Motorcycles and Bicycles Hit the Zone in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2

The Zone is not a place that encourages leisurely travel. There are long stretches of dangerous ground between settlements, and walking them means staying alert for anomalies, mutants, and whatever else might be waiting beyond the next rise. So naturally, somebody has decided the answer is a bicycle. And a couple of old Soviet motorcycles, for good measure.

Zone bikes and bicycle, created by YALOKGAR1 for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, adds four rideable options: a regular bicycle, a smaller kids' bicycle, a Minsk motorcycle, and a Ural that can carry a removable sidecar. Players can switch between first-person riding and a chase camera, with the motorcycles using their own sounds, suspension, and handling behavior. It's a striking addition to a game whose open-world journeys are ordinarily made on foot.

The vehicles have different personalities beyond their appearance. The bicycles are comparatively slow, while the creator lists the Minsk at around 95 km/h and the Ural at up to roughly 105 km/h without its sidecar. Two-wheelers lean through corners, can slide on loose ground, and respond differently to asphalt and rougher surfaces. The sidecar changes how the Ural handles: it resists leaning, pulls under acceleration or braking, and can lift a wheel during a hard turn. That extra passenger space comes with a learning curve, even if there's no passenger-riding system to promise here.

Riding also introduces hazards that make sense for the Zone. Hit an obstacle hard enough and you can be thrown off and injured; a serious crash can cause bleeding. Deep water can stall a motorcycle or stop a bicycle, and a badly judged landing can end a jump in a heap. The vehicles themselves aren't destructible, but the person riding them isn't nearly so fortunate. A shortcut across hostile terrain may save time without being particularly safe.

You don't have to spawn everything from a menu, either. The creator has placed abandoned bikes and motorcycles at several locations around the map, including the Lesser Zone and Garbage. Parked vehicles can be knocked over or stood back up, and the add-on tracks vehicles through a separate garage file shared across saves and new games. That makes them feel a little more like objects belonging to the world rather than temporary speed boosts.

There are some significant technical boundaries. This is a single-player, open-world mod for the Steam version, requiring ReShade 6.8 or newer with full add-on support and DirectX 12. The creator tested it on game build 2.1; on an unrecognized build, the add-on leaves its game features disabled. Its vehicles run on the add-on's own physics rather than a native vehicle system, and NPCs don't ride them. The creator also notes a few visual compromises, including the regular bicycle's fixed fork and the kids' bicycle's non-spinning wheels.

Still, the idea has plenty of character. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 makes distance part of its atmosphere, and these vehicles offer a new way to experience that distance without pretending the Zone has suddenly become safe. A rattling old Ural might get you across the countryside faster. Whether you arrive in one piece is another question.