The GSC Game World spent the entire 2025 mostly doing serious damage control after the troubled release of Stalker 2. It took dozens of patches and hotfixes to get rid of countless bugs, and the game engine required serious tweaking. Luckily for the fans, the devs managed to find enough time and resources to slowly add new content, including two new weapons (which just happened to be some of the fan's favourites) and especially night vision googles. One of the recent patches even included a short quest with full voice acting that involved a popular character from the previous games. The recently released Patch 1.8 is a milestone, though, because it’s something more than just an update: with a pinch of generosity, you could call it a free DLC.
A handful of disclaimers
All screenshots were taken by myself. The post was originally written in Polish and then I translated it into English without any online translators or so-called AI. I played using the GeForce Now streaming service with a high graphics setting. Obviously, what you see in me screenshots may differ from what you’d get playing on your own PC rig or console.
I finished Stalker 2 two times and stopped my third playthrough right before the final ending. Moreover, I’ve been following the development of the game since the release day and tested out all the subsequent patches and updates. On the other hand, I’m just a casual Stalker fan who finished the original trilogy just two times and never touched such popular total conversion mods as Anomaly, Gamma, or Gunslinger. Recently I did start playing another important mod, Anomaly, but so far I’ve got just a dozen hours on my counter. More than that, my participation in the Stalker community has been (mostly) limited to the dedicated subreddit and Steam comments. I’ve never touched the game’s discord channel and I have no idea what’s happening in the Russian and Ukrainian fan communities. To sum it all up, I’m a really casual fan of the Stalker series and if you’re expecting an expert’s opinion from a veteran fan who’s been following it since 2007, you won’t find it here.
Update 1.8: What's inside?
Kazkovyi, a former Sovietjugend camp and potentially a new stalker outpost in the middle of nowhere, if you play your cards right.
The list of new features available on the official Stalker 2 page looks quite promising. First of all, there’s a new questline now, supposedly enough to spend at least five hours playing. And this includes other things, obviously, so new characters, locations, and a unique weapon. We should all remember that the GSC studio hinted at two DLCs shortly after the initial release of the game. Some excited fans were wondering on Discord and reddit about the content in those addons, and a few curious souls even searched for hints in the game code and pre-release media. The future DLCs were supposed to be playable, but in the case of Untold Stories the fans are getting new content for free. And then, even if we had to pay for it, anything new would be great for those dedicated fans who already finished the game several times and explored every single corner of the Zone. I am among their ranks, by the way.
Radio, live transmission: the new story questline
One fine day, our protagonist Skif hears a desperate radio call for help. A panicking stranger begs everyone who listens to free him from the claws of some bandits who are keeping him locked inside an abandoned mine located in the southern part of the Iron Forest, just a little to the west from the grim Chornobyl Nuclear Plant. Skif, being himself, would never miss a chance to get mixed in more trouble and off a few criminals. After filling up his backpack with two dozens of energy drinks, he sets out towards the mine.
The protagonist encounters a handful of thugs at the mine entrance. They’re disposed of in a moment, after all a goon in a tracksuit and with a rusty Kalas has no chance with a Ukrainian marine veteran wearing a state-of-the-art exoskeleton. Skif then enters the mine and soon finds a symbol well-known to all Stalker fans. The Renegades are here!
The only faction to have appeared in just one part of the original trilogy, the Renegades were the first enemy players met in Clear Sky. Basically, a bunch of outcasts so stupid or degenerate that even ordinary self-respecting bandits didn't want to mingle with them.
A few minutes and a few more corpses later, our adventurer finds the captured man who made the call for help. Banzai quickly explains the situation: together with a couple of stalkers was ambushed and everyone except him managed to escape. The captors put him into an impromptu prison cell and took his advanced tools, something that’s really valuable in the Zone. Since Banzai’s only skill is being a mechanic, he won’t survive an ordinary stalker’s wife, being shot at by bandits and crawling into anomalies, so he refuses to flee without his instruments. Skif agrees to carry out a little search&rescue operation.
Pickaxe's humble abode.
