S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (series): Difference between revisions

{{quote| ''"You are approaching the military secured border of an ecological disaster zone."''}}

The game takes place in the Zone of Exclusion (known simply as the Zone) around the infamous Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, a "Man-Made Hell" following the nuclear accident that originally created the Zone, as well as a mysterious second explosion in 2006 which resulted in the creation of bizarre, seemingly impossible space-time anomalies and homicidal mutants.

** Southern Hospitality, the first English Stalker novel, states a nuclear bomb was detonated in Afghanistan and spread the Zone to Kabul.

* [[Always Chaotic Evil]]: Subverted (eventually) with the Bandits and Mercenaries, who ''seem'' this way unless you join the Bandit faction (Clear Sky only), at which point they become neutral to you and you find out that, like everyone else, they're just ordinary folks trying to make a living (although the way they choose to go about it is pretty [[Jerkass|socially unacceptable]]). In fact, in ''Call of Pripyat'', both the Bandits and Mercenaries are neutral to you by default, and won't attack you unless there's a reason to do so (although what they consider a valid reason might not be what you would consider a valid reason). Played straight with the Monolith faction, however.

** The leader of the Mercenaries in Shadow of Chernobyl is rather evil, however, indulging in activities like randomly murdering Stalkers for fun.

** Eventually subverted with the Military in ''Call of Pripyat'' - no longer glorified gangsters torturing and murdering Stalkers for artifacts, they are now your allies (what with you being from the military and all), and while not actively ''friendly'' to Loners, they will, at least, leave them alone.

** One possible option for Major Degtayrev. Knock yourself out with Anabiotic drugs during a blowout thrice, and you'll become "marked by the Zone", allowing you to survive blowouts without shelter (barely).

* [[Back Stab]]: The knife's secondary attack insta-kills unaware or wounded enemies. In ''Shadow of Chernobyl'', [[Good Bad Bugs|it insta-kills everything else, too]] - up to and including ''tanks''. Even better, during Duty's attack on Freedom, you can start the battle early by knifing through a ''solid stone wall'' that you're supposed to use explosives for.

* [[Be Careful What You Wish For]]: In ''Shadow of Chernobyl'' the player can reach the Wish Granter and make a wish. {{spoiler|None of the "wishes" end [[Cruel Twist Ending|well.]]}}

* [[Big Labyrinthine Building]]: The Chernobyl NPP itself. And to a lesser extent, all the labs, too (smaller than NPP, but quite labyrinthine).

** This is also a major [[Shout Out]]/[[Mythology Gag]] toward the original book and Tarkovsky's movie adaptation, where screws and bolts served the same "test-probe" function.

** Don't forget most of the early-mid game weapons, like the [[Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better|MP5, AK-74, AN-94, Walther P99, Browning HiPower, Colt 1911, and TOZ-34.]] None of them are flashy in any way, but all use common ammo types and perform well enough to get the job done.

* [[Brainwash Residue]]: Ex-Monolith squad leader Strider and the rest of his squad. Strider himself is unable to talk in anything but [[Creepy Monotone]], while some of his squad are said to be unable to verbally communicate at all.

* [[Breakable Weapons]]: All guns degrade with use, becoming more prone to jamming and less accurate. Annoyingly, in ''Shadow of Chernobyl'', no one knows how to repair them, so you have to throw your rifle away and get a new one after using it for firing a few dozen magazines of bullets.

* [[Do Not Drop Your Weapon]]: Averted in that severely wounded human NPC characters (the guys rolling around on the floor in need of medkits) will drop their weapons. Of course, if they're not wounded, then they'll hold onto their weapons until they die.

** Also averted by the player: heavy melee hits and some psychic attacks can send your weapon flying halfway across the room. Which is sort of a bad thing, considering whoever tossed your weapon is presumably still right in your face and busy clawing it off.

* [[Downer Ending]]: Clear Sky ends like this, in order to set up the plot for ''Shadow of Chernobyl''. Also, all but two (three if you're charitable) of the endings to ''Shadow of Chernobyl'' are like this.

** ''Call of Pripyat'' has modular ending similar to the one in ''Fallout 2'' consisting of some 20 static scenes. Most of them have "good" and "bad" versions, depending on player's actions during the game. Bad endings for your companions, especially {{spoiler|Strelok}} definitely qualify.

* [[The Evils of Free Will]]: {{spoiler|The Zone came into existence as the direct result of a botched attempt by a team of ex-Soviet scientists to tap into humanity's collective unconscious and manually remove all thoughts and impulses they considered to be dangerous - in essence, they were attempting to create a [[Hive Mind]] under their direct control. The fact that they've literally ripped a hole in reality hasn't caused them to give up in the attempt, either, and they continue to experiment right up until Strelok kills them at the end of ''Shadow of Chernobyl''.}}

* [[Fackler Scale of FPS Realism]]: Heavily on the realistic side (unless you're wearing military-grade combat armor, expect to die after only a few assault rifle shots), with very tactical combat similar to the ''[[Ghost Recon]]'' series.

