Last week, GSC GameWorld released STALKER 2 for PC and Xbox. Sadly, though, the game feels more like Early Access than a finished product. It has many bugs, problems with its AI, issues with both side quests and main quests, and graphical glitches. And although GSC GameWorld promised A-Life 2.0, this system doesn’t work properly in the game. Luckily, a modder has created a mod to somehow improve it.
So, Roadside Panic is a mod that aims to fix A-Life and overhaul the game’s spawn system. As the modder noted, it will restore most of the online A-Life functionality. So, basically, this is a stopgap measure until GSC fixes A-Life 2.0.
But what can you expect from this mod? Well, by using it, you’ll heavily mitigate cases of enemies appearing out of thin air right behind you. This was an issue that annoyed a lot of players. Moreover, you will significantly extend the A-Life range. Thus, NPC and NPC interactions can be seen and heard from afar. And yes. Like in the previous STALKER games, different factions will now fight for territory at POIs.
Now before getting too excited, we should note that this mod comes with a big performance hit. As the modder noted, Roadside Panic is extremely performance-heavy with its current spawn settings. The good news is that ConnerRia is also working on an optimized version of it.
Those interested can go ahead and download the mod from this link. At the end of the article, you can also find a video for it. So, make sure to watch it as it shows multiple overlapping events taking place in the game.
For those wondering, GSC GameWorld is currently working on the first patch for STALKER 2. This update will NOT fix the A-Life system issues. In this first patch, the devs will focus on more important things like quest blockers, soft locks, crashes, and gameplay/balance issues. So, it might take a while until we see A-Life 2.0 working correctly in the game.
What I’m saying is that you should definitely get this mod. My guess is that it will take over a month until we see A-Life 2.0. That’s a bummer as this was one of the key features of STALKER 2. And yes. This is another reason why I called it a Beta/Early Access release.
In theory, this mod should be compatible with the two mods we shared last week. The first one removes the inventory weight limit, which seems to require some balance tweaks. The second makes the Bloodsuckers and Poltergeists less tanky. Also, be sure to read our PC Performance Analysis.
Stay tuned for more!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
Contact: Email
everything i have seen from this game looks boring so far, its like they decided that the best way to make a better game than the first game is to have 10 times as much throw away content and make you walk more and the story is not engaging, it has less guns and of course they decided to go with unreal engine 5 which makes the game a super demanding clean looking stuttering mess.
I check it out in 3 years. Now it feels like i will be wasting my time, drive space and videocard life for a game made to appeal to anomaly grindfest fans without the difficulty .
You said it would be a cyberpunk disaster, now it's boring. Check the amount of weapons again, and what stalker players who "walk a lot" value. There's enough action here, it's not death stranding (nothing against that), the game certainly has its problems, but it's at least the best game of this year. I really recommend waiting for patches for those who are looking closely, and enjoying it in all its glory. It's also worth mentioning the colossal number of references to past parts for fans.
Better than STALKER 1 with mods? Serious question.
Same. MAYBE I'll give it a chance in some years, after it got its "DLC"(ugh) and thousands of bugfixes and unofficial patches(let's rely on modders to fix it) and stuff.
I remember playing Metro Exodus around 3 years after it was released, when the Enhanced Edition (with 2 DLCs) was out.
Those are just a .ini changes, that only can/or will not increase some spawn variables.
Experts like dudes that are working on Anomaly and other big mods, already stated that for some real changes, SDK is needed or input from the devs.
GSC already announced tweaks to A-Life system, and also big patch this week.
Why is SDK not released yet
John after playing for 10mn, uninstalling the game and call it a day :
"Speaking of gameplay mechanics, yes. A-Life 2.0 works as described. Creatures can fight with your enemies. You can also lure creatures or enemies to the environmental hazards. The enemy AI is also pretty good."
