Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl has only been out for two weeks, but the game remains a work in progress. Developer GSC Game World released a day-one patch to address some of Stalker 2’s lingering issues. However, the title is still missing the A-Life 2.0 system that was initially promised on its Steam page. Now, GSC Game World is opening up about why A-Life 2.0 isn’t in the game and how the Steam page was changed.
During an interview with IGN, creative director Maria Grygorovych explained that A-Life 2.0 is still in Stalker 2; it just isn’t working as intended yet. The first Stalker used the initial A-Life–which was created as an AI program to give NPC characters in the world of the game a life of their own beyond any interactions with the players. A-Life 2.0 was meant to be the next generation of that program, if it can be made to function correctly.
GSC CEO Ievgen Grygorovych told IGN that as the game’s launch date neared, the team attempted to shrink the area around the player affected by A-Life 2.0 before they encountered game-breaking bugs that forced the team to turn off the feature for now. Maria Grygorovych added that the change in the game’s Steam description came from someone in the marketing department who made the edit without telling her. Both Grygorovychs also insisted that the developer is still committed to implementing A-Life 2.0 and ironing out its issues.
“For now we [are] committed to players to make it work and it can be done from directions both optimizing, giving more resources to A-Life, fixing bugs, making it work properly, and then putting more efforts to make it more advanced,” said Ievgen Grygorovych.
As if that issue wasn’t enough to deal with, Russian propaganda outlets recently began accusing of Stalker 2 of drafting players into the Ukrainian army. The documentary War Game: The Making of Stalker 2 demonstrated how GSC Game World’s team was affected by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Half of the team was forced to flee the country to finish Stalker 2, while the rest remained and some among them choose to fight in the war. Regardless of the game’s ongoing issues, Stalker 2 has already sold over 1 million copies across PC and Xbox, and it remains available on Game Pass. For more, read our Stalker 2 review.