Banzai gives him two choices: an open attack or something more sophisticated. Choosing the latter option makes Skif turn off an electric pomp to flood the bandit hideout at the bottom of the mine, and then all he needs to do is to wait for them to unlock the entrance. The second step is to launch a power generator. Most of the Renegades are loitering around the bottom cave without bothering about standing in the water and promptly get fried to the bone. All that remains to do now is to shoot a few survivors, including the boss called Pickaxe (no doubt the nickname refers to his IQ), and loot the foreman’s office he’s been hiding in. There’s no trace of Banzai’s tools or the ominous recording, but Skif manages to find some useful information on the kidnappers and their plans. More than that, he discovers a flashdrive which apparently contains the blueprint of some really odd radiotechnic device.
Banzai isn’t exactly happy when our ex-Marine returns to him and explains that his precious instruments are gone. The mood becomes even worse when the kidnapped technician hears that somebody put a bounty on him and his team, and the Renegades only kept Banzai alive to use his technical skills, much to the dislike of the mercenary who hired them, Skull. Both men are now heading to the mine exit while Banzai tells more of his story on the way. Skif receives a new task: find the missing tools on an old barge stuck on the shore somewhere in the south, near the Chemical Plant. Meanwhile, the technician will be waiting for his team’s leader to pick him up and escort him to a safer place.
New camp, old problems
Unlike Skif, seasoned Stalker fan will recognise this sight immediately. A shrine to the Monolith which absolutely shouldn't be here since the finale of the first game, Shadow of Chernobyl. Apparently, there are worst thing hiding in the Zone than deranged bandits and mercenaries.
The shore where the barge got stuck looks a little ominous. There’s a strange contraption on the shore, something like a tribal totem made of scrap with a strange electrical lamp inside it. A stalker corpse lies next to it, still clutching a precious artifact. There are no Renegades in sight, but a few battered zombies suddenly walk out of the reeds and start shooting. After putting them to sleep, Skif jumps onto the barge… and instantly gets hit in the face with a wooden box. A Poltergeist lives here now, a particularly nasty mutant species whose special powers include telekinesis and partial invisibility. Neither is enough to stop buckshot, though. Finally, Skif finds Banzai’s tools and sets out to find the technician farther in the south.
Some time later, Skif arrives at the destination: a pioneer camp. Not so long ago, before Chornobyl’s nuclear malady, it was used by the Soviet equivalent of boy scouts (though, to be honest, Ottoman janissaries would be a much better comparison). There isn’t much to see here, a few concrete bungalows, a stage where brainwashed kids used to sing hymns to Lenin, and a larger building housing a mess hall and other amenities. Two men are waiting inside: one is Banzai, and another, a stranger who calls himself Scoutmaster, promptly sums up the entire mess.
A Zone veteran and true survivor. Which makes him the exact opposite of Banzai and other members of the group.
Scoutmaster was recruited as a bodyguard by the research group NK-5 to investigate a mysterious radio transmission for the eggheads from the Malachite institute. The previous expedition, codename NK-3, disappeared somewhere near the pioneer camp. Now Scoutmaster is planning to stay hidden in Kazkovyi and use the specialised equipment left by the unlucky team to solve the mystery of the eldritch signal. There’s a reasonable hope that the hunted stalkers will be able to use this knowledge either as a weapon or to exchange it for their lives. Skif gets hired to make the first preparations: kick off a power generator (which is bound to attract some nasty mutants), inspect a nearby building to search for clues related to the fate of the NK-3 group, and check the stage building which appears to be haunted.
Without much enthusiasm, Skif moves to clean up the place. The pioneer theatre really feels haunted and our hero hears voices of invisible (and very angry bandits). As it turns out, it’s the fault of two psychic cats, or Bayuns, hidden inside the building. A handful of shotgun pellets shuts them up. Inside the other building Skif finds the corpses of the unlucky expedition. Their PDAs reveal that their demise was caused by the killer transmission. Finally, all that’s left to do is turn on the power generator. The mutated uglie who arrives at the camp a few heartbeats later is promptly sent to the mutant purgator. Now Scoutmaster gives Skif another task.
Time is running away mercilessly. While the makeshift camp is a remote location, right in the middle of wilderness that’s shunned by most stalkers, the pursuers are true professionals and, sooner or later, they’re bound to find Scoutmaster et consortes. The most urgent task is finding the two missing members of the group, a Malachite researcher and one Rascal, both the quartermaster and trader. When it’s done, the merry men move on to intercept and record the deadly transmission. Here, the goal is to use it as the last ditch weapon against Skull and his mercs. Skif goes for another search trip. This time he explores an abandoned SAM site, searching for a signal amplifier, and faces a seemingly impossible choice.
