S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl's 1.5 update has arrived, bringing with it a range of adjustments and fixes, but the real headline is the debut of GSC Game World's modding toolkit – a development that’s capturing everyone’s attention… and occupying a significant amount of storage space.

"Shape the Zone to your liking with the Stalker 2 Zone Kit," announced GSC Game World. "You can modify existing content or build entirely new experiences – from animations and weapons to game mechanics and even the mysterious wonders of the Zone."

Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? It certainly is, provided you have roughly 700GB of free disk space… in addition to the 160GB required to install the base game.

GSC explained that, as part of its collaboration with the modding community, the team is providing a large collection of uncompressed files. This allows mod creators to work directly with the original game assets, a move that ultimately benefits the entire community.

"The significant size of the mod kit is due to the in-game assets being provided in an uncompressed format for mod developers," GSC told PC Gamer. "Given the scale of the game and the sheer volume of assets, the download size is substantial. Since this is the first phase of the Zone Kit, we will look into options for optimizing its size in the future, if feasible."

"We released the Zone Kit as Phase 1 because we aim to develop it in partnership with mod makers," a community representative elaborated on Reddit. "It already includes a wide array of features, but this is only the beginning. Phase 2 will introduce even more possibilities for shaping the Zone through the toolkit."

In our S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl review, we scored the game 8/10, noting, "Beneath the technical issues affecting STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl lies a truly unique and remarkable experience. It stands out as a refreshingly challenging shooter that captivates with its incredible atmosphere and keeps you engaged throughout a long and demanding journey." For more, read about how the development of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 transformed for the studio during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.