** [[The Hero]]: Degtyarev.

** [[The Lancer]]: Vano.

** Small supply kits, which are the main source of supplies in the dungeons, sometimes release an insane amount of items upon slashing them open. To the degree you can be ''killed'' or thrown high into the air by stuff flying out of it.

* [[Impairment Shot]]: If you drink vodka, your screen will slowly sway side to side and become blurry for several seconds. Now if you drink as much as 15 or even more, you're going to experience a trip far worse than the 'Shrooms effect from ''[[Rise of the Triad]]''; in other words, your camera will sway violently and the screen will frequently flash white every few seconds, and it's going to take a LONG while for the effects to dissipate. [[Schmuck Bait|You'd BETTER NOT do this while in the middle of combat, an impending emission, or an important mission, as you'll get screwed spectacularly.]]

** On the other hand, it takes about an entire year to reload from empty, grenades can be tricky to come by in significant numbers before hitting Pripyat and getting good rep with the Stalkers in Zaton/Duty in Jupiter... and of course, like the RPG-7, it cannot be upgraded at all and is still quite heavy.

** There's only one though, and if you sell it, [[Lost Forever|you are not getting it back]].

* [[Informed Equipment]]: For some odd reason, player characters ALWAYS wear fingerless gloves in the first person, regardless of armor equipped. This becomes quite noticeable because armor you pick up later in game shows you in third person that you're wearing a full-body radiation suit or gloves that aren't fingerless.

** The Zone is getting worse with each game. ''Clear Sky'' added some more complex anomalies, even those that affect the ground. ''Call of Pripyat'' gives us Chimeras, Burers, and a lot more creative anomalies.

** ''Clear Sky'' also has this as the premise of the plot - someone is making the Zone go crazy, spawning more blowouts that grow bigger and bigger and shutting off access to some well-travelled areas, and Clear Sky wants to find who's doing it, and end them.

* [[Insurmountable Waist Height Fence]]: The 5-foot-tall barbed wire fence that prevents you from exiting each area of the game except via the few designated exit points.

* [[Invulnerable Civilians]]: Majorly averted. Other than the two traders (who sit deep inside neutral bunkers that force you to holster your weapon when you enter), every character in the game world, including major characters, can be killed. Because mutants, bandits, mercenaries, and the military randomly attack Stalker settlements. Luckily for you, you can scavenge their PDA for quests and loot.

* [[Kleptomaniac Hero]]: Although most people keep their really valuable stuff either locked away or actually on their person (and thus inaccessible to the player), you can freely steal food and drink from peoples' tables. Interestingly, no one seems to care.

* [[Knowledge Broker]]: Owl.

* [[Le Parkour]]: A mutant example in the case of Snorks when in attack mode.

* [[Lead the Target]]: Thanks to a detailed ballistic system, this is often a necessity. Have fun learning how to use that VSS Vintorez and the subsonic rounds it fires.

** In the first game, Faction Wars was only available in left-behind code, and could only be restored and made into something functional by mods - for example, Military and Duty will raid Bandit and Merc bases on patrols, Freedom will ask for assistance when attacked by mutants, and so on. It made a return for real in ''Clear Sky'', where devs implanted missions wherein you could try to help the faction grow in power. By the time ''Call of Pripyat'' rolls around, it manages to hold up a dose of realism.

* [[Mildly Military]]: The Freedom faction, which has a command structure of sorts and functions as a paramilitary organization but has no real rank structure and very few rules or regulations. In spite of this they're still quite capable of kicking large amounts of ass.

* [[Multiple Endings]]: The wish you make upon the Wish Granter varies depending on your actions throughout the game. Hoard money, and you'll wish to be rich. Kill all Faction leaders, and you'll wish [[Take Over the World|to rule the world]]. Be an extremely evil character, and you'll wish for mankind to be destroyed (controlled in the English translation). Be an extremely good character, and you'll wish for the Zone to disappear. Of course, all these endings are in fact {{spoiler|Bad Endings, because the Wish Granter is actually an evil Monkey's Paw that uses whatever wish you make against you to destroy you. The true ending involves discovering the secret behind the Wish Granter and the very existence of the Zone itself, and either choosing to join the [[Big Bad]] and help them maintain the Zone, or choosing to defeat the [[Big Bad]] and bring an end to the Zone once and for all.}}

** ''Call of Pripyat'' has a ''[[Fallout]]'' style multi-part ending, telling the fate for each area and major character based on the player's actions throughout the game.

* [[Obvious Beta]]: Both ''Shadow of Chernobyl'' and ''Clear Sky'' were this at release, though they were both eventually patched to full playability. ''Call of Pripyat'' was, [[And the Fandom Rejoiced|fortunately]], playable straight out of the box, because the non-English versions were the [[Obvious Beta]].

* [[Oddly Small Organization]]: Strelok's Loner crew in the backstory was four people if you count Strelok himself, making it the smallest "Faction" of the Zone.