A suitcase of coupons or your sense of moral integrity? Choose well, Skif.
Back in the Kazkovyi Camp, Skif suddenly learns that there’s a new threat, perhaps as dangerous as Skull and his mercs: an inner enemy. One of the NK5 group suggests that there’s a rat among their ranks who secretly talks with the enemy, hoping to save his life! And it’s a strange coincidence that Scoutmaster left the camp without saying a word shortly before Skif’s return. Now it’s time to find the veteran and discover the truth. Meanwhile, the doomsday clock is ticking mercilessly and finally the mercenaries arrive at the comp, first sending a handful of bandits as scouts (and cannon fodder).
The Great Tactician.
After planning the defence and some quick preparations, Skif falls on his bunk. Soon, he wakes up to the sound of gunshots and excited voices of his companions. All that follows is bloodshed, well deserved by Skull and his boys in blue camo.
Another step in the Zone
What should we think about Patch 1.8 and the Untold Stories? Cautious optimism is a possible answer here. Since we received a pretty long questline, it’s reasonable to think that the work on a full DLC, something promised to us so long ago, is going well. It’s important to note that the new storyline may be related to the supposed content of the DLC. Stalker 2 had another mysterious radio signal right on its release. Players could listen to it while visiting a ruined bridge near Lymansk, a region well-known to Clear Sky fans which so far has been inaccessible in Stalker 2. Who knows, maybe the add-on in making will be tied to Untold Stories and Skif will get into new adventures with Banzai, Scoutmaster, and the others.
Who'd think this egghead would be so picky about the choice of armour?
It’s obvious that nobody should expect any revolutionary changes in the gameplay or game mechanics. Unknown Stories simply consist of a series of so-called fetch quests, and little more, but the GSC crew at least included some much welcome variety. As an example, when Skif rescues one of the NK5 members cornered in an abandoned warehouse, it turns out that the unlucky scientist has lost his armour and absolutely refuses to leave his hideout. To make him return to the Kazkovyi camp, Skif needs to bring him a new armoured suit, and the ungrateful stalker accepts only three specific types. In another mission to recover an important quest item the player has to solve a rather convoluted puzzle which involves thermodynamics formulas, no less. Details like these obviously don’t change too much in gameplay, but at least they make it somewhat less tedious.
Nothing personal, boys.
The story and character writing are competent enough, and that’s the highest praise you can say about them. Skif’s new companions are basically built on clichés: a wise, tired veteran as the pack leader, a socially-awkward tech genius, or a sleazy coward as the local quartermaster and trader. Still, the characters aren’t totally one-dimensional and each one has their own secrets and surprises. Ukrainian voice actors (I still refuse to even try playing the game with English voices on) have again done a solid job and helped make the new characters feel more convincing, especially in the case of Rascal the Sleazy Trader. Choices taken in conversations have a minimal impact on the linear storyline, with one exception: at a certain point, Skif gets a chance to opt out of the almost suicidal mission. It’s not just an option to say “Not now, I’ll come back later” but we’re actually allowed to join the enemy – and betray our strange companions. After receiving a neat sum of coupons, Skif can to return to the camp and admire Scoutmaster and the boys neatly lying in a line, all dead.
The new camp leaves something to be desired, though. Not as a location, mind you, but the whole settlement mechanics are a little disappointing. It's all just too simple: first you need to rescue a few people who will take up basic camp functions (trader, guide, mechanic, doctor), then defend the camp to finish the questline, and that's basically it. There's no need to visit other settlements with a little advertisement campaign so stalkers actually know there's a new settlement, and you don't need to bother with organising trade routes, recruiting more security, or refurbishing the interiors to make them a proper home of the homeless. Almost immediately after the final fight, a dozen of random stalkers materialises out of thin air and Kazkovyi just remains as it is, completely static.
I swear that this place was completely empty just a moment ago.
That's the only serious criticism I have, though. You may ask what has happened since the release of Untold Stories? Not much, to tell the truth. The GSC crew kept it silent for almost four months to finally announce the release of the first major expansion DLC sometime in summer. Then, in April, another update was released, adding a new, small location, a simple quest and, most importantly, new type of loot. And so, rejoice, stalkers, for soon there will be new wonders to discover in the zone.
