Halloween is almost upon us (assuming I post this before the 31st) and like every other site right now I'll be taking a look at one of my favorite horror franchises in gaming: The STALKER series. This series of open-world-rpg-shooters has conjured up some of the scariest, and most organic moments in my gaming career, and I feel like sharing them with you all.
There are three games in the STALKER series, four if you count the fan made remake of the first game. I'll be taking a look at each of them, and discussing what I love, and hate, about this fantastic series of unconventional horror games.
From the Nuclear Ashes
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Man made hell.
originally announced in 2005 and released in 2007, the first game in the series is Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl. Set in an alternate universe where a second Chernobyl explosion occurs and rather then obliterating everything, it creates an ecological wastelands known as The Zone. The Zone serves as the only location for the entire series spanning 60km around the ruins of Chernobyl. Filled with treasures to sell and monsters to hunt The Zone quickly attracts people from every walk of life to come and explore it. These explorers are refered to as Stalkers (Scavenger, Trespasser, Adventurer, Loner, Killer, Explorer, Robber) and they've split into factions based around they're various ideologies concerning the Zone.
You play as The Marked One, a survivor of a truck explosion who wakes up with amnesia. You have only one objective at the beginning of the game: kill a Stalker named Strelok. In order to do so you must complete a number of tasks for the various factions in order to gain intel and access to various areas of the Zone. The story is a little hard to follow at times, not helped by some questionable translations and nonsensical cut scenes that don't reveal that much, but there is one twist, and it's pretty great.
What SoC does excel at is building it's world, and populating it with pure terror. The Zone is one of the most completely realized worlds in gaming, with every inch of it intricately mapped out. There's not one object out of place, and it all feels very surreal when looked at as a whole. It matches the familiar with the alien and creates a sense of unease as your mind tries to understand what you're looking at. A familiar looking factory torn apart by a swirling gravity well, or an average underpass literally spitting flames from no where are just some of the strange landmarks you'll run across. It's a somber and lonely place, with danger around every corner and no-one to help you out. The sun rarely shines in The Zone, and when it does it only illuminates the sadness.
Gameplay wise SoC, and the series in general, is a mix between traditional shooter and RPG. You'll shoot guns at things, that much is true, but there's a lot more to how the game handles your shooting. There's no skills to level up, but each piece of equipment can have an effect on your stats, meaning you'll have to balance out every gun, suit of armor, and buff item you find. The latter, in particular is interesting. The Stalker series contains items called Artifacts, strange alien items spit out by The Zone. These items can be used to buff your character, but often come with side effects. You can run forever, but a single zap of electricity will kill you; you can withstand a shotgun blast, but you constantly build up radiation poisoning. Trying to balance these can be tricky, and it's rewarding when your work pays off.
"Get out of here Stalker"
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maybe steer clear (sky) of this one.
Despite various bugs, and failing to live up to expectations, SoC was a success. A little more then a year later came STALKER: Clear Sky, a prequel to SoC that went more into the early days of The Zone. Unfortunately, you can't make a good game in that time, and Clear Sky was no exception, shipping in a barely functioning state, and filled with bugs for years to come. Often regarded as the worst entry in the series, Clear Sky does have some interesting ideas that largely fall flat. It's big gimmick is the Faction Wars sub-game, in which you can align yourself with any of the game's four "friendly" factions and help them to achieve dominance in The Zone. It's a fun little diversion, but doesn't pay off in the long run. Clear Sky also overhauls the game's human AI, allowing them to take cover and use grenades, making combat a little more hectic. Overall, it's not a horrible game, especially now that it's had upwards of 15 major patches, but probably not the best representation of Stalker available.
Back to The Zone
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Not pictured: abject horror.
After Clear Sky no one knew what would come next for the series. Then, in 2010 Stalker: Call of Prypiat was released, and boy was it ever good. This was finally the game we'd wanted from the start, a huge open world, quests with mutliple decisions, and a simple, easy to follow plot. CoP is, hands down, one of my favorite shooters and an awesome example of an interesting idea done right. Building on the foundations of the previous two entries, CoP doesn't add that much of it's own, but rather is satisfied with fixing the issues of the old games. There's only three levels this time around, but they're massive and filled with secrets to hunt out. This gives the game a much more open feel, and contrasts great when it does throw you into tight quarters. There's fewer sidequests, but each of them is more engaging and all of them have an effect on the world at large. For the first time in the series you get to make choices about where the story is going to go next, and it's a refreshing change from the linear progression of the old titles. Best of all CoP is stable, much more so then the previous games. There's still bugs, but the game rarely crashes, and progression is almost never broken. It's a huge step forward for a game renowned for poor QA.
The expanding Zone
All three games are great, but what really stands out for the STALKER series is the fan-made mods. Not to say that the games aren't good vanilla, but all three of them have exceptional overhauls that create truly amazing experiances.
SoC is enhanced by one of two major mods: either the Autumn Aurora or LURK mods will change the way you play SoC. Autumn Aurora is my personal favorite, overhauling the graphics, adding in new sidequests, and tweaking the AI to be more challenging. LURK, on the other hand, focuses on immersion, removing most of the HUD, giving all weapons their real-world name, and removing artifacts completely. Both are good and it's up to you to decided how you want to play.
When it comes to Clear Sky, the only mod worth talking about is the Road to Limansk collection. This takes all the most popular Clear Sky mods and makes them play nice with each other, adding better graphics, AI, more weapons, and a metric tonne of bug fixes to the game. I highly recommend playing Clear Sky with this rather then vanilla.
My favorite mod for CoP is the MISERY mod. If the name didn't sell it, this is a hard core survival mod, making food a commodity, and combat something to be feared. MISERY is as close, I believe, as we will ever get to a Dark Souls first person shooter. Alternatively, there's also CoP: Reloaded, a more traditional mod that adds new gameplay features, but retains the overall feel of the original game.
Finally, when talking about STALKER mods, a special mention goes to the Lost Alpha mod. What started out as a simple re-addition of promised game features has now spun-off into an entire stand-alone game. It's completely free, thanks to the STALKER IP being in limbo, and if you're thinking about trying out the series there's no better way. Aimed at being what the original version of SoC was, Lost Alpha is a great way to see the world of STALKER and experience the games on a budget.
The horror of being alone
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There's also the horror of being eviscerated, but that's less pervasive.
The STALKER series has always been one of my favorite horror series because of the way it organically creates it's horror. There are no intentional jump-scares in STALKER, only coincidence. STALKER is a true survival horror, in which your survival is one of being constantly scared. Every second could be your last, and every enemy could be your own personal grim reaper. I recommend playing the games on their hardest difficulties, since this really gives you the sense that you could die at a moment's notice. Overcoming this fear is great, but even with a maxed out assault rifle, 1000 rounds of ammo and more grenades then you can shake a pin at, you'll still be frightened by every sound you hear.
More terrifying then the various bandits and beasts that plague you is The Zone itself. There's a feeling of loneliness everywhere you go, and even when your surrounded by other Stalkers, you'll be alone with yourself. The Zone and it's people reject and ignore you, and you're own your own to persevere. You will likely die alone in The Zone, and it won't even register your name.
The STALKER series is far from perfect. Each of the games have some pretty substantial stability issues, and patches and mods only go so far to fix them. At time the AI is goofy, they're hard to understand, and none of the weapons are particularly accurate. What the STALKER series is instead, is unique, terrifying, and brilliant. They're not for everybody, hell, they not for most shooter fans, but people willing to look beyond will truly find some treasures hidden in The Zone.
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