John after reading somewhere that the game is deeply broken and doesn't work as intended if you play more than 10mn
"Sadly, though, the game feels more like Early Access than a finished product. It has many bugs, problems with its AI, issues with both side quests and main quests, and graphical glitches. And although GSC GameWorld promised A-Life 2.0, this system doesn’t work properly in the game"
This is very sad, this site has been in its lowest point for years now, the only people that keep coming here are those who want to escape the woke mainstream press and they have to trade that for very amateurish journalism, none-competent technical articles, and very obvious bias for UE5 games
Actually, this has been one of the best years of DSOG in terms of traffic. But you do you 😛
And why are you still here? No one is forcing you to stay here if you think we are doing a sh*tty work 😛
"Actually, this has been one of the best years of DSOG in terms of traffic"
Yep it doesn't surprise me, Call of Duty and FIFA are still in top sales even though they're sh*t AF, gathering masses has never been a quality pledge
"No one is forcing you to stay here if you think we are doing a sh*tty work :P"
I don't think all the staff is doing sh*tty work, i think YOU are doing a sh*tty work, the others when they have a window to say something it's always miles better than what you're endlessly doing everyday, believe me it's not meant to be harsh, it's just honest, just read yourself sometimes
Yet you comment on MY stories. You should stop reading them and comment on them, that way you'll send the proper message 😛 . You should only comment on the stories of other people :P.
Also, your comments are nowhere close to being described as "trying to help". Instead, you complain like a crybaby. Pretty immature for someone who "cares for the site". For instance, you complained about our Jedi Survivor analysis article. You said I defended the game (I never did but hey, you do you as I said 😛 ). I also showcased that you can get constant 30FPS without stutters on a high-end CPU. This isn't a fantasy. It's an actual thing.
DF never used a 30FPS cap for its videos when covering PC games, but they do now AFTER we brought this – that a 30FPS cap can fix traversal stutters – to everyone's attention. Another example. DF rarely explored performance with and without Hyper-Threading. They now do after we presented games that could actually benefit from HT.
But wait, there is more. Since 2011, 13 whole years ago, I have been using Ultra settings for our CPU benchmarks on low resolutions, and I have been always looking for specific scenes that were CPU-heavy. Most outlets were not using different scenes for their GPU and CPU benchmarks. Hell, they were even benchmarking on Low settings (without paying attention to settings like Draw Distance which can hit hard the CPU). Now they do exactly what we are doing. It took them 13 years to catch up but hey, better late than never.
I'm not saying I'm perfect. I'm also not saying that they read us (well, I know NVIDIA, AMD and Intel read us but that's not the point here 😛 ). However, the fact that we've been one step ahead of even DF should give you an idea that I actually know what I'm talking about when writing our PC Performance Analysis articles. So, to dismiss something like that and say that I’m doing a sh*tty work is a bit hilarious 😛 .
So, again. What are you doing here? I mean, you increase the engagement of sh*tty stories that you hate 😛 . It does not compute 😛 . Unless you love garbage 😛
” You should only comment on the stories of other people”
There are nowhere to be seen, they’re not as active as you, bummer.
“that a 30FPS cap can fix traversal stutters”
I personally know that since Batman Arkham knight, i won’t call that a fix though, it’s like healing AIDS with cancer
“and I have been always looking for specific scenes that were CPU-heavy”
No you don’t, considering how early you analysis articles come and your progression shown in your screenshots, you don’t play games long enough to know CPU heavy spots, and you often overlook them especially in Open World games.
“So, again. What are you doing here?”
Again believe it or not, i won’t criticize what i hate, i only criticize what disappoints me, i’m a visitor since 2013, found it when i was googling a 60 fps fix for L.A. Noire and never missed a day since then, and i’m not the only one here thinking that your site has a bit gone wrong
“Pretty immature for someone who “cares for the site”
Could say the same thing for your reaction, how my reaction is disproportionate when i see something like this ? You said that A-Life was working correctly in your previous article, and you say the exact opposite today, you did the same thing for Jedi Survivor, you often start by saying your personal thoughts which are often wrong and that’s ok… What angers me is how right after the internet starts saying the opposite you take the general opinion and go along with it like nothing happened, and you’re just triggered because you got caught, this double speech is true disrespect for your audience, at least defend your opinion or admit you were wrong.
