S.T.A.L.K.E.R Anomaly is Addicting

So recently, over the past couple of weeks, I have been very deep into the world of stalker Anomaly. I’ve known about the game for some time now, and had played it very little maybe a year ago. But this year, I wanted to really sit down and take some time to put into the game. For those who may not know, Stalker Anomaly is a standalone game in the Stalker franchise. I’ll leave a link to the ModDB page in case you’re curious and want to check it out for yourself. Now, I have no knowledge of the game, the world, the lore; any of it. I just know that you’re in what’s called “the zone” and you need to fight mutants, other factions and do your best to survive and thrive in the world. And man, have I very quickly become addicted to this game.

Now, I should mention this sooner rather than later, I am playing a modded version of Stalker Anomaly called Escape from Pripyat, or EFP for short. This basically adds more weapons and functions to the game that are closer to Escape From Tarkov; you can tell just by the name alone. There is another more recent mod pack called the Gamma mod pack, and while that one is interesting, I figured as a first-time player, EFP made a little more sense for what I was looking to get out of stalker. EFP focuses more on the gunplay and action while you’re in the zone, and Gamma is all about scavenging and crafting your gear because most of it is inaccessible from any vendor. The first thing about Stalker that enticed me to even try it, was the variety of weapons and locations that are scattered throughout the in-game map. It has the same vibe as something like Dayz where when you start, you are usually in the southern parts of the map, and you progress through the game and head up north. The further north you go, the more difficult challenges you will encounter, but the better loot you will find. Because looting in stalker is very important to your success. Whether that’s finding stashes hidden throughout the world, or looting those that you kill. When you make a new character, you can select what faction you want to be a part of and that alone affects your starting gear you can select, as well as the relations you have with other factions. I went with the Loner faction because everyone says if you’re new, it’s a great first playthrough. But there are a ton of options to choose from. I do at some point want to try the Monolith because their faction hates literally everyone except their own and I think that’s incredibly interesting. And I think the best thing about this or any of the mod packs you can download, is their insane level of modularity. You can modify everything in the game. And when I say everything, I mean everything. From how quickly your skills level up, to the difficulty and number of enemies, to the rewards you get for completing quests. The vendors and what they sell, how much things are to buy, and how much you get from selling; it’s kind of overwhelming how much control you have over your experience. But it’s something I’ve come to really appreciate, as I’ve been making slight adjustments to facilitate my wants for the stalker experience. For example, I have a lot of weapons that are low durability, and therefore under normal settings, most vendors won’t even take them. I went into the settings, and made it so that they can take them, even if they only give me a couple thousand rubles for them. At least now, guns have value to them, even if they are beaten up and broken. So, you have complete control over the pacing of the game, how you progress, and what is available to you and how quickly it is. But the game itself is also incredibly interesting, if not a little frustrating at times,

It’s your standard FPS game with looting elements, while also having healing and food mechanics on top. In addition, there are also environmental hazards you need to be aware of whilst you play called “anomalies”. Anything from radiation spots, to electricity, and whirlwind tornados that will throw you around if you aren’t careful. There are a lot of things to watch out for while you are just walking around, which all kill you pretty much instantly. However, what EFP brings to the table are some Tarkov elements to the game; having to manage magazines and loading them instead of just having ammo on you and being able to reload as you please. An adjusted healing and limb system where again, like Tarkov, losing limbs will affect your ability to walk, aim, shoot, and overall health of your character. When you start out, you basically have nothing, and you really need to work for your gear. It’s definitely a coming up kind of story, but I think for stalker, it should be this way. Starting with nothing and working your way up slowly, fighting bandits, and raiders trying to scrounge for any gear that can keep you going and get ahead. I got really lucky with an early game SVD off a bandit, and that gun carried my ass through the first handful of hours. And now I’m over 25+ hours and I’ve done maybe two of the main quests for the game’s story. It's wild how sidetracked you can get and go down a rabbit hole of doing tasks for a vendor, traveling to the other side of the map, killing, looting and getting other tasks for other stalkers along the way. The furthest I’ve made it north is to a place called the Military Warehouse. I haven’t even tried to go further north because it’s been such a struggle. So, I’ve spent a lot of my time in the south trying to make money and upgrade my gear as much as possible before I venture up there again and see what happens. But that’s the thing: even though I walk around in what feels like circles, I’ve been enjoying it so much.

Anomaly has been a blast getting sucked into. Getting lost and just walking around the different areas of the game and seeing what’s around. I haven’t had this experience with a single player game since Elden Ring came out last year. This takes me back to playing older Bethesda games like Fallout 3 and Skyrim. Where it’s very obvious where I need to go and what I need to do. But I kind of forgo all that and just do a ton of side content in the game to get stronger and to just experience the world I am in. Stalker’s world isn’t anything nice either; it’s depressing, dark, dreadful, and everything wants to kill you. But finding a camp or base where other stalkers have come to reside, talking to them and seeing what they have to sell or if they have anything they want done. Kind of a we’re all in this together. Even though you will watch countless factions fight one another and just slaughter each other for whatever scraps they have on them. Each faction has their own lore and while again, I know nothing about any of it, having each faction have their own reasons for what they do is always cool and appreciated.

I hope to get really into this game, because I think like Tarkov, it’s an open sandbox for interesting story telling, and especially for making entertaining videos, it feels like such a perfect fit. So, another reason I wanted to play was for the potential to make cool stuff with it. Expect future videos about Stalker in the future, about what? I’m not entirely sure; I want to get further into the game and figure it out later. But for anyone who is even remotely interested in what I’ve said or watched, I highly recommend trying out at least the base game of Anomaly. It’s very easy to setup and there are plenty of tutorials out there to assist you. I went straight in with a mod pack because I had a very specific vision in my head that I wanted to try and capture. Even though it took me like 5 hours to setup and get right because I’m stupid, I’d say it was worth it in the end. The game is awesome, and I look forward to trying other mod packs, factions, and anything else the game has to offer. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to watch this video, let me know in the comments if you’re a veteran of the series of new like me. And be sure to subscribe for more videos about the zone and the kinds of stories I would like to tell down the line. I hope to see you in future ones.