After a few days with the game, players wonder if A-Life 2.0 is working in STALKER 2. The system is supposed to simulate AI activity in the background and track NPCs and creatures as they travel across the Zone. However, anyone who plays the game will quickly notice that the feature seems to be broken.
How is A-Life supposed to work in STALKER 2?
In the original STALKER trilogy, there were two kinds of NPCS in the game. The first is the type seen in games throughout the industry. These are hand-placed by the developers and make up the inhabitants of bases, quest areas, and other setpieces. The second is controlled by the A-Life system.
In STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, Clear Sky, and Call of Pripyat, A-Life worked by simulating NPCs and creatures throughout the Zone. Even when the player was outside the visual range of an AI entity, the game would track them. So, for example, you could see a uniquely named human NPC at the start of the game and run into them in a completely different location later. Mutants would also migrate across the map in packs. All the AI could also interact, so if opposing factions met each other, a battle between them would be simulated, and you could stumble upon either the fight as it happened or the bloody aftermath. Additionally, if a group of NPCs came across a camp you cleared, they may choose to inhabit it.
Though the simulation was pretty simple, the A-Life system made the STALKER trilogy feel organic, emergent, and immersive in a way no other games could match at the time.
Unfortunately, the developers have been relatively vague about how A-Life 2.0 is supposed to work in STALKER 2. It was assumed that it would be a more complex version of the original system, but that might not be the case.
Is A-Life 2.0 broken in STALKER 2?
Upon release, players quickly noted that the A-Life 2.0 system seems to be buggy or missing entirely. The only “emergent” gameplay found in the game currently is randomly spawning NPCs in extremely close range. If you’ve played for any amount of time, you’ve likely seen enemies appear out of thin air in locations you’ve just cleared. Other than that, the only inhabitants of the zone are pre-placed mutants and human NPCs.
GSC Game World has confirmed that A-Life 2.0 isn’t working as planned in STALKER 2 in the game’s official Discord:
“OK, so I said that A-Life 2.0 is a simulation system for life in the Zone. I see that many of you are asking if it is supposed to work in background and the answer is yes. It supposed to fuel the regions with events, action, migrating groups and etcetra. Right now it doesn’t work and often just spawns fights around you. It is not what we want, A-Life is not supposed to throw action into you, it supposed to set-up fun things that could happen, and when they happen they will feel cool.”
So, apparently, A-Life 2.0 is supposed to work similarly to the original system. However, whether it’s incomplete or missing from the game is unknown. If it were just a bug, we should be able to see some indicator that it’s at least trying to function, but that’s not the case. A user on Reddit spent 10 hours trying to trigger any instance of the A-Life system other than the random close-range spawns and found nothing to indicate it was active at all. We’ve spent around 20 hours in the game so far and can confirm those findings. So, if there are any emergent gameplay systems, then they are almost undoubtedly disabled in the current version of STALKER 2.
In the game’s current condition, there’s no indicator that anything is simulated beyond around 100 meters from the player. This fact becomes more and more apparent as you start acquiring sniper and marksman rifles and realize no enemies spawn at far enough distances to allow sniping to be a viable playstyle.
Hopefully, there’s a quick solution to this issue, and we’ll see a working version of A-Life 2.0 in STALKER 2 soon. However, given that basic gameplay features like stealth are broken, it might be some time before GSC Game World fixes more complex systems.