I still remember when Johnny threatened bans over spoiling RE 8 ending only for him to do it later when talking about the DLC, fun times.
aston einai mlkas, den bariesai.
engine bias is a hilarious accusation
That's the most relevant and obvious accusation in all what i said, back when there was a variety in engine usage he used to call the unoptimized games "a total mess", but now when a UE4/5 game is stuttering to the bone and very demanding, John will just say "There's room for improvement here" or "hope the devs will address these issues"
He's way too easy and less critical of the UE games than he used to be on other games in his performance analysis articles
john specially loves lumen and nanite. He will not accept his shortcomings and bias. He was this way for quantum break crap too. A sh*t game that forced 4x multisampling was demanding and worth the low fps to him. UE5 games run like crap and don't look good but he thinks using lumen justifies that crap when using other technics can achieve better performance. Lazy a*s devs love john and his lumen loving articles. The good thing about john is he allowes free speaking and doesn't filter our comments. So kodus to john for that. That's why I come here still, because we can freely talk on comments section.
That’s definitely one way to look at it. I guess I just havent seen an article for a game that uses another licensed engine that would deserve that same criticism today for comparison as you do mention it was something he did more regularly in the past.
some weeks the majority of articles are about random UE5 tech demos / fan mods. it's safe to say John has a particular obsession with Unreal Engine. the only other thing he pays so much attention to is Skyrim mods.
you really have no idea how a site needs to be runned.
Would it just be the case that a lot of the interesting ones are in UE 5 because of its accessibility and preconceptions? I feel similarly we dont hear about a ton of big fan projects of storied games being remade on gamemaker or godot nearly as often as people starting up various projects on ue 5. I do see the bethesda game mod preference but those games are already hugely popular.
The 'problem' with UE5 is that games are written within an engine where in the past the engine was written around the game. Game developers are no longer engine developers.
The problem is that we don't have talented programmers these days. In the 80s, 90s and even 00s we had some really talented programmers that could do wonders. Hell, some of them even developed their own custom engines. So, it's hilarious to say that UE5 is "the problem" when a whole team can't create its own fork, or optimize it for its games.
Imagine if those teams had to create a whole new engine by themselves for their games. Spoiler alert. They wouldn't be able to do anything like that.
So, instead of blaming UE5 (or any other game engine), how about we blame the studio heads for not hiring talented programmers? It's hilarious studios can spend millions of dollars, but they can't hire programmers who know how to write code.
PS: And the problem lies with the studio heads/executives. Not with the devs that work under them. I'm sure the devs themselves try to do the best they can.
You're absolutely wrong for blaming programmers. Programmers only do what they're told.
The issue is with management and people who hold key positions.
You put visionaries like raphael colantonio or sven vincke on any team with a decent budget, you will get a hit every single time.
Look at todd howard and starfield, the guy is a one trick pony, he's still making the same game he did 20 years ago.
Dishonored 2 had MAJOR optimization issues. From CPU optimization issues to frame pacing issues, Dishonored 2 wasn't good at all. There is a big difference between having a great game (which Dishonored 2 was) and an optimized game (which Dishonored 2 wasn't).
https://www.dsogaming.com/pc-performance-analyses/dishonored-2-pc-performance-analysis/
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/arkane-is-investigating-dishonored-2s-pc-performance-issues-txaa-the-cause-of-performance-issues/
That doesn't mean anything. Technical issues can be solved or avoided if there isn't a tight deadline imposed by a publisher. Ubisoft makes good ports, but their games are trash regardless. Whose fault is it?
To be clear, I'm not blaming UE5 either, I'm just saying blaming programmers is just wrong.
Nah, Valve has a whole bunch of them.
