S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl just released a brand-new content update for the game. The update, titled ‘Stories Untold’ features new characters, new stories, and over five hours more of gameplay to enjoy. This is a great chance for players to get back into the game, or perhaps even try it out for the first time. After all, new content isn’t the only thing this patch covers. It also fixes several bugs and issues and smooths out Expedition Mode with Master difficulty.
Here’s Everything New in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl ‘Stories Untold’ Update
New Gameplay & Story Content
The most significant new addition is the supposed five plus hours of new gameplay. According to the official update announcement, this new story covers eight different missions, seven new locations, six new characters to meet, three new items, a unique weapon, and more to discover along the way.
Here’s what the devs had to say:
As the story unfolds, you can choose to help the stalkers and scientists figure out what’s going on. Make decisions, fight for what you believe in, search for answers, and more.
You can catch a PDA message anywhere on the map, with the biggest chance around the Burnt Forest. How you deal with it will shape the fates of stalkers you meet. This mission will become available after leaving the Zalissya region in the early stages of the game.
New Locations to Explore
As part of the new stories, you will find yourself navigating unfamiliar terrain. From what has been said about some of these new locations, players may be able to interact with environments in different ways, based on their approach to certain objectives – such as creating a hub in the Burnt Forest Region.
Some locations that were previously occupied only by rusty metal or mutants are now used by stalkers. The storyline also might lead you to creating a new hub in the Burnt Forest region. The new place on the map will draw the stalker’s attention, so you can expect the whole area to become more populated. But again, this outcome of the quest is not granted. You may choose to play another way.
In addition to this, a new modified weapon has been added to the game.
The GP37V2 is a modified version of the GP37 rifle, crafted for the most tactically proficient players. It features a pre-installed suppressor and a low-magnification scope. The trigger group has been modified to support single and burst fire modes only.
The cost of failure is higher, but in the hands of a skillful operator, the GP37V2 can reward you with its precision and power. This thing you can get during the completion of the questline.
Lastly, there is also some changes made to gameplay functions, as well as bug fixes to help smooth out the experience for players. Take a look at the exact changes that have been made below, as presented in the official devpost:
Master Difficulty and Expedition Mode Simplification
This change allows you to simplify the save system if you want to play on “Master” difficulty or any other difficulty with the “Expedition mode” enabled.
After starting the game (if Master difficulty or difficulty with Expedition mode enabled is selected), you can enable the Manual Save system in the settings menu. This option is enabled once and permanently (for the current playthrough) and allows you to save with:
- Quick Save (F5).
- Regular Manual Save via the menu.
If these saves are enabled, the player’s progress status, which is displayed in the Pause menu, will change.
Additional Bug Fixes / Changes
- Fixed an issue where multiple artifacts could spawn in one place.
- Optimized multiple mutant models.
- Fixed an issue where NPC could not find a way to the shelter during an Emission at the Cement Factory location.
- Fixed an issue where NPC could not find a way to the shelter during an Emission in Zalissya.
- Fixed an issue that could cause massive mutant hordes to spawn at the Plant location of the Garbage region.
- Adjusted dead zone settings for DualSense controller on PC.
- Fixed an issue where the player could obtain the Heart of Chornobyl artifact from the regular anomalies.
Take a closer look at the Stories Untold update for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl in the official content trailer below: