The development team at GSC Game World is currently polishing STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl as much as possible ahead of its November 20 release, but they also have a post-launch support plan in place that includes free updates and announced story DLC.
Moreover, three major features will be introduced to STALKER 2 after launch. The first is technical, hardware ray tracing, which, as lead producer Slava Lukyanenko said, is unlikely to be ready by November 20.
We will have software ray tracing. As for hardware ray tracing, it’s still early for that, but we’re experimenting with it. We’re trying to get it out there on launch day, but it’s highly unlikely you’ll get it at launch. But NVIDIA DLSS will be there.
Lukyanenko is likely referring to Unreal Engine 5’s Lumen, which uses software ray tracing technology that can be supplemented with hardware.
Two more features coming to STALKER 2 via post-launch updates are cross-platform mods and multiplayer. Lukyanenko and PR specialist Zakhar Bocharov talked about mods, hinting that players won’t be getting this functionality anytime soon.
Slava Lukyanenko:
STALKER is a well-known franchise not only because of the games, but also because of the support of the modding community that has flourished for the last 15 years, and we don’t want to abandon these people. So after the release, I can’t say when exactly, but we want to do it as close to the release date as possible, we will have official mod support. We are preparing some new interesting initiatives for the next year. We are aiming to support both PC and consoles.
Zakhar Bocharov:
Yeah, we actually already support them with Mod.io in the original trilogy. I can’t confirm if it’s Mod.io or something else for STALKER 2. But the thing is, the modding scene is a bit like the Wild West right now, where you have to upload files, replace files, etc., so we want to make it structured. There are certain ways to make it structured on the market: Steamworks, Mod.io, etc. We’re exploring options and we want to do it as close to release as possible, but we can’t guarantee it will be there.
GSC Game World has always said they would add multiplayer after launch, and it looks like those plans haven’t changed.
Zakhar Bocharov:
Multiplayer should be coming in a post-launch update. But for now, we’re making the single-player experience as polished as possible. Anything related to multiplayer is probably for our post-launch phase, so we just don’t have any information on that right now.