Programers cost money,Beta testers cost money,so how do you as a studio/corporation make money? Simple fire the first two groups,get some so so people that know programing,release a product in a terable state…wait for the idiots to buy play/test the product…and then this is key wait for complaints to start roiling in and fix problems on the go of course also look what the modding comunity is fixing and copy paste more or less and that is the state of todays digital realm with a few exceptions,from OS to games everything is crap.
Wait until Windows 10 reaches end-of-life in 2025, then setup a dual-boot with both Windows 11 & Bazzite (SteamOS-like Linux distro).
I'm pretty sure the results will surprise you in a positive way…
As I said above, you have no idea how fundamental this task is. I also don't like the way Unreal is going (technical solutions), but I can't blame the developers for this.
Take a good look at what the studios could achieve on the mobile weak CPUs that PS4/Xbox One had. Now, take a good look at what they achieve on consoles that are 3-4X more powerful than them.
A perfect example is Rocksteady. All their talented programmers that created the UE3 fork for the Batman: Arkham games have left the studio. And now you have a team which can't even match the visuals, AI, destruction and most other features of that UE3 game, even when using UE5. It's absurd.
So where does that extra CPU power goes to? Because, again, we're talking about magnitudes of better CPUs that the PS5 and Xbox Series X have compared to the last gen consoles. Hell, look at Dragon's Dogma 2. The NPCs appear right in front of you. Capcom can say whatever it wants, but its crowd (which is responsible for the framerate drops) is nowhere close to what we got in Assassin's Creed: Unity. And yes, we already had games in which the NPCs had different daily routines, that's nothing new or ground-breaking.
Speaking of Assassin's Creed, compare Unity to the latest AC games. The crowd size is nowhere close to it. Animations and parkour were also "downgraded". That's another case of a last-gen game that can compete with a current-gen game.
You can't simply blame the engines when the games have the same destruction, AI, physics, etc as the PS4 games. At one point, you have to realize that a lot of talented programmers have simply left the gaming industry and we now have programmers that can't come close to them (and again, I'm not saying those programmers do not work hard. However, working hard and being able to deliver an optimized code are two completely different things).
Take a good look at what the studios could achieve on the mobile weak CPUs that PS4/Xbox One had. Now, take a good look at what they achieve on consoles that are 3-4X more powerful than them.
A perfect example is Rocksteady. All their talented programmers that created the UE3 fork for the Batman: Arkham games have left the studio. And now you have a team which can't even match the visuals, AI, destruction and most other features of that UE3 game, even when using UE5. It's absurd.
So where does that extra CPU power goes to? Because, again, we're talking about magnitudes of better CPUs that the PS5 and Xbox Series X have compared to the last gen consoles. Hell, look at Dragon's Dogma 2. The NPCs appear right in front of you. Capcom can say whatever it wants, but its crowd (which is responsible for the framerate drops) is nowhere close to what we got in Assassin's Creed: Unity. And yes, we already had games in which the NPCs had different daily routines, that's nothing new or ground-breaking.
Speaking of Assassin's Creed, compare Unity to the latest AC games. The crowd size is nowhere close to it. Animations and parkour were also "downgraded". That's another case of a last-gen game that can compete with a current-gen game.
You can't simply blame the engines when the games have the same destruction, AI, physics, etc as the PS4 games. At one point, you have to realize that a lot of talented programmers have simply left the gaming industry and we now have programmers that can't come close to them (and again, I'm not saying those programmers do not work hard. However, working hard and being able to deliver an optimized code are two completely different things).
Take a good look at what the studios could achieve on the mobile weak CPUs that PS4/Xbox One had. Now, take a good look at what they achieve on consoles that are 3-4X more powerful than them.
A perfect example is Rocksteady. All their talented programmers that created the UE3 fork for the Batman: Arkham games have left the studio. And now you have a team which can't even match the visuals, AI, destruction and most other features of that UE3 game, even when using UE5. It's absurd.
