OblivionLost.de's Saavik256 has just put this story up for us. Big thanks to him.

Apparently, a patch is available for download. While it's not a real patch, just a beta for testing, it is nontheless the famous 1.1 patch with Freeplay. This patch is currently in Russian only, and it brings many new alterations and fixes to Singleplayer, including the ability to keep playing after getting an ending. It's not as simple as it sounds, reportedly, you get to play a new character and move up in the now-more-important rankings.

Keep in mind, this patch is only in Russian (not sure how it will work with the World Wide version of the game), and is a BETA, meaning it is unfinished.

If anyone wants to test it out, you can take a look at the full story here.

Hopefully the English Beta of the patch will come soon.

This shows that GSC have not in fact abandoned support for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl. Clear Sky is coming, and so are more patches for STALKER.

According to OblivionLost.de's Saavik256,

"Letting certain names of russian-ukrainian S.T.A.L.K.E.R. scene partake in an internal beta test of GSC Game World is a fragile alliance at best, and it bears no surprise that certain titles along the lines of "S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl Patch 1.1 Beta" might pop up.

At Gameru.net where former "Stalker-World.com.ua" resides, a patch can be found for download. Some of you might remember the GSC announcement about starting the beta tests for the patches.

Patch 1.1 is officially still under development, and release date is not yet known. General changes affect singleplayer, with the most interesting inovation being freeplay, allowing you to continue playing after you get one of the endings at the powerplant, which so far was not possible due to the close-ended nature of the game.

As a general rule, we refuse to publish suchlike links. However, with the multitude of leaks in the early stages of development and GSC Game World's rather neutral attitude towards it in such cases, show us, however, that even if we voice against the spreading of leaks, the general reaction is still the same. Therefore, we will not place ourselves in the way of those interested, and so the links to the leaked patch are under Related Links. "


On another note, patch 1.00006 will soon be out. GSC have taken special effort to make sure this patch does not mess up any mods, so good news for mod users and modders. Patch 1.1 is slated to follow after 1.00006.

Links:

Full story - Link 1

Download Patch 1.1 beta from gameru.net - Link 2

Download Patch 1.1 beta from Mirror - Link 3

If you need help installing, BE SURE TO LOOK AT THE "Full Story" PAGE!

The comments explain how to do it.