The Complexity of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Canon

[@MarphitimusBlackimus]

But we can at least rest assured that Sidorovich's chicken is canon, right?

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Most certainly.

[@B.L.I.N.O.V.]

Love your Half Life cockroach AI video

[@thejunktownsheriffkilliand4800]

Could be like the The Elder Scrolls situation where the Zone allows the fact that the franchise has no set canon and it is up to the player to make their own, like CHIM does in TES

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Perhaps.

[@DivineXPotato]

to be fair though A lot of stuff in elder scrolls has concrete answers but people headcanon because of misconeptions and then stuff like chim where we have an indirect vague answer (enough for headcanon, but at the current point in time, stuff like "chim is console commands" doesn't make a lot of sense, especially with ESO and more lore being added to the whole concept of the prisoner, chim, etc but like, the exact specifics of what chim actually allows is still more or less up to debate beyond it being some kind of divinity/enlightenment, and then stuff like the prisoner could still be a weird meta thing since the only known "Prisoners" were player characters) the point being that elder scrolls has A LOT of lore that we have concrete or pretty good idea's on, but then a lot of misconceptions and other stuff is still within the community leading to a lot of people passing headcanon off as canon. Hell the whole "thalmor are trying to destroy the towers", great fucken idea and would add so much to the story.. and yet there is literally 0 evidence to point towards that. its stated nowhere, and yet a lot of people pass it off as fact. Same thing with the akatosh is insane and fragmented. The only reference we have is an out of game book of a dude zero summing and trying to explain stuff to people (in which he basically goes on to theorize that Aka shattered its self) so like it atleast has a hint.. but again out of game, from a dude who was going crazy and with most lore stating otherwise, including dragons and Aspects of the time god its self. So like is akatosh insane? Possibly. Is akatosh/Ahka split up into billions of fragments? probably not any more then any other greater spirit. and beyond nerding out a bit for teslore my overall point is i feel like stalker is kinda the same: we have a lot of stuff that is open to headcanon, but then we have quite a few things that like, we have answers on but people seem to just not know that and spread misinformation anyways

[@VindensSaga]

I like the headcanon about bloodsuckers that they might be stalkers or people who have been drained by them and thus turning into bloodsuckers. If I recall my stuff correctly the info about them suggest that they're basically in the various stages of decay and rotting.

[@grimmerjxcts2206]

When I'm at having plot holes in a game competition and my opponent is Stalker

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Good luck then.

[@bwc153]

Bethesda: Hold my beer

[@winterinkabul]

I think the idea behind people thinking mercs are western is that they use western rifles and m40 gasmasks. Also in the original Russian game audio files they had lines with various languages. Not confirmed as canon of course but it's an educated guess. I personally think they're a multinational group based off a western pmc.

[@marcellorenc7382]

Clear sky has also one interesting clue to support this. In czech dubbing (yes, old games used to have that lmao), there are mostly recycled voice lines from like 2-3 actors among regular stalkers, but the mercenary faction has its own voice actors, that I believe I recognize to represend the classic american characters. It is a thin argument, but if you apply it to other factions, its kind of imaginable. Almost similar feel has the Freedom faction dubbing (freedom dubbing is more like "chilled dude" as it is in original and oposite to it Mercenaries are more tough and "smoker voice" kind of guys). Freedom is in my opinion closest to west and it also has conections to mercenaries.. so.. you know.. there is so many possible conections but the canon is canon.

[@Снайпер_Хренов]

The Mercs wear recolored SAS uniforms and were originally meant to be a group of various Western special forces, similar to the ISG. There are unused models featuring the Mercs with the Real SAS Uniform, the French GIGN, CIA and the German GSG-9 equipment. They were most likely cut and mixed into a Single faction due to Budget cuts

[@jacquescousteau3194]

I mostly consider the possibility of the Mercs being westerners because they're the only faction that exclusively uses non Warsaw pact guns - you'll never see one using 5.45 ou 7.62x39, only 5.56

[@anomalousdugout9557]

They sometimes use the AK and the Obokan.

[@davidkaye8712]

The actual game code is a treasure trove of canon, the dev's left lots of comments. I seem to recall when I got deep into the code from my modding that I saw a dev comment about Tourist Breakfast being made of..... PEOPLE......

[@marcellorenc7382]

Isnt that like kinda eastern european meme with the Tourist? We got the tourist sausage in our country and there we used to mock it for its quality and texture as a strange meat. Feels like a reach to me tho.

[@dethmedic52]

​@@marcellorenc7382it's more a Soylent Green reference.

