The Tarkovification of stalker was a mistake
gonna go on a rant here, The valid criticism of the game, performance issues and bugs, get drowned out by gamma and eft fanboys whining about A-Life not being perfect, as if it’s the death of the entire franchise. eft fanboys, in particular, keep demanding features that have no place in stalker, treating it like it’s supposed to be some tarkov-lite experience instead of its own thing. Do these masochists even know what made the original stalker games great? Every complaint boils down to “gamma did this, and this game didn’t,” as if that modpack is the definitive version of the series. But here’s the thing, A-Life while ahead of its time and something that should absolutely be fixed in stalker 2, wasn’t the sole thing that defined the originals. The real core of the trilogy was its atmosphere. the tension, the dread, the beauty, the sense of immersion. Without that, the A-Life system would’ve been fucking meaningless. The dynamic world of A-Life only worked because it complemented that atmosphere, not the other way around. The obsession with the endless tarkov comparisons also miss the point entirely. stalker was never about cramming in features for the sake of realism or complexity; it was about creating a world that felt alive, haunting, and unforgettable, being challenging while not being tedious. the GAMMA modpack has completely warped people’s perception of what stalker is, and now they’re rewriting history to fit their nonsense. One review I see: “Far Cry with a stalker skin.” Then the inevitable “I went back to playing GAMMA.” Calling this game “Far Cry with a stalker skin” is lazy criticism at best, and the subreddit’s echo chamber keeps it alive. The game is a mess; it needs performance fixes and A-Life back as soon as possible. But calling it Far Cry and then praising a bloated modpack as a better stalker experience? kindly fuck off for us If you’re saying that, you don’t understand stalker. What you’ve been playing isn’t stalker. It’s a tedious, miserable mishmash of mods that barely resembles the originals. Go back and play Shadow of Chernobyl, Call of Pripyat, or even Clear Sky. Those games weren’t Tarkov clones designed to punish you for existing. They weren’t made tedious just for the sake of it. I blame the people who started the “STALKER is just Tarkov offline” narrative. More than that, I blame GAMMA and its smugass, fuckwad of a creator, grok. I used to defend GAMMA and Anomaly, but now I see the purists were right. I went back to GAMMA, and it doesn’t feel like stalker at all. It feels like it hates the very idea of being stalker. PS: To everyone who drops, “Well, I read Roadside Picnic and watched the Tarkovsky film,” shut the fuck up. You didn’t. And even if you did, you don’t understand them or their history. You just know the games were loosely inspired by them. Congrats on your trivia knowledge. Here’s a ribbon for your participation trophy. Now fuck off.
