Quest notifications now showed correctly during dialogues.
• Corrected texts and missing interaction prompts.