Why Is Stalker Anomaly So Popular? 

Wow. This video resonated with a lot more of you than anticipated. I hope you enjoyed the video, and welcome to the channel!

Anomaly is great but the problem is it gives people a wrong idea what Stalker is and i think many will be disappointed by Stalker 2 because of it.

Another critique that Anomaly gets, from the Stalker purists especially, is how drastically different Anomaly is compared to the OG trilogy. Anomaly is far from Stalker but prettier, it's fundamentally a different experience, just set in the same setting. Now look, this is definitely not a problem on it's own, Anomaly is fantastic and a breath of fresh air to veterans who've gotten bored of replaying the OGs; the problem comes from rookies who's introduction to the series is Anomaly, who then assume certain things that Anomaly introduced to the series were always part of the series, like super hardcore survival mechanics, a lack of story, and certain lore elements. It's the opposite; the OG games have surprisingly simple mechanics, where most of the difficulty comes from the combat, and all 3 games have fascinating stories and lore, and even get a bit philosophical if you dive deep enough. And some of the lore Anomaly adds contradicts/ruins OG lore and is obviously not canon, since it's fan lore. This divide of OG fans and Anomaly newbies especially has the chance of becoming a problem when Stalker 2 comes out, since all said Anomaly newbies will see S2 as a """downgrade""" to Anomaly, since it won't have a bajillion tacticool AK variants or a complex health or repair system, even through S2 is a sequel to the OG games and NOT Anomaly. Multiple Stalker YT channels like Anomalous Dugout and Can't Game Right have made videos about this. So yeah, TL;DR, peeps who get into Stalker via Anomaly will have the wrong idea about what the series is all about, and might even dunk on S2 unfairly because it isn't Anomaly 2.0. Solution? Play the OG games first. Not only are they the best way to get into the series since they're absolutely not as hardcore as Anomaly, the bigger story focus will also work much better in getting peeps actually invested in the Zone and it's stories compared to Anomaly. Again, Anomaly is frickin great. Just don't skip three whole games to play it first, and then complain about having a hard time getting into it; Anomaly was made with the assumption that anyone who's playing it has played the OGs first, and it's familiar with the dangers of the Zone. And don't miss out on the great stories and world building of the trilogy, which Stalker 2 will build on as well. Good hunting stalkers.

anomaly is a solid base for mod packs - like "guns blazin" EFP and more hardcore slow-paced GAMMA. misery 2.1.2 will forever be my favorite stalker mod though.

I have my gripes with gamma, I think normal anomaly is the best experience, but that's just my opinion, anyway I have noticed something, this game has a VERY HIGH rate of turning people new to the franchise to instant fanatics of it. Every person I've introduced stalker to reported being addicted a week or 2 later. I always recommend people the vanilla games first to learn the world, as to avoid that "this game is too hard and unintuitive" effect which puts many off, but hey, I guess I can't really blame them, more content and "polish" all for free. It's nice to see the popularity of the game leaking into the western world, even if it is heavily modified, but this will definitely get a lot more people on the stalker 2 hype train, because man, GSC deserve a god damn medal for what they've created.

I started my gamma trek last month... I'm hooked.. I had to restart to brand new games several times until understanding how to maintain your equipment. but after figuring out I have set a goal to go north and see the sarcophagus of chernobly. I'm actually excited to accomplish this.

I dont see how ppl could hate it

I started out with oblivion lost back in 2010 then quickly switched to super mod pack (smp) once I finished the game. The story of SoC got me hooked which made me buy the other 2 games. 13 years later I randomly come across stalker videos and end up discovering Anomaly and GAMMA and man, the experience is hardcore. Been having a blast and I think I'm addicted to stalker again.

small pet peeve but Anomaly isnt a Shadow of chernobyl mod, its a standalone mod(pack) based around Call of chernobyl, a sandbox freeplay mod itself of Call of pripyat, the last entry in the series. just a small detail for those interested in the evolution of stalker mods, otherwise fantastic video

Okay one thing here is misleading - Anomaly isn't hardcore, or rather it is right out of the box, but just diving into game options you can make it very casual and much easier game.