So where does that extra CPU power goes to? Because, again, we're talking about magnitudes of better CPUs that the PS5 and Xbox Series X have compared to the last gen consoles. Hell, look at Dragon's Dogma 2. The NPCs appear right in front of you. Capcom can say whatever it wants, but its crowd (which is responsible for the framerate drops) is nowhere close to what we got in Assassin's Creed: Unity. And yes, we already had games in which the NPCs had different daily routines, that's nothing new or ground-breaking.
Speaking of Assassin's Creed, compare Unity to the latest AC games. The crowd size is nowhere close to it. Animations and parkour were also "downgraded". That's another case of a last-gen game that can compete with a current-gen game.
You can't simply blame the engines when the games have the same destruction, AI, physics, etc as the PS4 games. At one point, you have to realize that a lot of talented programmers have simply left the gaming industry and we now have programmers that can't come close to them (and again, I'm not saying those programmers do not work hard. However, working hard and being able to deliver an optimized code are two completely different things).
Yes, that was the bait, developers aren’t what they once were. I’ve been saying this for decades.
LOL have you even played og stalker?? Games a clunky buggy mess. Idk what you people are on. Games of this size and scope, like Bethesda titles, or CDPR games (Witcher 3 had a horrible launch), obsidian, on and on.
This has always been the case and this writer is a delusional, lying, back.
‘LOL’?
Yes, I started the Stalker series a few hours after Stalker 2 dropped. SOC done and, at a guess, half way through CS. I’ve had one crash during SOC so far and zero bugs.
I’m on a Hinomi X1 Pro which I purchased ~2 years ago.
Yes, games have bugs. I’m not sure why we get so many at launch but can only assume QC is also not as good as it once was while management push the product out early.
This hasn’t always been the case as a delivery method for patching came much later.
I’m not sure I always agree with John but I’d never go as far as to call him a liar.
I'll keep blaming you for being a crappy writer lolz.
Did you even read the original comment? He's calling you out for being a greedy, pandering, misleading liar. You didn't even experience this stuff. I doubt you've even played more than an hour.
One second the ai is great, the next is terrible and like early access?
you are outright lying about it's level of polish. Lying. It has bugs, like most games of it's size. But to pretend it's this game breaking mess like ac unity or something, is lying. Flat out.
why do you feel the need to lie? For an article? Why do that to people? These devs are actual people. Stop spreading misinformation based on some reddit post you thought would get you a lot of clicks.
Actually, YOU are the one who hasn’t played it. I’m after learning about the zone and C-Consciousness (if you’ve played the game, you know the part) and the latter half part of STALKER 2 is completely broken. It has broken MAIN MISSIONS, the A-Life is not working the way they promised, there are scripted events (I have a save and EVERY time you load it, a town gets captured. This is the definition of a scripted event, and it has nothing to do with the dynamism of events that the devs claimed the game would have), instant kills when you enter specific areas from invinsible enemies, enemies constantly spawning next to you, enemies spawning inside headquarters (in which you can’t use your weapon).
Here is the deal with STALKER 2. The devs focused and polished the first part of the game. Once you get to the latter half, everything falls apart. It’s the most broken game of 2024, and worse than Cyberpunk 2077. Of course, if you’ve only played one or two hours, you won’t see how broken it actually is.
Another example. The Chimera is one of the most broken enemies you’ll encounter. Not only is it a tanky enemy (it’s WAY WORSE than the Bloodsuckers), it is also not affected by the anomalies. IT CAN JUMP RIGHT THROUGH THEM AND HIT YOU. Oh, and if you carry more than 50% of the inventory weight, you can’t even outrun it. Since the game has a very limited carry weight, you will have this issue. This is a major balance issue. And, again, the Chimera does not make an appearance in the early parts of the game.
As for A-Life 2.0, the game at first gives you the illusion of it working right. That’s because the devs have been carefully spawning enemies afar from you in the early areas. Again, this completely falls apart the longer you play. The AI during fights is fine, in my opinion. It’s not perfect and some enemies can be stupid, but overall it’s pretty good.
