The latest cinematic trailer for STALKER 2, released several days ago, has reignited gamer interest in S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl, a cult classic survival FPS about roguish mercenaries who scavenge artifact and treasures from the Zone, a mysterious no-man's land scarred by radiation and distortions in reality. Not everyone knows that the Stalker media franchise has been around since the 1970's, starting out as a bestselling Russian sci-fi novel before getting adapted into a movie, tv shows, video games, and even a tabletop RPG.
Each work of fiction in the Stalker franchise has a different premise and cast of characters, but always shares two common elements: a mysterious Zone and the Stalkers who explore it. The Zone is always hostile to human habitation, filled with strange hazards like radiation, monsters, flesh-dissolving slime, frozen lightning, or pockets of amplified gravity. The Stalkers are always illegal prospectors, sneaking through government cordons to scavenge strange artifacts and impossible pieces of technology to sell on the black market. Cynical-yet-romantic souls, these veteran Stalkers check for invisible traps in the Zone by tossing metal bolts where they intend to walk.
The Roadside Picnic book and Stalker movie came out well before the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, but this real-life nuclear disaster colored subsequent adaptations ever since. Like in most iterations of Stalker fiction, the vast Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is illegal to enter without special permission, but groups of self-proclaimed "stalkers" regularly sneak in to scavenge Soviet-era relics from the abandoned towns and experience the hauntingly beautiful wilderness that has grown over the ruins of civilization. These eerie real-world parallels demonstrate just how prescient the Strugatsky brothers were when they wrote Roadside Picnic back in Soviet-era Russia.
Roadside Picnic: The Bestselling Novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
Arkady and Boris Strugatksy, famed luminaries of the Russian science fiction community, hit upon the concept for their most famous work through a intriguing First Contact premise: what if aliens visited Earth, departed, and left behind strange artifacts for humans to scavenge, much like rodents and ants would pick through the trash left behind after an outdoor picnic? From this premise came the 1972 novel Roadside Picnic, in which Stalkers brave the impossible hazards of the Zones to plunder advanced technology and search for the fabled wish-granting Golden Sphere.
Stalker: the Critically Acclaimed Movie by Andrei Tarkovsky
When Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky set out to adapt Roadside Picnic to the big screen, he was less interested in special effects than he was in the psychological depths and motivations of people who would explore a forbidden Zone. Accordingly, Stalker (1979) revolves around three people who enter the Zone in search of the Room, said to grant the wishes of those who step inside. The Professor seeks to conquer the ineffable nature of the Zone, the Writer seeks inspiration from the Zone's uncivilized beauty, and the Stalker guides souls through the Zone to give himself and the hopeless hope.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl – The FPS Franchise
When Ukrainian game studio GSC Game World started work on S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl, their goal was to combine the themes of Roadside Picnic and the Stalker film with the post-apocalyptic visuals of real-world nuclear disasters. Fittingly, their loose first-person shooter adaptation takes place in the Fallout-esque Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, rendered even more dangerous by a second (fictional) disaster that created mutant monsters and distortions in the laws of physics.
Judging by trailer footage and dev interviews, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 will be a modern take on Shadow of Chernobyl, in which the protagonist must unravel the secrets of the perilous Zone and deal with rival factions of Stalkers who have their own ideas on what to do with the Zone. To progress through this open world post-apocalyptic shooter, players will need to keep a close eye on their Geiger counter, one hand on their gun, and the other ready to throw a bolt ahead of them.