Find out where it all began with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Legends of the Zone Trilogy

One of the biggest questions in the last 20 years of gaming is what developers should do with the expanding scope of in-game worlds made possible by advances in technology. The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games have offered one of the most compelling answers to that question, and they’re now live on the Epic Games Store in their definitive versions via the Legends of the Zone bundle. 

Its component parts are a trio of horror-tinged first-person shooters that all used the newfound real estate of the late noughties to create a unique sense of atmosphere. Each vividly brings to life an irradiated wasteland where life-threatening anomalous phenomena and mutants lurk, and where the pickings are rich for the amoral mercenaries either hardy or foolish enough to explore it. 

The Exclusion Zone where 2007’s S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chornobyl, the 2008 follow-up S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, and 2009’s S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat are all set is a place that’s distinct from the many other nuclear wastelands in gaming, and its disparate range of influences can be credited for that. 

The most obvious is of course the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, in which a flawed nuclear reactor design triggered a power surge during a routine test that led to an explosion with a global impact. The aftermath of the explosion and hazardous radiation in the atmosphere left a cultural mark across Europe, and in its wake, a 1,000-square-mile Exclusion Zone was established and evacuated. Experts advise that the area will be safe for human habitation again in anywhere from 3,000 to 20,000 years. 

Now largely reclaimed by nature and still bearing the buildings and regalia of a bygone Soviet era, it holds a unique draw that once pulled in over 70,000 tourists each year. It is, then, a rather good location to set a moody shooter.

GSC Game World drew particular influence from Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s 1972 novel Roadside Picnic, in which an extraterrestrial has visited without the nearby population noticing, leaving behind strange and dangerous anomalies as well as artifacts that seem to defy the laws of physics. (The book’s title is an analogy that likens the humans exploring these phenomena to animals investigating the remnants of the eponymous picnic.)

Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1979 film Stalker was a loose adaptation of the Strugatsky brothers’ work and another clear inspiration for GSC. In the film, mercenaries known as Stalkers operate within the Zone in a kind of post-nuclear Sherpa capacity, leading explorers towards the room in its center where it’s rumored that anyone who enters will have all their wishes granted. 

Nearly 20 years—and a countless number of apocalyptic games—after S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chornobyl released, its setting still feels utterly distinct and sharply drawn. And that’s important because, in these games, so much of the intrinsic enjoyment of playing them comes from just inhabiting the place.

In 2007, gamers still had a sense of wonder about open worlds. They didn’t know what developers would do with all that new available territory, so journeying into a game like Shadow of Chornobyl and its contemporaries like Crysis felt like a trip into the genuine unknown. 

While the latter constructed sequences of semi-scripted gameplay within a larger world map, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. did things differently. It didn’t command its best features to shout over each other for your attention, as many games did during that period with their cluttered mini-maps. It’s dour and melancholy, notably understated. Its qualities don’t reveal themselves until you go out and find them. When you do, there are nontraditionally beautiful vistas, fascinating anomalies to observe, a slow-burn story about tracking down the mysterious Stalker Strelok, and numerous eerie facilities where unspecified sinister experiments took place. The game lets you discover all of it at your own pace. In short: It trusts in your curiosity. 

A passionate cult following has formed around that trust. It remains very rare for a game to treat you with such respect and leave you to figure things out as you go. And there’s a lot to figure out. 

The combat in all three titles in the trilogy has half an eye on Arma and Operation Flashpoint’s military rigor. Shooting from the hip offers terrible accuracy, so you need to aim down your sights to hit your target. There are lean controls for peeking out of cover, and a weapon degradation system that sees their effectiveness decrease over time unless you repair them.

Add to that the ruthlessness of the enemies you’ll encounter in the Exclusion Zone, and you’re in for a hardcore tactical experience. Stalkers who run and gun rarely live to tell the tale. 

Since the original vision for Shadow of Chornobyl had to be pared back to focus on squashing bugs and making what was there as functional as possible—an endeavor GSC achieved with varying success at launch—the 2008 sequel Clear Sky was a chance for the Ukrainian studio to realize its ambitious vision with more fidelity. This time, the player occupies the role of Scar, a guardian of the Zone’s center and its wish-granting powers. They’re among some familiar locations that were carried over from the first game, but supplemented by new areas like the town of Limansk.

Whereas the original’s factions system boiled down to how annoyed each group was with you, in Clear Sky, there’s an ongoing and dynamic faction war mechanic. Each group vies for territory, their boundaries changing throughout the course of the game, and the player can join the fight and impact how much territory each group holds. Together with customizable weapons and armor, this system showed a newfound sophistication to match the immersive atmosphere.

Then in 2009 came Call of Pripyat. Now playing as Major Alexander Degtyarev, the player’s tasked with investigating the crash sites of several military helicopters sent to secure the Zone after the events of Shadow of Chornobyl caused a huge influx of Stalkers looking to scavenge valuable artifacts. Now with overhauled enemy AI, more complex upgrade and faction systems, and a revised trading economy, it showed GSC’s third riff on realizing the same darkly fascinating location.

Although the trilogy tells three stories about three different protagonists, in a way, they also feel like three attempts to perfect the same gameplay experience. These were the pre-live service days, when the game that was released onto discs and found its way into stores was more or less final. No significant evolutions or dramatic left-turns like Fortnite were feasible after launch day. That meant GSC’s approach to the sequels made sense. It also meant that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. players had to live with a lot of bugs for a long time. 

Which is where the Legends of the Zone bundle comes in. Now available on the Epic Games Store, it offers each title of the original trilogy in its Enhanced Edition form, making this the definitive way to play each game. Featuring more responsive controls, improved performance for PC, many squashed bugs, and improved UI responsiveness for each title, the bundle cuts to the heart of GSC’s unique and uncompromising vision for how first-person shooters should use open worlds, and lets the player immerse themselves deeper into the Zone than ever before.