This moded game make most of AAA games feels pathetic, backward and sad.

@bluetherobot In this particular video do you only have Anomaly and EFT mods installed or there is some other mods also, if so can you provide a list of all of them you are using in this video?

I know there are popular modpacks for Anomaly such as G.A.M.M.A. and the lesser-known modpack called "EFP" (Escape from Pripyat).

Yoooo my guy. Wild to see you in ny recommended. Good to hear ya again :D And to gove my two cents, in obsessed with Anomaly. 10/10 from me

As a player of the original in 2007, and the subsequent games, I fucking love Anomaly and GAMMA. Firstly the fact it flipped the AK working parts from left to right but also, ITS FUCKING AWESOME.

Stalker anomaly feels like what you remember of the first time you played stalker

Just a well rounded summation, good vid 👍

does anyone know what causes the faint glass tapping noise that occurs when walking or running on dirt? I cant ignore it and it's driving me mad!

I was new to STALKER and really thankful that Anomaly exists. The A-life system is incredible and the mod lets you tweak various AI-settings. I was amazed to see that shooting enemies in the legs forces them to stumble. So much effort went into making it timeless

Man I just recently started stalker anomaly I'm trying to turn off the helmets overlay and can't find out how

I've had the Stalker trilogy in my GOG library for years but never really got around to checking them out. But lately I've been getting into "Into the Radius VR" which shares a lot of inspiration with the Stalker games, and I've started to really feel like I should play them. But I'm not sure if I should just play the originals, or one of the standalone mods like Anomoly, Gamma, or True Stalker. I've gotten used to Radius' tactile base system, where your weapon stash is a physical place where you can place your weapons and gear where you want them, you can physically clean your guns with a brush and rod, and you need to keep up with empty magazines so you can reload them. Which of these experiences would be the closest to that outside of VR?

great video man!

I think the hate comes from the fact that some people think this is what stalker was originally supposed to be like. Original stalker games were supposed to tell a story of important characters while keeping the atmosphere and gameplay good, but still focusing on the story. Anomaly tries to make you feel like it's your story with complete freedom over your choices, and it tries to make you feel what would it be like to be an average stalker in zone, while bumping up the immersion to the MAX. I also heard that people hate anomaly because it's a sandbox, they can't get immersed, there's nothing to do, they have no goals.

Greetings from someone who was introduced to S.T.A.L.K.E.R by S.T.A.L.K.E.R Anomaly. The first time I played it, I was *completely* dumbfounded. I felt like I have been given little to no information or any guides on how to progress, so I had to rely on friends... During my playthrough, it was quite hard the first time, even to the point where I classified Anomaly as "Dark Souls" difficulty. (AKA *very* fucking hard.) However, after trial and error, and little advice from left and right from friends, I managed to beat Anomaly's story mode, and now, here I am, attempting to beat Anomaly's story mode yet again in my own settings, and etcetera. Of course, I am also anticipating the release of S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2, where I expect another S.T.A.L.K.E.R game, not Anomaly 2. A good take on the technical issues. I have yet to mod Anomaly for my personal liking, and judging from the setups, tutorials, guides, whatever, it can be a *big pain in the ass.* Keep the videos up! P.S, I will play the three S.T.A.L.K.E.R games soon enough. Word.

you must be playing on maximum settings? my Stalker Anomaly doesn’t quite look like this lol

It puzzles me why STALKER mods like Anomaly, GAMMA & Co. are so popular. My fondest memories of STALKER are of part 3, because it was the most well-rounded part mechanically, because every place I visited was connected to a story, because I was only in new and larger areas, because of the fast travel system, because all the anomalies and quests were "hand-built" and because the decisions I made had an impact on the zone and on the "people" I "met" there. For example, whether I gassed the "nest" of bloodsuckers or not. If I wanted to dive into the zone again, I would therefore look for a game experience that offers something comparable. Why I should play something that's a rehash of part 1, only with more "stuff", some of which just makes the game more complicated and inaccessible instead of better, doesn't make sense to me. Even the story, from what I've heard, is supposed to be an inferior copy of part 1. Also, don't mods like this actually devalue what my alter ego has achieved in the previous games? After all, virtually everything is reset to a state from before STALKER 1.

I always loved anomaly But nothing tops shadow of Chernobyl for me

im here reloading twitter expecting PIONER to release

just an hint: there's a tutorial, it's everything on the PDA (the in game "smartphone")

Stalker Anomaly and single player Tarkov (SPT-AKI) are my favorite survival games

I have wanted to get this game and play it for awhile now. I would love to try it out.

I mean, the video make good point, but I wish it made distinction between Anomaly an its modpacks such gamma, epp or expedition, and its addons

Nice video. What song starts at 2:55?

Guys can i get help, when im trying to download the game it says that it is not safe. Could i get some help??

I player stalker with pretty easy settings, and I really enjoy it. The game is still pretty difficult

I just had to reinstall gamma last night. So excited to play it when I get off work just watching all the videos on it I can to keep me satiated 😂

Played the originals when I was a kid always loved the franchise even if it didn’t understand it as deeply. Anomaly is a great place to jump into the series gameplay wise most younger people won’t touch anything that doesn’t look like it came out last year and the originals while deserving of all the respect they’ve earned and truly masterpieces of the time are a bit dated and definitely not as easy of an entry point as anomaly and it has done an amazing job of growing the stalker community and it’s hard to believe this is a fan game

Your video is very pleasant. I like it a lot!

Modded Anomaly is absolutely beautiful and realistic on a sensory level, and playing it on one life turns up the realism hugely. It also features quite dodgy AI in many respects (though compared to what?, I know), an excess of bullshit to do with the mechanics of the game ("bullshit deaths" and cheesing potential), and lacks the tact in balancing mystery with comfort and threat to direct the player's behaviour that Shadow of Chernobyl had (very basic objective: explore north, follow the road - generated by the design of the levels which featured a central road north and a beautiful minimap system that just gave the player a direction). The original SoC, and to an extent CoP, also made the games a complex relational web, that shifted, whereas the characters' interactions are much simpler in Anomaly - tending to just be a matter of repetitive quests for allied factions and immediate shootouts with enemy factions. There are not multiple different situations, the choice to surrender to bandits or shoot them, situations where you can interact with characters, but if you brush past them to where they don't want they attack etc. The factions/characters have also been turned into caricatures in Anomaly, in particular Freedom. The dialogue is more stilted, there's more in the way of fanservice, and the placement of types of mutant makes little sense. There is also much less of the beautiful transition between the relative mundanity of the lower zone in SoC, to the gradually more inhospitable, more anomalous, more radioactive north. This was also a problem in CoP, with artificial impossibility to climb some slopes vs others being a very immersion jarring addition, compared to using radiation, the pressure of time, natural curiosity, the natural human tendency to follow the road etc. In Anomaly, there has been no equivalently compelling tying of geography to time and difficulty as was present in the first three games.

ah, think i get it. Ima just go through my first playthrough of the first game without any mods.

I have my little after ork stalker anomaly save file. I just play free mode as Bandit and sometimes just sit in the base at the fire chilling with the boys listening to stories( i speak russian) good vibe and guns feel good

I like it. However, after almost three playthroughs I've gotten wiser to spawn points and what typically spawns there. If they could improve with more spawn locations and vary them more. Nothing livens things up like changing maps from Garbarge heading north to Rostok and lo and behold a Chimers in the distance running at YOU. Mix it up and make it more unpredictable and it will continue to be popular for replayability.

Imagine if you asked someone if they play the original doom and they say that they love it, but have only played it through the Brutal DooM mod. They've never played the original, just a mod built off of it's foundation. Some Doom mods don't even require a copy of doom, just like these stalker mods.

Am I the only one who doesnt get how hes in x18 and his flashlight works just fine????

Thats the original engine with mods on steroids ? I always heard it had potential but this almost looks like a different game

Anomaly GAMMA is now a testing platform, where all the ideas can be freely introduced and tried out. What would be really great, if some modders could make a remake of the old games on x64 x-rey engine, with improved textures, models, animations. With smoothen out, outdated and from the get go broken, visuals. I thinking, that this revamp could use models from builds of cancelled, 2011 STALKER 2, of course reworked. At least the NPC models, because they ware made by the original GSC team. Other things could be taken from the mods of the Anomaly, remodel and reanimations of mutants, weapons, detectors etc. In short, maintaining overall structure of a game, but improving textures, models, animations.

Hate because big mods better like lost alpha, dead air, ogse... like because hipe

Only people that hate it are people that cant run it or cant afford a PC

I hate because dosen't play Addaraya - Gurza Dreaming in 100 Rads Bar. I love for all the rest...

is that your discord chat going off or is it mines???

While I do agree that Anomaly is great, I don't want it to overshadow the original trilogy. Anomaly wouldn't exist without the first three games made by GSC Game World, and I believe that people getting into STALKER should also play the original games that GSC made.

Took time for me to like the game. Most unique game I've ever played.

I get people want new players to experience the first games, but im a 15 year old with no money soo... I kinda have to start with anomoly.😅 Any tips for me to ease into the series better? I'll get the og's for Christmas.

because it's fast food tier experience and people get mad you call it fast food

I did play all 3 Original games, then MISERY for CoP (which then gave some features to Anomaly), then Call of Chernobyl which was hard at the beginning. Then l discovered Anomaly, first, only played it in vanila version, was hard, but after a while, when l got used to it, it became easier. And then came the addons... oh boy the addons haha. Even now, l have the Expedition modpack + additional 39 addons to it. To make a fine balance between Fun and "why the F do you do this to yourself" haha. Since as l told a friend, Stalker Anomaly has 2 stages (imo)... 1st Stage: "Why is game so hard?!" and 2nd Stage: "How can I make this game harder?" l'm on stage 2, well... after stage 2, since l made the game harder, at my current play, l only got around 30k, constantly hungry, so yea, fun times!

thats why newcomer should play stalker soc or the two other maingames before going to play anomaly :)

Good video

Can you play the original STALKER missions within Anomaly? I bought the games last week and started playing the first one. I like the game, but I hate the random bullet spread, often resulting in a failed headshot attempt. It seems the way the weapons work in Anomaly is a lot better, so I would love to experience the story of the original games, combined with the gameplay enhancements that Anomaly provides.

Yet the main mod hasn't been updated in centuries

Food and water food and water That's all I do

If you like anomaly you have to check out gamma

If you enjoy storyline and quests play op 2.2 its gigantic mod with a lot of new story lines, i only wish it would have the weapon animations from efp or gamma

You're not gonna talk about the upcoming Stalker 2?

I really liked stalker anomaly overall Except that fucking boar hunting mission

Couple of things. Most people that know about Anomaly and play it, love it. It's only a small percentage of people that don't. Secondly, Stalker isn't a popular game by any sales metric. It's a cult niche title that has gotten more attention over the years, but it's still a small crowd.

I bought all 3 games just last week and have played them. I beat SOC in a couple days and absolutely loved it. I made it to the fleshly fight in clear skies and just quit because clear skies is fucking terrible in my opinion. (Probably a skill issue with the bleeding aspect) I couldn’t find myself progressing well in that game either. M I watched a story vid and got the full clear skies story down and started COP. I didn’t make it extremely far but I did enjoy it completely. I’m skipping solely anomaly and jumping straight into gamma. Wish me luck boys.

It's better than ever, since v.1.5.2 is available for free and it includes everything Just don't use graphics mods on your first playthrough (if you're new to STALKER.) I tried mods on my first play and it broke, making the world look like everything was covered in ants.

