# S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl Update 2.0 Back to the Zone - Major Content and Technical Update - Product: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl (https://whatsnew.fyi/product/s-t-a-l-k-e-r-2-heart-of-chornobyl) - Vendor: GSC Game World - Date: 2026-08-20 - Original notes: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1643320/view/677381523352060387 - Permalink: https://whatsnew.fyi/product/s-t-a-l-k-e-r-2-heart-of-chornobyl/releases/2026-08-20-update-2.0-back-to-the-zone-major-content-and-tec What's New is an index, not a publisher: every entry below links to the vendor's own release notes, which are the authoritative source. Entries are labelled where they are hand-curated sample data, pre-releases, or drawn from a secondary source such as a developer blog. Reuse: the summaries, labels and curation here are © What's New. Quote freely with attribution and a link back; wholesale republication of the corpus is not permitted — terms: https://whatsnew.fyi/terms. The vendors' own release notes remain their publishers'. --- - **changed** — Upgrade engine to Unreal Engine 5.5.4 - **changed** — Improve lighting, shadows, and reflections - **changed** — Rework landscape and foliage to look more natural - **changed** — Enhance A-Life system to simulate more believable creature behavior with additional points of interest and more frequent looting by stalkers - **added** — Add three types of binoculars: FOB-45, Yastrub, and Fighter - **added** — Add four new weapons: Arev (AR), GP3A (DMR), SKP (DMR), and Fora-230 (SMG) - **added** — Add x3 scope for Western-bloc weapons and red dot sight for Eastern-bloc weapons - **added** — Enable offset aiming for weapons beyond NVGs - **added** — Add fog mechanic and rework cloudy and rainy weather - **added** — Add Statistics page to PDA - **added** — Add Custom Rules difficulty option - **added** — Add new places to visit in Prypiat - **fixed** — Fix items possessed by telekinetic mutants ability flying through hard surfaces - **fixed** — Fix Prof. Lodochka teleporting from shelter during emissions - **fixed** — Fix NPCs unable to leave shelters after emission until player arrived - **fixed** — Fix NPC stuck in place after being revived from wounded state - **fixed** — Fix neutral NPCs not reacting to surrounding combat - **fixed** — Fix lair at Rostok location spawning massive amount of NPCs - **fixed** — Fix NPC dying instantly when player approaches Mill location - **fixed** — Fix NPCs at Kazkovyi unable to hide during emission Back to the Zone — Update 2.0 is our biggest overhaul to how the Zone looks, feels, and lives since launch. The technical work here runs deeper than usual — including a significant engine upgrade — and alongside it, we've packed in features stalkers have been asking for, over 500 bug fixes, and a few things we've been wanting to show you for a while. ##### **☢️**Highlights - Engine Upgrade to Unreal Engine 5.5.4 - Visual Evolution - Improved lighting, shadows, and reflections - Reworked the landscape and foliage to look more natural - A-life improvements A-Life now simulates more believable behaviour — the Zone isn't one constant gunfight. It's a lonely place where life carries on by its own rules, and every encounter or firefight is the result of stalkers and mutants simply doing stalker and mutant things. In practice: living creatures now have more places to be. More campfires, bus stops, and other points of interest are contested between stalkers and mutants. Stalkers across the Zone loot the fallen all the time — not just when you're around to see it. We've also done plenty of under-the-hood work that wasn't strictly A-Life but certainly felt like it: enemies occasionally shooting or throwing things through walls, sudden overpopulation of certain areas, and dozens of other fixes. - Binoculars Not one, but three types of binoculars are now at a stalker's disposal. Try FOB-45, “Yastrub,” and “Fighter” and see what works best for you in terms of price/quality. - New weapons and scopes New toys keep getting smuggled through the Perimeter wall somehow: - Arev (AR), - GP3A (DMR), - SKP (DMR), - Fora-230 (SMG). Better to try them yourself than have us explain how they handle in combat. And somewhere in the Zone, you'll even find a unique variant of one of them. Your scope options have widened too: a new x3 scope for Western-bloc weapons and a new red dot sight for Eastern ones. Customise your loadout to fit your playstyle! Oh, and offset aiming is no longer limited to NVGs. - Fog mechanic As well as reworked cloudy and rainy weather. - PDA's new "Statistics" page - “Custom Rules” difficulty - New places to visit in Prypiat. ##### 🛠️🐞⚡ Bug Fixes, Crashes, and Performance We did lots of work fixing “anomalies” that aren’t supposed to be here when you return Back to the Zone. ##### AI - Fixed an issue when items possessed by telekinetic mutants ability were able to fly through hard surfaces. - Fixed an issue when Prof. Lodochka was teleporting from the shelter during the emissions. - Fixed an issue when some NPCs were unable to leave some shelters after the emission until the player came to them. - Fixed an issue when an NPC was stuck in one place after being revived from a wounded state. - Fixed an issue when neutral NPCs were not reacting to the surrounding combat. - Fixed an issue where the lair at the Rostok location could spawn a massive amount of NPCs. - Fixed an issue that caused NPC to die instantly when a player approaches the Mill location. - Fixed an issue preventing NPCs at Kazkovyi from hiding during emission. ##### UI / Controls / Input - Fixed an issue with the wrong naming of the effect for the "Protective coating" upgrade on the SSP-100 Survey armor. - Fixed an issue where the actions for "O" and "Y" buttons were not remappable. - Fixed an issue where the message about losing progress could appear after attempting to close the game from the main menu. - Fixed an issue when inputs were sometimes locked after an attempt to close the personal stash. - Fixed an issue when the player was losing all input after trying to use a ladder while being overweight. - Fixed an issue where custom key bindings for num 1 and num 3 were not functional during the aiming. - Fixed an issue where the cursor could remain on the screen after closing the PDA. - Fixed an issue where the collimator sight could not be attached to the weapon using a gamepad. - Fixed an issue that caused firing mode _[Truncated at 4000 characters — full notes: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1643320/view/677381523352060387]_