** Of course, actually getting close enough to do so is so difficult that this is [[Useless Useful Spell|practically useless]] unless your target doesn't know you're there.

** Hell, one arena match, you're required to use this attack if you want to survive (you + knife versus some guy with a F2000, the best CQC assault rifle, and an Exo.)

*** You also get several frag grenades in this match... you just don't know it until you're dropped in.

** It's also a surprisingly viable option when forced to engage a Controller up close - all weapons take too long to recock when pulling them back out after a psy attack.

** Female stalkers will apparently appear in STALKER 2.

* [[Order Versus Chaos]]: Duty vs Freedom. Partially subverted in that neither faction is explicitly 'good' or 'bad', Freedom isn't so much chaos as, well, freedom, and there's nothing stopping the player from allying with ''both'' of them.

** However, the underground tunnels beneath the Agroprom Research Institute still somehow have enough emergency power left to keep a few lights on even though the Institute has been abandoned for at least six months.

* [[Reality Is Out to Lunch]]: The Anomalies.

*** Actually, contrary to what some games might tell you, FMJ, or full metal jacket rounds are almost always standard. The 5.45 BP ammunition is the type that chews through the Spetsnaz Berill-5M armor.

** ''F1'' frag grenades have absolutely devastating fragmentation, and you'll most likely die if you use them like in a generic FPS game. At best, you'll have to waste a bandage. You ''always'' need to find solid cover if you're gonna use these.

* [[Save Scumming]]: The Quick Save button is your saviour. It's not uncommon that by starting a fight, quicksaving, and quickloading again, they will completely forget that you just shot their buddy to steal his gun, and offer you a nice hot radioactive cup of tea. Due to the fact that it's entirely possible, in fact VERY probable, that mission-critical NPCs, friends, whole camps will rise and fall almost randomly, saving often is a must.

* [[Scenery Gorn]]

* [[See the Invisible]]: You've got trouble with bloodsuckers? Run into water and watch their trails appear on the surface. There's also the crosshair which turns red if you're looking at an enemy, invisible or not.

* [[Sinister Geometry]]: The Monolith.

** In ''Shadow of Chernobyl'', one of the easiest ways to obtain a semi-decent weapon right off the bat is to raid the military base that's at the far end of the road in Cordon, the newbie area. A dozen-plus soldiers, and if you're good about staying under cover, you might not take any damage at all. Unless the Spetznaz are there, which can happen. If you kill ''them'', though, you should be set on weapons for half the game. Eventually, when you return to Sidorovich halfway through the game, you ''are'' going to have to raid it. You'll make a neat profit off it, even if Sidorovich is rather tightwadded.

* [[Vader Breath]] - The player, whenever they equip anything with a gas mask.

** Another jarring but subtle occurrence of this happens near the end of the ''Call of Pripyat'' main storyline. In one of the missions, you will be sent out with a couple of troopers to ambush {{spoiler|and get ambushed by}} a Monolith patrol. If you lose a few or all of them, the atmosphere back at base goes from lively conversation to solemn silence.

** Also in ''Call of Pripyat'', you can find a group of mercenaries camping in a substation in Zaton who badly need a day's supply of food. If you manage to give them what they need, {{spoiler|not only do they welcome you to their camp (and allow you to grab one of three important toolkits for an important sidequest), but later on, when another group of mercenaries have left their duty of guarding a scientist bunker in Yanov, you can even recruit these Zaton mercenaries to guard that bunker. If you do, they'll gladly accept you into their new encampment.}}

* [[Wasteland Elder]]: A few have shades of this, with Beard from ''Call of Pripyat'' being closest to this trope.

* [[We Can Rule Together]]: {{spoiler|After Strelok successfully discovers the C-Consciousness and makes his way to their control center, they offer him an opportunity to join them in their efforts to create a species-wide [[Hive Mind]]. Canonically, he refuses, and then proceeds to fight his way through their entire guard force before killing the entire Consciousness with assault rifle fire while they sit helpless in their pods.}}

** In the same game, you can tell Petruha and the rookie stalker squad to not assist you on your assault on the makeshift bandit base. Petruha will tell you off for being a [[Shout Out|Rambo wannabe]]. If you manage to wipe the base out singlehandedly (which is quite a feat on harder difficulties), Petruha will be astonished. If you come back before killing all the bandits, Petruha will mock you and tell you to piss off.

* [[Wide Open Sandbox]]: For the most part. More restrictive than Fallout, but has more overall quests, an active ecosystem, and, occasionally, people fighting desperate battles against each other/mutants.

* [[With This Herring]]: Averted. In first and second installment you start as accident victim theoretically indebted to your helpers. In the third you are equipped with average gear quite well suited for your default task.

** The scientist merchant at Yantar. ''"Hello? Hello."''

* [[Zombie Gait]]:

{{quote| ''...it's so cold here...''<br />

''...just one more artifact, aarrrgh, then I would...'' }}