Having recently completed a thorough 100+ hour playthrough of GSC Game World's new open-world survival shooter STALKER 2, I'm happy to say it's exactly the kind of sequel I was hoping for — bigger, bolder, and supremely atmospheric, complete with immensely rewarding exploration and excellent modern gunplay. Even with the AI simulation system A-Life 2.0 broken right now, it shines as one of 2024's best games for Xbox and Windows PC...but it's still missing one feature I've been hoping for since first playing the original STALKER trilogy years ago: co-op multiplayer.
With how fun it is to roam The Zone and its dynamic open spaces solo, it stands to reason that it would be a blast to do it with buddies at your side in co-op, too. It's for that reason that many STALKER fans were hoping GSC would add it to STALKER 2, but ultimately, the developers chose not to, explaining that they feel exploring the dangerous and unpredictable setting alone is important for the STALKER experience.
I don't disagree with this at all — having another person with you would alleviate the typical tension felt while moving through unfamiliar territory or nervously clearing out The Zone's spooky underground laboratories. Yet games like Helldivers 2 (a different kind of shooter, admittedly) prove that you can still have plenty of heart-stopping intensity in co-op, and I'd have loved an opportunity to at least try it in STALKER 2. But while I'm disappointed that co-op is likely never coming to the sequel, I was delighted to recently learn that an extremely ambitious co-op mod for the previous game, Call of Pripyat, has gotten a public release.
That mod is X-Ray Multiplayer Extension, or xrMPE, and you can download the free launcher for it here. To play, you'll first need to enable the Call of Pripyat addon in the Addons tab, then set up a Server with a custom name and password in the Server tab (here are instructions for server setup and useful console commands). Once it's up and running, you and your co-op partners can then connect to it after launching the mod.
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xrMPE supports up to four players, with all of Call of Pripyat's gameplay systems and some of its storytelling adjusted so that everything works properly and is still immersive in multiplayer. One player still controls the game's protagonist — the undercover military soldier Major Alexander Degtyarev — and picks up key quest items to progress the story, but the other three will appear in-game as squadmates sent into The Zone with him.
Something important to note is that due to the fact it was built using an open source version of the STALKER franchise's X-Ray engine, xrMPE is completely independent from retail versions of Call of Pripyat. In other words, you can play the mod without actually buying the game (though I believe everyone should if they can since it's important to support its developers, especially while GSC is being affected by Russia's war in Ukraine).
I haven't tried the mod out with my friends yet (though we're planning to give it a shot soon), but based on all the comments I've read about it on its ModDB page and on Reddit, it sounds like it works near-flawlessly with only some minor bugs and issues that can often be solved with quick save/load cycles. You might experience the occasional disconnect or lag spike, but beyond that, it should be relatively smooth sailing.
This comment from player _qqq__ gave me a laugh: "We've only encountered a few small bugs with UGLs - loaded grenades disappeared after loading a save, and upgrading a gun randomly gave me 30 nades. And one time I sent my friend into orbit by sprinting into him. Other than that, I was very surprised by how seamless the whole thing is."
There have been several extensive efforts to get co-op working in STALKER, and it's awesome to finally see one bear some real fruit. This is basically the mod of my dreams for the series, and as soon as I can get my group together, our journey into The Zone will begin. Hopefully one day there's something like this for STALKER 2, too.
STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl has arrived on Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC, and is one of this year's best Xbox games and best PC games. It has a $59.99 MSRP, but notably, you can get it for a discount at CDKeys right now. You can also play it through Xbox Game Pass, PC Game Pass, and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.