[@serse8455]

The tension between fanon and canon in the stalker games reminds me a lot of the touhou project, lol

[@milentanev7340]

Oh wow, the zone IS the 4th wall. The NPC in the games are just like us - people trying their best to explain what the zone is.That is why so many different opinions exist. About the rest... well, it is canon in a way the zone is changing, as said by Lebedev. All those things that seem different, they can be effects of the changes in the zone. And about the fact why people cannot recognize Strelok... I must make a headcanon about this, which I see no point to do so.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Indeed.

[@DeepAPW]

The reason why people don't recognise Strelok is because he wore a gas mask when he first visited the places where people saw him --From Unreliable source or his face was damaged as after he first went to CNPP and had to go slight alteration by Doctor this is why only doctor recognised him My theory 46% probability

[@LuisC7]

Hey! I'm very late to this video but just wanted to tell you that this is outstandingly deep information. When you mentioned the mobile game I knew this was gonna be a good video.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Nice :)

[@lebedev7153]

My head cannon is that the C-counciesness did not want to kill Strelok. If it really wanted to kill him it could have sent more emissions or just make him go crazy. That explains to me why Strelok got all the way to the CNPP without help.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

That could be the case.

[@Снайпер_Хренов]

Maybe the CCON realized that they cannot stop the zone and hoped that Strelok would reach them and finally end their suffering?

[@StarkeRealm]

Usually, in situations like this, you get two tiers of canonicity. Primary canon would be the original three games (and STALKER 2 when it releases), while spin-off material (such as the mobile games and novels) being classified as semi-canon. Usually these systems work in two stages, the primary canon is basically considered self-contained. The secondary canon is only viewed as, "legitimate," so long as it does not conflict with the primary canon. In the specific case of STALKER, there's probably some wiggle room, for specific cut elements, such as the Dark Stalkers, to leak back into the secondary canon, but until they show up in an official title, they wouldn't be considered primary canon. You could define a third tier as fanon, but material like that tends to be extremely contradictory anyway, to the point that any catalogue would be effectively meaningless.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

I guess so.

[@--shaman--]

Very interesting video. Good point on the seperation between lore and gameplay. I think that Stalker, like many other franchises, suffers from the infamous "ludonarrative dissonance" - the unrealistic amount of enemies slaughtered during an average playthrough is the best example. Relevant to the topic of what is canon, in one design document for Clear Sky it is explained that during his first meeting with Sakharov, Strelok's face was bandaged - that's why the professor doesn't recognize him later on. But of course, it is never mentioned in the game, so it's not really a canon fact. Also, it's good that you have mentioned the books. It is a shame that they aren't available in English, because even though most of them are nothing more than mere fan-fics, some of them gave rise to concepts and characters which many people may know, but may be unaware about the fact that they originate from the books - the Mercenary Syndicate, Doctor being known as the "Swamp Doctor" or the legendary Yuri Semetsky are few good examples.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Thanks for the comment.

[@B.L.I.N.O.V.]

Are you u/Reggash? Respect your level of knowledge about STALKER 🙏😌

[@rawrowa]

No need to use fancy terms for something that can simply be described as common sense. Especially considering how horribly misused those terms are

[@mcsmash4905]

the amount of enemies killed in a playthru is often beyond absurd , and often times the following sequels never mention it or they just say that it was a massacre or only a few people (if any) died , and on the topic of character vs player , the only thing that is often known for certain in video games is that the main character did the main quest (duh) but side quests are often times unknown , certain games like mass effect dont have that issue because you can just transfer a character from the previous game but even then thats YOUR character , it is quite mind boggling at times

[@meskisable]

I think Strelok is product of the zone. He is not regular human, he is the marked one. His role is like equilibrium to the zone balance.

[@jtnachos16]

