What you need to know
- While STALKER 2 developer GSC Game World has managed to fix most of the big issues with the open-world shooter, its dynamic AI simulation system A-Life 2.0 still isn't working.
- This system controls how NPC stalkers and mutants spawn and move around The Zone, and is supposed to ensure it promotes emergent gameplay by being unpredictable and feeling alive. However, several aspects of it are broken.
- In a new interview with IGN, the studio explained that the reason why is because aggressive optimization of the game led to major reductions in the system's sphere of influence and also introduced numerous bugs.
- GSC has pledged to get A-Life working again, and notes that all mention of it being controversially removed from STALKER 2's Steam page recently was because of a miscommunication with the studio's marketing team. A screenshot of a message exchange was shown to IGN to prove this.