15 second in and i am throwing my hands up lol

people hate stalker anomaly ?

Hate? Why would anybody hate GAMMA? :D Why would anybody "hate" any videogame?

Is it a mod or a standalone game????????

First. Also, great vid mate 👍 watched to the end!

Wish they bring it to xbox one

Actually Anomaly is built off the Open X-Ray engine which itself is a fork of the Call of Pripyat official game released by GSC Game Worlds.

free

That was a very long way of saying "this game is not for wimps"

I'd gladly choose a game that's free and good rather than the modern garbage from greedy AAA developers who can't even make games as immersive as Anomaly

the explanations are to broad I wanted precision on why this game is good.

HI, IS IN SPANISH?

Good video, but holy fuck get your audio in check. You almost blew my headphones out.

Anomaly, and it’s favorite child GAMMA, imo add survival elements to a sandbox that was already begging for them. Playing the original series is great, but feels empty and arcade like without the challenges of surviving in the Zone via food and water as well as environmental stuff like the radiation and anomalies. GAMMA does lean a bit much into ballistics and armor values, but it’s still my favorite collection of mods that enhance the ‘spirit’ of the Zone: which to me is survival itself as a tourist in this fantastical world

Why? Because i absolutely hate that fucking weird weapon FOV thing that old games like CoP, SoC, CS have... you know... the Battlefield 2 type shit. Plus the story of stalker is... okay. It's interesting but nothing that i would suffer through the mid gameplay for.

My issue and the reason I prefer a mostly vanilla experience with all three of these games is the fact that in their unending pursuit of realism they wind up producing something that is about as far removed from grounded as can be. No human beings sprints at a snail's pace, no human being needs to eat and drink every 30 seconds... It's just obnoxious. Every item requiring an animation to use is pretty cool though. In the end I just prefer mostly vanilla

Decent vid but to provide a little constructive criticism, you repeat your points nearly verbatim a little too much. I get reiterating a point to summarize a segment of your script or to emphasize but it comes off as a bit repetitive and made me think I had accidentally rewinded a few times.

Because nothing is real about it, everything is taken to a limit where has nothing with reality, there is noting survival about it. The originals nail it, batter iven tho more simple up least the artefacts make sense. There is no balance in Anomaly or gamma. You telling me after shoting 2 clips with a AK, witch is a irl weapon with the lowest mentenance, in stalker i gotta compleatly change the barrel when i could just brush it and move on ....yea lots o rality😂😂😂 internet and mods of anomaly got you fulled, but enjoy.

From what I've seen, the state of the community is terrible.

Anomaly and Gamma is just piling bloat on top of piles of useless shit. Something garbage like Reborn is more intresting to me because it tries to do something original. The only intresting shit that comes out is in russian lol

We don't like it because the world scale is so bad in that game. 01:30 - Look at the trees, the movement speed, the weapon, it's so wrong. The weird world scale is the only thing that keeps us from playing stalker.

you just say the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over.. again.

Because it is a shit game,and I like shit games

if you like anomaly you just need to work on a better taste

only reason I didn't like anomaly was the repair system

we hate anomaly because of its fanbase, im one of those people who played the original triology before some of the anomaly" enjoyers" existed, anomaly and its trillion mods make wrong impression of the series and when stalker 2 comes out, those guys will shit on it and might even end the game series.

6:30 I literally found one 1h30m video tutorial from @Blondefire_HeyBlondie to Anomaly that explained things in such great manner that 3 yo would be able to play this game. And the video is 2 years old already. So its not like there is no tutorialing etc, there is and it's awesome. The only thing I wish Anomaly had is ... more info in the guide tab in pda, cos sometimes things are not obvious at first and it would help new players. Cos they might ask "OK NOW WHAT?" a lot. Imagine ... Anomaly wiki with searchable terms in the pda already. That would be the best!

hahaha popular where?¿ I just heard of this today, and I have 35 years playing fps xD