So basically, the game misled me and made me believe that the A-Life 2.0 was working fine. It is not. Hell, even the devs admitted that A-Life 2.0 has major bugs. So, my bad I guess for saying it was working.
Do you have any idea how fundamental a task it is to write an engine, and one that would keep up with the competition? How long does it take to write an unril? 26 years, wait 26 years for the next game. The people who sit here are mostly as out of touch with reality as game journalists, albeit in a different way.
Yes. I’ve just turned 56. I started coding at 12 BBC Model A (6502) and RML 380Z (Z80). My 1st PC, a 1K ZX-81 (Z80). Started my own software company at 21.
Name 5 softwares.
Yeah, people barely reads the stupid tripe John writes, it's just good for a few laughs. I would say the woke press is more competent than Johnnys drivel.
Well because UE5 games have been sh*t?
This article needs a sentence or two explaining what A life is. I have no idea.
It's a system meant to simulate the life of NPCs in the environment since the first STALKER game, they keep doing their thing and interact with each other in real time even when you're not present, this makes the progression less predictable, organic and unique for each player
Always found a-life a bit overrated tbh, they just wander around and kill each other, sometimes die on anomalies in a extra stupid way or loot bodies and that's it. I think Oblivion Lost Remake 3.0 promises to overhaul AI, like random stalkers looting critical mission documents or even completing the game themselves.
Yep, it works when it works, the rest of times it’s just broken AF
Works well for combat, but falls short in creating a "simulation" of sorts.
Bro's been playing warzone so much he forgot what enemies look like.
It's like they hobbled the game or released a build missing the last 6 months or more of development. This is the same problems the previous stalker games had, requiring 3rd party mods to fix and make playable. I do not see anyone talking about the actual story being any good either.
The story progression is actually quite enjoyable, each new zone offers unique feel, side quests that flash out the situation in that zone. There`s a lot of conent too, I`m already over 20 hours and I just recently started 3rd are (I see like 21 zones on the map)
Game is pretty amazing but it`s already pretty CPU heavy so I wont install mod that would make it even more so.
STALKER 1 did all this does and ran on an ancient architecture dual core. Even if more CPU is required now to feed the graphics card with more stuff, CPU requirements are weirdly high.
Stalker trilogy was separated into maps, its much easier to do
Stalker 2 is a full open world, there is more to simulate
No that’s not the reason. When you have huge worlds you run only very reduced set of simulations (a couple variables only like dead/alive, position, allegiances) and do it very sporadically for everything that’s outside of a certain range from the player, and they run very quickly for hundreds or thousands of entities. They aren’t simulating everything running around and doing stuff.
So the excess performance cost is either that it’s inefficiently programmed because of UE, or just by itself. We had a mod that fixed/improved AI but made it even heavier. Looks like a lot of inefficiency going on.
I don't know much about this, but in the original they could simulate a-life outside of the maps borders, or at least the movement of stalkers. Besides, they don't need to render the full map all at the same time even if it is open world.
I was being bottlenecked by my 3060, mostly steady at 55+fps, which is fine because I'm using an old 1080p 60hz monitor. 11th Gen i7.
I'm not even playing it anymore. This thing is clearly unfinished.
Good graphics, but the story is bland and the enemies are as stvpid as they can.
In a year or more it will be finished once the modders put in the work,point is new AAA games should be played after a year at the minimum because of this practice by the studios,there is rarely a studio that employs beta testers like they did a decade or more a go,i personally am not touching this one for a year at the minimum.
Why the f*k did they release this broken mess? F*k them
I hope modders "demake" Stalker 2 to the OpenXray engine, it would be pretty neat. The cutscenes they could just make videos based on the original title, since facial animations are non existant in the original games.
@johndio:disqus Nice one fella, Ive only just finished the lesser zone and the spawning was becoming more of an issue.
The game is amazing without any mods, you get more powerfull weapons and the mutant health is based around those, ofc in the first zone you think bloodsuckers are too tough, it's intended. So is inventory and stamina. Stop pussyfying everything you losers.