Stalker 2 Patch Notes 1.7.1 Deliver Stability Gains And Visual Fixes

STALKER 2 Patch notes 1.7.1 arrive with a focused round of stability work and corrective updates as GSC Game World continues to refine Heart of Chornobyl. The studio issued the patch across all platforms, framing it as a response to persistent crash reports, visual defects, and launch problems linked to mod conflicts. The update adds a fail-safe for cases where incompatible files stop the game from starting, a small change that lands as a practical safeguard for players who rely on community modifications.

The patch targets several recurring issues that influenced basic play. The team resolved a series of controller dead zone faults on DualSense hardware and cleared up behavior tied to overweight movement, an error that previously allowed sprinting despite exceeded carry limits. Environmental stability sees improvements as well. Power lines no longer vanish when approached, and a ground-spawn bug that pushed artifacts below terrain has been corrected. NPC behavior has also been steadied: Ward soldiers now support Skif correctly during the Assault on the Duga mission, and a teleport glitch during Wishful Thinking has been removed.

Work on visual consistency continues with fixes applied to cutscenes and mission sequences. Skif’s hands no longer render with distorted shadows during Back to the Slag Heap, and flickering textures on staircases in the same mission have been cleaned up. The studio also addressed an error that created artifacts on Richter in The Price Goes Up. Graphics settings now display accurate values after auto-detect or reset, closing a small but persistent interface issue. One of the more significant corrections removes a major performance hit triggered by opening the PDA at Epic shadow quality, a flaw that produced abrupt frame drops on higher-end systems.

Stalker 2 1.71 Update Patch Notes (Source: Steam):

• Introduced fail-safe mechanism for cases where mod incompatibility prevents users from launching title
• Fixed an issue where the power lines could disappear on approach
• Fixed an issue where the Ward NPC could teleport in the player’s field of view after killing noontiders during the Wishful Thinking mission
• Fixed an issue where the Ward soldiers could not help Skif to hold position during the Assault On The Duga mission
• Fixed a massive performance drop on opening PDA while the Shadows option is set to Epic
• Fixed an issue where the player could sprint while overweighted with loot
• Fixed an issue where the player could observe texture flickering on the staircase after the cutscene during the Back To The Slag Heap mission
• Fixed an issue where the player could have visual artifacts on Richter during the cinematic in The Price Goes Up mission
• Fixed shadows on Skif’s hands during the cutscene in the Back To The Slag Heap mission
• Fixed an issue where the player could use weapon attachments from the trade window
• Fixed an issue where the settings values could be displayed incorrectly after using the auto-detect or reset settings features
• Fixed an issue that could cause artifacts to spawn under the ground
• Fixed several issues with dead zone settings for the DualSense controller
• Fixed crashes

GSC Game World highlights the patch as part of its ongoing effort to stabilize the game following continued bug reports from the release period. Steam users will receive the update automatically. The complete changelog reflects a concise set of targeted repairs aimed at smoothing moment-to-moment interaction and removing friction in story missions.