Have an idea for a mod? Great! S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl uses the Unreal 5 Engine which is widely utilized in the game development industry.
Mods that alter the behaviour of the game by editing the configuration data which the game exposes through various .cfg or .ini files. Edits to these files can completely alter many aspects of the game such as quests, appearance, survival and weapons just to name a few.
| Advantages | Limitations |
|---|---|
| Easy to learn | Global Static Changes |
| No Required Prerequisites | Mod Conflicts are Common |
| Mod Load Order Matters |
Examples of Configuration Mods:
- No Shader Warmup - Skips the startup shader compilation
- Increased Melee Range - Increases knife effective range
Mods that replace existing 3D/2D models, textures or audio assets to alter the appearance of game assets. This includes game assets such as weapons, cloathing, characters and UI elements.
| Advantages | Limitations |
|---|---|
| Artistic Expression | 3D texture design requires understanding of 3D Modeling |
| Simpler than Logic Mods | Most assets will need to be cooked and paked using IOStore pak format |
| 2D Textures and Audio can be added easily |
Examples of Asset Replacement Mods:
- OXA - Oxide's eXpanded Armory - This mod does alot of cool things and it actually is a combination of Configuration, Asset Replacement and Blueprint scripting in a single mod. Asset replacement and addition of new assets to the inventory and lootable items makes it a very apt example of Asset Replacement.
- Cursor of Pripyat - Replaces default cursor with an animated modern take on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat cursor.
Advanced mods which can drastically alter the game logic and interact directly with the Unreal Engine. Scripting mods go beyond the static limitations of the previously defined mod types by allowing dynamic asset manipulation which can be designed to react to and direct the state of practically any game asset. Mod authors can leverage the internal framework of the Unreal Engine and incorperate changes based on player input, game events, settings, UI interaction and more.
There are currently two primary types of Scripting Mods implementations for the game:
Mods designed with the Unreal Engine Editor by creating Blueprint Assets. Blueprints are a visual programming language unique to Unreal Engine that use a node-based interface to create gameplay elements.
Most Blueprint mods will require a mod loader such as UE4SS or SimpleModLoader.
This will most likely not be the case after the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 SDK is released by GSC.
| Advantages | Limitations |
|---|---|
| Dynamically Add, Remove and Modify game assets | Requires general understanding of Blueprint Scripting |
| Read, Alter and React to runtime changes | Needs to be cooked and paked using IOStore pak format |
| No programming language familiarity required | Requires Mod Loader in order to work |
Examples of Blueprint Mods:
- Night Vision - Adds night vision feature
- Dodge - Adds dodging feature
Mods which leverage UE4SS and the Lua Programming Language to define and alter game logic. Lua Mods allow for handling scripting scenarios that are not exposed via Blueprint Nodes. It is recommended to use Blueprints whenever possible as they are native to the Unreal Engine. You can have a mod that leverages both Blueprints and Lua.
Examples of LUA Mods:
- Ultra Plus - Performance and Visual Enhancement mod.
Before you start modding S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl there are a number of tools you may wish to install based on the type of mod you're trying to create.
The Config, Asset Replacement and Logic columns in the following table indicate a required tool with a Yellow shaded value.
Tools with blank values for a particular mod type are not needed nor recommended.
| Name | Description | Config | Asset Replacement | Logic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FModel | open-source software for data-mining games made with Unreal Engine | Y | Y | Y |
| UnrealPak | standalone .pak creation utility | Y | Audio | |
| UAssetGUI | low-level examination and modification of Unreal Engine game assets by hand. | Y | Y | Y |
| Unreal Engine and Editor | Software used to create Unreal Engine games | Textures | Blueprint | |
| UE4SS | Lua scripting system platform, C++ Modding API, SDK generator, blueprint mod loader, live property editor and other dumping utilities for UE4/5 games. | Blueprint Lua |
||
| WWise | Audio creation and sound engine which is used for all game audio in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 | Audio | ||
| GIMP | Open-Source Image Editing Software | Textures |
View all developer documentation for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl