Welcome to STALKER! Which GAME and MOD should you Play? 

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You're the reason I discovered GAMMA Cheeki! Will be sending this vid to some of my buddies who want to get into stalker hehe.

As a self-confessed STALKER grognard, this is absolutely spot-on. I think the main worry of a lot of the purists is that the old STALKER experience kind of just gets forgotten about, and Anomaly becomes the new default. I think it's important that we still keep the old STALKER alive, but attacking the newbies or asking them to play all three original games unmodded isn't the way to do it. Your suggestions are absolutely the right middle ground.

I went straight in with GAMMA. First 3 hours was confusing but I chose to be confused starting with GAMMA and don't regret it Coz I love the game and I like my story in the form of breadcrumbs / lore. I can choose to delve deeper when I want but the gameplay keeps me playing. But I bought the trilogy to support the company

I'm so happy for you to get a sponsor! I've been rooting for you since your early Anomaly guides and playthroughs. It's so nice to see you grow! Keep it up Cheeki Breeki!

Being a slav and seeing the world discover this amazing series brings tears to my eyes

Being introduced to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. franchise through Anomaly is like starting to read a book from the very last chapter: you may enjoy the finale, but it has little chance to make sense and will always feel incomplete without the groundwork provided by the previous chapters.

I started with Gamma 3 days ago and I am completely immersed in the amazing world. But I want to learn more of the lore to make the journey more meaningful. I just bought the original games and am starting my new journey today. I will pick back up on Gamma after!

I was always of the opinion that you are free to play or not play as you please in regards to Stalker. But you will definitely miss out on a lot of lore ,fun and of course other amazing mods if you only play Anomaly. God I remember the first time I played Stalkersoup back in 2012, was like a whole new game for me.

I recently started playing STALKER SoC because of you and honestly, It's been a long time since I had this much fun I'm having right now playing through it, the map is immersive and it truly feels like the world around you is alive and real, the game has a great story and a pretty decent variety of weapons for a 2007 game + It's always on sale for like $4.99

100 percent agree, I played the first game years ago and got back into it with GAMMA. The subreddit for STALKER in particular is literally the most negative gaming space I have personally visited on Reddit. So many people hating just because someone hasn't played the original trilogy, or is asking questions about the games/modpacks, etc. For being a legitimate "STALKER" a lot of them sure haven't fucking touched grass.

So happy you got a sponsor!! Cheeki, I say it every video, I'll say it again. You're a blessing to the community and to someone like me, making my STALKER journey for the first time. Thanks for everything, and I can't wait for more lessons from the zone ;)

This rabbit hole is actually pretty hilarious. I've never even heard of the series before that drewski video that blew stalker up big time, but it's kind of amazing to see this huge history that I wasn't apart of. I just started with anomaly around 2 to 3 months ago, and man, even with my constant crashes and issues since I can't stop modding it like it's skyrim, I still cant keep myself away. Pretty much have been playing non-stop since I downloaded it. Great video!

I consider myself a hardcore fan of Stalker and have been playing it for years, yet all I've played is Misery, Anomaly, and now Escape from Pripyat. It's amazing how many mods there are. I'll never forget misery back in the day, especially the cats before 2.2 (I think) lol

I absolutely recommend playing the first 3 games. The events of those three games are actually canon. As much as I love the hell out of Anomaly/GAMMA, the original games deserve exposure for being the reasons why the latest sandbox S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games and mods exist. Anomaly may be the smoothest in terms of experience, but it would never have existed if Shadow of Chernobyl, Clear Sky, or Call of Pripyat never existed.

I dont understand why so many people say Shadow of Chernobyl looks outdated, first time i played it and finished it was end of 2023 to start of 2024 and it looked preety good, maybe I just have low standards but its fine

I'm really happy that You made this video. I've recently pulled a random person from the Internet into STALKER, and I've tried explaining to her how she should begin her adventures in the Zone, but Your video did a much better job of that (I of course sent her the video, duh) :D

If you want to try anamoly , get Dark Signal , gameplay is real close to vanilla with a nice graphics boost and plenty of QOL upgrades.

Relatively new Stalker here (1 month actually) Knew the series thanks to Anomaly, wanted to try it, friends told me to play the original three, and that’s what I did As for mods the only things I really had were ZRP, SRP, and PRP, and weapon reanimation mods so it doesn’t deviate so much from the vanilla experience Recently just finished Call of Pripyat too, and I have to say Shadow of Chernobyl still is my favorite due to it being the most simple of the three

Keep it up bro! so glad you got a sponsor bro, happy to see your channel grow!

Congrats on the sponsor! Been watching you for a while and it's nice to see your efforts giving fruit. I remember telling you you were in a good spot for it a while ago, I'm glad to see it happen.

Congrats on the sponsorship, Cheeki! The channel is really growing! Looking forward for the growth even more when S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 comes out.

Trop fier que tu es un sponsor, bien jouer, ça fait un moment que je te suis, c'est vraiment inspirant !

GAMMA was so confusing for the first few hours but god damn its so much fun. Its like a Stalker RPG, but you're not the main character. You're just another Stalker in the Zone, surviving day to day untill the Zone inevitably claims you. 10/10 everyone should give it a try.

GAMMA: Stalker hardcore Mode focuses on survival elements EFP: Stalker hardcore Mode focuses on shooter elements with optional survival

Was trying to figure out which game to get during the steam sale, thanks for clearing up lots of unknowns and concise overviews along with mod histories!

Congrats on the sponsor :) I only got into stalker in the last year in part because of your vids and started w a lightly modded SOC. It’s been a blast and actually just started CS like 3 days ago

Thank you for everything you do on your channel. I'm a fan of the first hour since the E3 2001, and I find your videos very interesting and relevant. I'm French and I can say that the community is very small.people here know more about the Metro series.but this is changing with the arrival of stalker 2 and the dayz rp servers modded on the term stalker.

I've been a Stalker since December 2021. I strongly recommend first playing the original trilogy, not to understand especially the story, but to understand the gameplay, the way of how the Zone works. If you have to use mods for fixes, like i used for Clear Sky, use them. But first and foremost, play the 3 original games vanilla. After that, you can use all the mods you wish; you can play Anomaly, Gamma, Escape from Prypiat. What i am trying here is those ones who are new in this world to not have an unenjoyable experience when playing the Standalone mods. Have a nice hunting, Stalker☢️ Regards from Argentina

Dude that's the best video I've ever seen, I'd upvote twice if I could. I'm also very happy you finally got a sponsor because you 100% deserve it! I'll keep following you till the end of time, I wanna be here for the whole journey to 25k followers and then 1 million and every milestone in-between. Keep having fun, take care, see you soon bruh =)

Your videos are always top notch mate, it’s good to see you get a sponsor congratulations mate 😊

I love your content dude, very clear and well made. Thanks for this.

Thanks for the video, as a new Stalker player i was thinking about this for many months but didnt know where to start

I started with Clear Sky couple years back, just completed a playthrough of it recently. Now playing GAMMA and I am absolutely addicted with it. Stalkers atmosphere is just too perfect to pass up on experiencing.

bro i havent see the video yet but already liked it because it was what i needed 3 months ago. this will help all the new stalkers so much

Good job, this kind of video was much needed

In the future I'd really like to see a critique of some of the more story driven stalker mods, explaining the way in which they build upon the pre-existing lore and tell a compelling story (I really want to see how they build upon the existing world of stalker in their own unique way). I'm from the western audience who's only played the trilogy (+anomaly) and hasnt explored much into the story driven mods, I only recently started playing spatial anomaly alongside gamma :3

Great vid mate and well done on the first sponsor cheeki breeki 😁👍

lets go cheeki, thanks for this video! Bless up!

Memories of the Zone for Shadow of Chernobyl is a great honorable mention. That was my first STALKER experience and honestly my favorite. There's a great guide for installing it too on the steam community

I learned about Stalker and i started with Anomaly, i then went deep into the lore, learned the most i could to enjoy the universe of Stalker even more and now i am deep into GAMMA with a few adjustments and addons added by myself to grant me the experience i want, i simply love Stalker games regardless and the community, as intense as it can be at times, is one of the best community i have found for a very long time.

Awesome Cheeki Breeki! Love your content bro

I always love watching people explain something about STALKER. Reminds me of the old days when I started playing 😌

Thank you for shining light to new players in this community!

This is exactly what I was looking for, thanks!