Uh, with regards to Mercs and being 'westerners' I do seem to remember something in one of the original games referring to them as 'western-BACKED' in reference to the faction overall, when referring to the gear they typically carry. The same is said about Freedom. This likely morphed into the 'they are westerners' thing that some mods run with. The reality is, that doesn't make them westerners, nor does it make them backed by any particular government, it just means they get income and sponsorships from people from the west. This would also explain why Mercs are distinct from bandits, despite often acting in similar ways, and would make some of their known jobs make a lot more sense as to why there were mercs on that case instead of military stalkers. Do remember, most of Sidorovich's power comes from him being the normal entry/exit point to the zone, and there are the occasional indications in the core trilogy that artefacts and such go for a LOT of money outside, as well as the occasional (iirc) mention of some STALKERs being wanted criminals on the outside, but just another STALKER on the inside. On a more general note, I think approaching Stalker 'canonicity' with the same approach as star wars legends makes the most sense. There are different 'levels' to it, and all are valid unless they contradict a more 'primary' source. Of course, mods are just straight up not canon, but it can easily be applied to contradictions in main series, with the occasional situation where there is an unclear paradox. FTR, I'd place the 'tiers' as follows: Official statement from devs, outside of games = Word of God, absolute source. Priority given to more recent statements in cases of contradiction within this tier. present in-game in trilogy (or new sequel, I suppose) = source tier 1 present in cut content (by this I'm referring to unimplemented but mostly fleshed out stuff in game files and well-developed or referenced stuff from design docs) = source tier 2 present in 'official' books = source tier 3 present in design docs without assets in cut content = source tier 4 On a related note to 'unclear paradox': The term you were looking for when describing NPCs being incorrect is 'unreliable narrator'. 'non-omniscient characters' also applies. This is before you get into the wrench in the works that is the apparent acknowledged existence of space and time anomalies. Those add a whole new level of 'what is real' to the discussion. At the end of the day, what keeps STALKER interesting is that it doesn't explain everything and that there is room for players to fill in the blanks on unexplained things. You see the same in a lot of other popular post-apocalypse media, where they avoid specifics regarding things the media in question isn't directly interacting with, because what consumers come up with is often WAY better then whatever the developer was thinking of. A particularly famous example of this in the video game space is the FNAF games. Scott Cawthon, their creator, has acknowledged it was 'never that deep, nor supposed to be' with regards to the series lore. Yet new games in the core series (basically everything pre-VR and security breach, which are acting as a sort of attempt at a soft reboot/distancing from the original games) frequently took the most well-thought out fan theories into consideration, and you have some occasions where stuff gets revealed in game 3 or 4 that was being theorized about shortly after game 1 was released, pretty much EXACTLY how some of the better theories claimed it went.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Yes.

[@VesselModStalker]

the way you sneaked towars bloodsucker really made my day xD

[@anomalousdugout9557]

He never saw it coming.

[@Сергій-к4у]

I remember playing Stalker and Stalker 2 on my Sony Ericsson w200i. They were top-view Java games and they were fun.

[@zoneoperator]

"It's a definite maybe." - STALKER Lore

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Yes.

[@Lankyblankman]

As much as I like to consider Clear Sky uncanon in many ways, it is an official STALKER game, so therefore, it is. Something I've had to accept.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Perhaps S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 will retcon everything, who knows.

[@TheJayElBeGames]

Why does everybody hate CS, i loved the game

[@UmbraHand]

@@TheJayElBeGames Game crashes baby

[@Jelkitosix666]

@@UmbraHand HATE soc then lol nobody hates fnv because its buggy

[@XanderNiles]

​@@TheJayElBeGamesSoC and CoP are better games overall. CS is a bit messy due to the scarce of weaponry and the health system to which is annoying as hell.

[@hungarianbrendenfraser7417]

ive played the mobile version in 2008, on my w610i... java games, what a time it was man

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Nice.

[@xXRealXx]

I think I played it too, but that was when I was a small child, so I don't remember much. I could even be just misremembering it

[@YoJimBoHugabaJoe]

im someone who understood the souls series yet stalker lore for the most part flew over my head,i was more concerned with staying alive to pay attention to the story so just head canoned everything to be the zone from the movie of the same name

[@tohrukobayashi4446]

Sid getting naded in soc ending is canon for me

[@anomalousdugout9557]

That works.

[@bones._]

MARKEED ONEEEEE WHAT THEE HEELL

[@figonkus4223]

At 12:45 it is kind of sweet how they put a :) at the end of their messanges. Makes them feel like actuall friends

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Indeed.

[@prophetthelast7849]

Exactly what i believe.Every player,npc,dev or modder has a different opinion of what the zone really is.But no one really knows everything not even the scientists who study it for years. At least not until Stalker 2.The zone has an unlimited supply of new ideas for lore.Everything can be true or evertyhing can be a lie and no one can blame the devs.Witchever way they take Stalker 2 story,it is the right one!

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Something like that.

[@gookuaa7653]

I been waiting for this bro btw love your vibs if not for you I would be lost in the zone keep making those lore and Canon video bro much love from South Africa ❤️❤️❤️

[@anomalousdugout9557]

:)

[@theshadowrunner28]

Stay safe man!

[@zabburch2770]

I do wonder what stalker 2 will change in terms of lore, or if they may try to fill in some of the holes in the lore, I asked one of the devs on reddit a question about some of the mutants, their claim was that some of the mutants will be revamped, if that means they have new abilities I wonder if its this situation of stalkers claiming a mutant can do one thing when its actually not the case? also seeing a running lab and maybe a mutant creation process would be cool to see in the game

[@anomalousdugout9557]

It will be interesting to see for sure.

[@efftohd]

Now that I think about it, I like to imagine all the lore inconsistencies are all a result of psy-activity in the Zone, like an artificially imposed mandela effect, or selective amnesia. Sometimes, the people responsible behind this confusion almost got caught in an emission, or got too close to one of the Kaymanovs/psy anomalies, scrambling their memories in the process. It's like when people refer to the countless bugs and glitches as anomalies in their own right for cheap laughs among all the other crude humour, it adds to the folksy atmosphere in the fanbase.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Yeah perhaps it is what's going on.

[@bober6730]

I’m really glad your channel exists, having a mainly vanilla & lore-focused stalker youtuber in english is very nice

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Yes, that's why I created it.

[@chiffmonkey]

With any IP, unless publicly acknowledged as a mistake, newer lore supersedes older lore. S2 marketing > CoP > CS > SoC. The reason why the mercs are suspected to be Western is their equipment - they overwhelmningly use NATO weapons. In pre-release builds it was clear that they were being paid by a foreign intelligence service but this became ambiguous with the final release. Cut content for any game always occupies a grey area in terms of canon, where it may get restored one day - like how Fallout 2 cut lore got reinstated by Fallout 4 Nuka World. There are some interesting conclusions that can be drawn with this, like does the tunnel in Red Forest canonically connect to Pripyat-1? As well as canon, there is also the idea of being a "spiritual successor", like how Yooka Laylee is a spiritual successor to Banjo Kazooie - not canonically connected but philosophically connected. Interestingly, Stalker 2's marketing has Doc making a direct reference to dialogue from the Tarkovsky film Stalker so we might see elements of that. Something that's worth thinking about is that the very concept of the noosphere may account for the existence of "retcons", similar to how The Elder Scrolls franchise uses Dragon Breaks to explain divergent player-driven events.

[@samargrewal929]

while i'm shure there are Westerner in the merc faction i don't think as a whole where a western faction as there a few merc who are from non-westerns nations example in SoC, there is Ara, the leader of merc squad in Army Warehouses. He uses an Armenian name and speaks with such an accent (there are also 2 other mercs who were voiced by the same voice actor in a similar manner, so we can assume that they are supposed to represent Armenians as well; in case of Ara his name is just a dead giveaway). There are some mentions of western researchers in the Zone - we know that a large expedition consisting of about 30 scientists from all around the world took place and failed (it's mentioned in one PDA entry from SoC) and in CS we may learn that there are UN researchers in the Zone; their presence is also mentioned briefly in CoP. so if anything it points to the opposite

[@chiffmonkey]

@@samargrewal929 I meant more their enployers than the mercs themselves.

[@samargrewal929]

@@chiffmonkey i see

[@bwc153]

I don't mind the noosphere being a reason to manipulate perceptions of an event or so on, after all we have canon examples of similar with controllers. I would prefer if they don't use it as a copout to completely undo or rewrite major events though like Bethesda does. It makes the noosphere feel more insidious if "you thought you were doing this and instead did that" rather than "this didn't happen, it was all a dream", let alone in Elder Scrolls games there is no reason to attempt to be consistent in the lore as dragon break can be used as a justification for anything.

[@chiffmonkey]

​@bwc153 Yeah Dragon Breaks were a sneaky way to keep all of the player chosen endings canon more than a creative decision to add to the lore. A better example might be the flexibility of The Oldest House in Control or the Ringspace in The Expanse where it follows rules but not the rules of the real world.

[@TheDarkWizard666]

You're content is very good. The cleanest best pleasure I'd say mate

[@somedesertdude1308]

nice video

[@shrekas2966]

I'm pretty late here, but... what do you mean that charactors do not recognize Strelok? I always thought that Guide is more or less making fun of Strelok. Maybe its just in english version, but his text sounds sarcastic. Its as if he's speaking with a person with amnesia. Better yet, the part, where he says that you should know where Strelok's hideout is, kinda gives it away. No idea about the Sakarov. Did Strelok ever come to him with the question of "finding Strelok"? In any case, he is an pre-occupied man, a no one to Strelok. People come and go and all he cares about is the research, while Guide seems to be Strelok's buddy from what it seems in CoP.

