While nearly everyone in the gaming community has seen the trailers and teasers for Stalker 2, very few have actually played the original trilogy. Before you get the wrong idea, I’m not here to preach how good the first three entries actually are. Rather, I’m going to give you the quick and dirty approach to diving into the world of Stalker without buying any of the games or spending several nights trying to get a hang of the mechanics. Meet, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Anomaly, a standalone mod that aims to be the most stable and customizable experience for fans of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games. It’s powered by the Monolith 64-bit engine, a custom fork of the X-Ray engine.
Players can choose from a variety of ways to play the mod. Play story mode with 4 chapters of interesting quests, sandbox mode if you prefer to make up your own story, or the combat intense warfare mode where factions fight for influence and control over different areas of the zone.
Story
Anomaly is also highly customizable, play it the way you like and have the most fun. There are hundreds of settings that can be tweaked in the options menus and for more advanced changes, there are over 1000 addons for Anomaly that were created by other players to change the experience in more advanced ways.
“Lost to the Zone” Storylines has been added to 1.5 update, with its three installations:
- Part 1: Living Legend: a famous stalker has returned to the Zone. Pursue him in order to obtain his invaluable knowledge.
- Part 2: Mortal Sin: a sinister faction emerges from obscurity to take over the Zone. You are among the few who can stop them.
- Part 3: Operation Afterglow: the Zone attracts a lot of attention. However, some people believe that its many secrets are best kept hidden.
- Part 4: Hollow Boundaries: play as a member of a foreign force to investigate and reveal the secrets of the Zone.
Additionally, you’re free to assist your faction and complete their questlines. The majority of quests will offer info about your targets before accepting, in addition to new types of quests to keep the player busy. Every stage of the storylines will unlock a bonus faction for the player. A new set of achievements have been added to the game as well. Every single level has been reworked to help convey the feeling of an overgrown, relatively undisturbed Zone. The weather system is improved and expanded to offer a variety and an atmospheric feel.
Shaders and visual effects have received major improvements, such as the new gas mask with nice refractions, cracks react to light and raindrops. In addition to better tone mapping, water reflections, new wet surface shaders, and more.
Download and Installation:
Update 1.5.1 is FULL REPACK and STAND-ALONE. Don’t attempt installing it on an older version or other stalker games, just unpack it on an empty folder and play.
- Create a folder for Anomaly, for example, C:\Game\Anomaly
- Download and unpack the repack in the folder you made.
- 2.5. Anomaly 1.5.1 is also available as a torrent download, use this magnet link if you prefer this.
- Start the launcher and select the renderer you want to play with, toggle AVX if you have a powerful CPU
- Start the game and enjoy!