Great video. 👌 And since you mentioned it @12:07 : you should make a vid on the 2 groups in the community (east & west). You could answer common questions like 'will they ever get along?' And 'should they?' 🤨

Wonderful! Thank you for explaining all this. Last Stalker game I haven't finish is Clear sky and it's bugs is the reason why. Liked and subscribed!

I was trying to find out the mods, the differences, which ones are recommended, after pages and pages of reading being lost, I just found your video. And thank you very much for your explanations, I see it more clearly and I can better (re)launch myself in this incredible adventure! Good luck to you, thank you again from France!

I played the original trilogy about 6 years ago for the first time and found them to be very interesting lorewise, but as you mentioned slightly dated, which is fine with me as I play other games which are even older than them (I'm in my 30s so some games I play are older than some fellow S.T.A.L.K.E.R.s But mods like Anomaly, EFP and Gamma also have a big merit in my eyes. The original 3 games were other people's stories, whereas with Anomaly for example I'm free to make my own stories. Making different characters in different factions you can make your character have their own goals and impact on the world, even if it's limited to just your playthrough. Whether you're a Merc trying to make it rich, a scientist trying to understand the Zone, or a faithful warrior of the Monolith, you can mold the Zone with your actions. And that's (personally) why I keep returning to the game.

Thanks a lot man! This video is exactly what I needed!

I've been playing call of pripyat and exhausted all the mods that could function on my old potato and stumbled upon your vid after starting shadow of cheronbyl and these mods have helped me enjoy the vanilla experience more ty

This video saved me alot of time and researche, really appriciate it, good work

This video is extremely helpful. I came here to explore the games that inspired Tarkov, and you got me going in the right direction for the Stalker series. I have now started Stalker with ZRP.

Just getting into the game, this helped. Thanks!

I saw Drewski's video about Anomaly and that's how I originally got into the STALKER series. This is all pretty recent. I started with Anomaly, and much like you said I was COMPLETELY lost as to what was going on, but it really only took looking through the PDA and doing a little bit of research to learn what I ultimately needed to know for it. It was definitely an experience on it's own but it got me deeper into the game enough that I have now bought the 3 original games. I'm glad I saw this video because now I know about the specific mods for the original games that fix a lot of issues. I started Shadow of Chernobyl last night for the first time and got to the Railway bridge and basically gave up there for the time being because I cannot for the life of me figure out where my shots are going. I can sometimes be at 20m and go for a pistol chest shot and the NPC wont even react, as if I did nothing at all. Same issue with the AKS-74U and whatnot. I'm hoping the mod you mentioned for it will fix the gunplay at least a little bit because that is what is kind of gatekeeping me from playing the game. If I can't hit you without basically being on top of you that's absolutely ridiculous. After that I jumped straight to Call of Pripyat since I know that's the original game that Anomaly ultimately came from and that is definitely a better experience from the get-go but still has a learning curve with the gunplay. Personally I find that to by far be the weakest point of the original STALKER games. Especially when coming from something like Anomaly or GAMMA, dated is an understatement. It was dated even for it's time. To be honest, I was actually surprised at exactly how different Anomaly/GAMMA is compared to Call of Pripyat. The similarities are obvious, however the differences are even more glaring. I look at Anomaly/GAMMA as completely different games that are just based in the same universe because ultimately, that is what they are. The experiences really cannot be directly compared. Personally from my experience combined with what you mentioned in the video, I would say starting with something like Anomaly is probably fine assuming that if you do have a question, you just look hard for the answer and don't bother actually asking it yourself. It is really unfortunate that it seems the STALKER community has some of the worst gatekeeping of any series that I know of. Either way, I'm loving the series so far, even the original games I'm seeing and enjoying the vision they had for it. I do MUCH prefer Anomaly/GAMMA because of the open world aspect, as well as the SIGNIFICANTLY better gunplay. While I do find myself immersed in the stories in games, I do actually prefer the concept of being far from the center of attention with the ability to essentially craft my own story rather than having to follow a specific narrative. After watching this though, I'm going to try installing ZRP, SRP, and PRP to the 3 original games and probably leave it at that, and then give it a try. Still gonna hop on GAMMA in the mean time as well now that I've gotten the hang of it lol. TL;DR: The original games are pretty cool and if you're into lore, absolutely play them. If you prefer a more free and open world style of game, go for Anomaly. Play it as is, and decide if you like how it is, then think about mods or modpacks you might want to add on. Ultimately, you don't really NEED the full lore behind the original games to understand what's going on in Anomaly though it definitely would not hurt. It just takes some research both on the internet and within your PDA and you'll be fine.

For me personally the best way to enjoy stalker series now is to play Clear Sky LFO which brings lots of new things while still being close to vanilla experience, after that Radiophobia 3 and Gunslinger for CoP. Still everyone should enjoy these games the way they like it. Great video btw

I had always heard of stalker and never really consumed any content on it picking up the og 3 playing shadow of chernobyl amd had a blast despite the age, the atmosphere is i credibly terrifying i love it

Love the videos, mate!

Thanks a lot for this video! I bought all 3 games (Kinguin has good prices for the steam versions). I'm done with Shadow of Chernobyl with ZRP, starting Clear Sky with SRP now =)

Thank you friend, that's exactly what I needed!

Drewski showed me anomaly 2 years ago. i never even noticed the stalker series in stores as a kid i remember seeing the games but never actively investigating them. greatest overlooked trilogy of all time. my answer is play all of them non stop

Мr. Cheeki, you are great! Thank you for this video and for the amazing channel that is helping me to navigate the Stalker rabbit hole.

Excellent video, so glad to see you're just gettin biggera nd bigger

Thanks for this video, as a lifelong gamer who missed STALKER completely, this is a massive help!

stalker Soup gang

Thank you Cheeki for making this video! I just got into the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Iceberg starting of with GAMMA and have watched a lot of beginner guides , including yours, to get into the game and all the lore around it and i found it extremely hard, but i guess that is part of the experience. What I have been missing in GAMMA is the story and to get into that and dive deeper in the lore this video came just in time! Now I’m going to start of with the original triology to get a better grip on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. before i move on to Anomaly and GAMMA.

congrats on the sponsor mate, after finishing your invictus run of GAMMA i look forward to your next hardcore series.

As someone who had basically no knowledge of the story or environment of stalker beyond the Ssethtzeentach video, and just jumped right into anomaly, I loved it. Barely knowing anything about the story and world made it feel super authentic and organic to just wander the world, knowing no more than my character!

Discovered anomaly thanks to you Mr Breeki, and now I'm totally hooked on GAMMA. It's been a wild ride. played the original SoC back when it released but I think it's time for a revisit now before stalker 2 releases

So helpful, thank you!!

congratulations on the sponsor bro! nice video as aways

I remember getting back into STALKER because of Nikolai’s videos, I remember when there was no Anomaly and only a few quest mods to compliment AO3 for CoC.

Good advice! And congrats on your new sponsor. 😀 As "the STALKER guy" in my circle I've answered this question many times, and have landed (more or less) where you have. I do believe new players should start with SoC and CoP at minimum with the *RPs; I personally played CS after CoP and that seemed OK, since I found CS' faction wars tiresome enough to largely ignore when playing. If I know my audience is into game modding or loves the sweet graphics I'll advise them on visual / QoL mods, especially for SoC since they're getting harder to find standalone on ModDB.

Anomaly and then Shadow of Chernobyl with only Autumn Aurora mod is how I started with Stalker, easy to install and SoC-AA plays and looks great.

This is the video I was looking for! I'm stalker educated now !

I love stalker mods that add new maps to the game. If you ever played stalker soup/solyanka then there is alot of maps there. There are hundreds of mods that are not known and you need some digging to find. Its always fun finding something and seeing it work.

thank you man, it help me a lot to get rid confusing :(

Playing vanilla SoC at least once a year since day one and it is not that bad. I still like it. It is like the baseline of Stalker

great video, my man

Great job cheeki, you rock hermano.

thanks Cheeki, very good vid I'll link my friend to ! Indeed, health and good vibes of the community is important : ) Cheers

Wavey's gaming adventure also uploaded a similar video coincidence?

Yo, c'est vraiment cool ce que tu produis. Je prend parfois plus de plaisir à découvrir ton contenu que celui des jeux en eux mêmes. La narration est bonne, tu arrives à créer une très bonne ambiance avec le mélange astucieux de musique mélancolique ainsi qu'une voix douce mais assurée qui pourrait rappeler celle d'un stalker expérimenté voulant bien nous partager un peu de ses tuyaux... J'avoue comme ça on dirait que je veux te pécho mais c'est pas le cas, je veux juste te donner de la force pour continuer à produire ce genre de contenu. Ciao !

Congrats on the sponsor man. Glad to see it.

Genuinely, thank you for this

if you play anomoly first and are willing to read even a little bit here and there of the wiki which you'll inevitably end up at anyway with questions about gameplay. This doesn't take that long you'll figure out the story :there is also one or two youtube channels out there that summarize the lore really well in videos i would imagine also if Stalker 2 ever releases half of its sales will be people who only played anomoly and then went from there this is llike Tarkovs phase when it really started to blow up and people wanted to gate keep it. History repeats my friends great video too.

Goooood Video!!

thanks im new to stalker love from the uk this really helps

Huge congrats on getting a sponsor mate!

Im happy to hear youve got a sponsorship cheeki

I'm glad someone made this kind of video. Personaly, i would recommend playing Autumn Aurora for the first time

I'm just diving into S.T.A.L.K.E.R. for the very first time after being a total Escape from Tarkov addict since it launched in closed Alpha. As I really want to jump into this world and soak in the OG feeling of the game I'll just go with the unmodded trilogy first and then checkout the Anomaly standalone. The realistic weapon behaviour mod which reminds me of EFT is insane. Can't wait to play this mammoth, thanks for this info video. Made my decision way more easy.

I first bought COP, later got SOC and CS. Love the lore, love the inspirations that made the series, love the Metro series. I played Metro 2033 first, then COP! Been a huge fan. Anomaly is cool but won't run on my pc without repeat crashes. Honestly, been playing a lightly modded version of SOC that runs buttery-smooth and has pleasantly nice graphics.

Just started playing STALKER 2 weeks ago. Saw that a new game was coming out, and figured I'd might as well try the series out. The bundle of original 3 games was on sale, and I didn't even realize there were more than those, so that's what I got. Started with Clear Sky, since that was the one first chronologically (yes, heresy, I know). Didn't find out about mods until I was trying to figure out how to capture the depot (the loners almost never actually arrived after killing everyone and, even when they did, the bandits always recaptured it within half an hour despite wiping out every single bandit squad on the map).

Merci mec , je me permet de te répondre en français car avec ton accent à couper au couteau, y a pas de doute que tu sois francophone. Bravo pour ton taff , c'est un plaisir à suivre. Et félicitations pour le sponsoring.

nice video man!!!

i did it completely different the first time i heard about it was on Splattercat´s channel a few years back when he wanted to show stalker off, at first i wasnt interested but when i saw his coverage of GAMMA i knew thats something i would like then i started watching a VOD of his stream and became even more interested thats when i came across channels like yours or drewski and started watching the lore videos (full history, factions, mutants etc) after that i finally downloaded GAMMA and started playing it. i must admit at first i was a bit overwhelmed but when you get a feel for it the game explains itself, im now in my 3rd playthrough attempt and im having tons of fun. however im likely not going to play the older ones since i dont like playing dated games that i dont have at least some nostalgia about. plus the guys in the GAMMA discord are really helpful and dont seem to look down at newer players when you have some admittedly stupid questions like why the freedom guys dont like me after i shot some of them a few hours earlier lmao

i'm here a year later to say i loved the video because i bought shadow of chernobyl and i was lost of how to play the game properly and this video cleared my mind. sorry of my bad english i'm from Brazil

I did not know there were mods which contained all the levels from the 3 original games and finished the original games first before messing with mods. I don't regret it. Without finishing the original games and seeing the story, I wouldn't have liked the mods either. The original games have such great atmosphere and story that while playing the mods such as anomaly, I can see the referances and always compare them to the original. I recommend everyone to play: 1-SOC, 2-Clear Sky, 3-COP first and then start playying either by modding the original games or installing anomaly mod pack since it still has that original feeling. Mess around with the difficulties and different factions in anomaly then you should probbably play the heavily modded packs like gamma.

One thing to consider might also be that the standalone mods are free, so that's great if you're a kid/ on a budget, but you can of course still supports the devs any time when you're able/if you're interested by buying the original titles.