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Earlier this week, we highlighted the brand-new Stalker 2: Cost of Hope DLC and how it was getting extremely positive reviews, but we didn't talk that much about the other major addition in the form of the free 2.0 update.
This is a seriously massive update for Stalker 2 that's described by the team as "our biggest overhaul to how the Zone looks, feels, and lives since launch", featuring a new Unreal Engine upgrade, tons of A-Life updates, new weapons, new ways to customise your experience, and so much more.
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If you're interested, you'll find all the patch notes on the official Steam page for Stalker 2.
But how does that actually translate in terms of Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S gameplay? Well, according to first impressions, it's a bit of a mixed bag - we've spotted people who are saying it looks and performs better than before, while others suggest it looks worse or at least "different" now with still quite spotty performance.
Here are a few examples:
Take that for what you will, but the folks over at Fuzion Xbox Testing have also shared some new gameplay footage from both the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S versions of Stalker 2's new 2.0 update, and it looks pretty good overall.
It's interesting that the footage in the Xbox Series X video shows a rock-solid 30FPS and 60FPS in Quality and Performance Mode respectively, although this is only in a certain area and not in any "CPU-heavy settlements" as pointed out by one commenter. The Xbox Series S version seems to be potentially the bigger improvement, as even though it's still locked to 30FPS, it appears to provide a less blurry image than in the past at first glance.
As you can probably tell, we haven't had a chance to go hands-on with Stalker 2's new update here at Pure Xbox ourselves just yet, but we're certainly tempted based on this footage. We'd love to hear from you down below about your impressions of the new update, along with what you think of the Cost of Hope DLC if you've bought it!
Here are those two comparison videos if you want to check them out: