Best STALKER 2 Mods to Install
STALKER 2’s hardcore gameplay and atmosphere make for an incredibly immersive experience. And, with GSC Game World giving the game full mod support, many in the community have already released some must-have mods that not only fix the bugs in the game but further enhance the STALKER experience, allowing players to tailor the game to their liking. Here are the best STALKER 2 mods you should install.
Table of Contents
Stalker Optimizer
This simple mod greatly improves the game’s performance by optimizing the shader compilation process, which should increase your FPS count. While the developers are currently working on some patches to fix this, this mod is a must-have to get a stabler experience.
Grok’s Modular Mutant Health
The mutants in STALKER 2 are big bullet sponges, requiring you to dump 2 to 3 magazines worth of ammo just to kill one Bloodsucker. This mod allows you to decrease their health values, from a small 20% reduction to a significant 80% reduction. These make mutant encounters far less annoying to deal with and can help you save ammo.
Reduced Repair Costs
Repairing weapons and armor in the vanilla game is currently extremely expensive, costing upwards of 10k coupons to fix body armor at 60% durability. This mod further reduces the prices of repairs so that you can save more money for more important things like ammo, gear upgrades, and meds.
Jake’s Longer Days (Plus Quest Pay-Carry Weight-Stam)
The dynamic time system is heavily weighted toward nighttime while daytime only lasts for a few minutes, which can kill your visibility. Not only does this mod equalize daytime to last as long as the night, but it also includes a mod that increases your quest reward payouts and a tweak to your base maximum carry weight and encumbrance.
Maklane’s Better Gunfights
Enemy AI in the game can be very accurate at long ranges and will even shoot through terrain, making sniping very difficult. The mod increases the shot dispersal of NPCs at medium to long range so that they miss their shots more while retaining their close-range accuracy. This makes gunfights out in the open fairer and more balanced for you and the AI.
Reasonable Weapon Degradation
As mentioned earlier, repair costs kill the in-game economy. However, this mod cuts the durability loss of all weapons in half, making your repair runs far less frequent while still keeping that hardcore weapon maintenance part of the game intact.
Axxii’s Stealth Mod
Stealth in STALKER 2 is quite janky at the moment. However, this mod fixes the problem by changing NPC detection values based on weather events, foliage, as well as their behavior when spotting you and breaking line of sight. This makes stealth far more manageable and intuitive for players wanting to fully adopt a sneaky playstyle.
Ledge Grabbing
Certain terrain in the game may seem chest high and easily scaleable, yet the game requires crouch jumping to get past them or using an object to jump over them. This mod adds in a mantle functionality for a completely improved QoL experience when navigating the Zone.
Equalized Aim Sensitivity X-Y
STALKER 2 has a default aim issue where the X and Y-axis mouse sensitivity is asymmetric, making aiming feel janky and weird. The mod adjusts the mouse sensitivity to be balanced, which fixes the inconsistencies in aiming.
More Flexible Trade
The mod allows all friendly NPCs that you can trade with to have more money. It also removes any trade restriction on them, letting you sell broken guns and armor to all merchants in the game, improving the in-game economy and making it more immersive.
