STALKER has developed a strong modding scene with an appropriately devil-may-care attitude regarding the reuse of each other’s work, and even the legal status of the games themselves. The series puts you in the shoes of freelancing mercenaries – the titular STALKERs – wandering this horrific environment in search of fame, glory, or perhaps just a big payout. It is memorable for being set in a fictionalised and incredibly haunted vision of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, which is not only irradiated but overrun with reality-warping anomalies and mutant monsters.
It’s been nearly a decade since the launch of STALKER: Call of Pripyat, the last of Ukrainian studio GSC Game World’s trilogy of bleak and atmospheric open-world survival shooters.
