10 Recent Video Games With Disastrous Launches You Didn't Realise Got Fixed

It's been incredibly easy to cut S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl some slack, given that the game's development was heavily impacted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where its staff are primarily located.

It wasn't terribly surprising that the long-awaited survival horror sequel launched in a bit of a rough state, though given its numerous delays, there was still surprise at just how much of a mess the day-one product actually was.

Even beefy gaming rigs struggled to maintain consistent performance, while gameplay was riddled with bugs from basic AI glitches to gunfire randomly not making a sound.

The opinion of many critics on launch was that while the core experience was fun and immersive, consumers spending money should absolutely wait for some patches.

Developer GSC Game World did however release a monumental patch just a month after launch, which included a mind-boggling 1,700 fixes, and in February a second major update remedied another 1,800 issues primarily related to AI and performance.

On one hand the effort is commendable, but on the other, it demonstrates just how broken S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was when it first went out the door.