[@-Rens01]

I think Strelok is an anomaly

[@aA46821]

Perhaps the mercenaries are considered westerners because their Russian voice acting has a strong characteristic accent.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Not Western accents though.

[@papanate2141]

No bro they don't have a westerner accent

[@Majorwindy]

I thought the basis for this belief was that they were armed with NATO weaponry

[@randophanto3153]

You know it's a good day when anomalous dugout uploads

[@anomalousdugout9557]

I guess.

[@100radsbar]

04:30 I think that the conception of many people that the Mercenary faction being of Western origin is that they predominately use NATO weapons in the original game (As far as I remember that is, I have to check up on that though)

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Yes, although that does not prove anything.

[@CarlJohnson234]

Great video as always. Will be there some Uncle Coin stories in the near future?

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Thanks. Unfortunately no, even though Coin is still writing a lot I do not make story videos anymore.

[@ironybob]

My head canon regarding weapons in Stalker is that, since the Zone is a place where absolutely anyone can come and where the black market thrives, pretty much any firearm in history can be used, with mostly eastern bloc weapons since the game is set in Ukraine. So yes, to me it makes just as much sense to see an AKM in Stalker than, for example a Vietnam War M16A1 or even a XIXth century Colt revolver

[@bwc153]

I wouldn't even argue that it's a headcanon. It's arguable that weapon variety is limited by developer resources and ambition more than the lore in this case. Considering STALKER 2 has a lot more weapons variety seen thus far in non-handgun categories, this is probably the case.

[@ottovonbismarck7578]

Everything is Canon,but not everything is real

[@mattheweagles5123]

The mysterious, contradictory and ambiguous nature of the Stalker world adds to my enjoyment of the Zone.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

It does!

[@SuperVladeG]

started explaining stalker canon and being on top of a tank cannon, i love it

[@anomalousdugout9557]

But of course.

[@Matt-md5yt]

sweet topic today my friend. also didn't know there was a Moble game of STALKER, I knew Elder Scrolls had some

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Thanks. Not a lot of people know about it.

[@Its_Gabe_GT7]

I love those videos, keep it up! Stalker

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Nice!

[@Fulleraut0]

Please make sidorovich video

[@huihui5059]

Mercenaries are said to be Western, because unlike any other faction they have extensive access to Western weaponry + native Russian speakers on some forums said their dialogues were stylized to sound like they speak with Western accents.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

They do use western weaponry but that does not prove anything. Sometimes they do have accents, however I'm told these are not western accents.

[@Kebab136]

As for Mercenaries being of western origin or working for western contractors, what i understand is, the info coming from the base game is the core of that statement. They seem to almost exclusively use weapons and equipment of western origin. Even their suits/gear/masks most resemble British SAS. As far as i know this is the core of the theory and the only so-said evidence for them being tied to the western world. This also isn't so far fetched theory, as i think we all can agree that the entire world would want a piece of the zone for themselves, so sending a group of mercenaries to extract something from the zone seems completely plausible. Another argument for that would be the fact that neither Russia nor Ukraine would use mercenaries for such operations, as UA literally has their army stationing in there, and we know for a fact that they did use SBU for the in-zone operations before, as they did in CoP. Mercenaries working for either private or government-related western contractors makes more sense than them working for the Kremlin/ Russian mafia/ Ukrainian Gov. And let's be honest, them working for some small local companies makes even less sense than working for the local/nearby governments, and what we can all agree with is that the government of USA for example, or their various organizations like CIA, or even pharmaceutical companies would definitely pay a load of money for stuff from the zone. Let's see, in CoP we gather info on the Gauss rifle and during our gathering of documentation we get ambushed by Mercs like twice? Who would want that info on gauss the most? USA military of course. Same goes for Big Pharma wanting various artifacts and documentation on them - so we got a group of Mercs working "for" the scientists defending their bunker - until they didn't. It honestly makes much more sense for mercs being tied to western world than them just working for some eastern-european corp. They are mercenaries after all, one look at them and you can tell that they're either funded by British, German or American hand.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Still a theory.

[@Kebab136]

@@anomalousdugout9557 It is, but i wouldn't say it's irrational or without solid base being present in the main game. It makes more sense than not, there's no reason why wouldn't they be hired by some western power or corporation, no reason why there would be no westerners in the zone, and no reason to just label it as debunked. I think it's only logical that at least some mercenaries groups would be of western origin, in fact, it would make no sense at all if there would not be any.

[@KenSG-jz2zn]

​@@Kebab136mercs are western backed, people from eastern europe and westerners combined using western tech

[@illac3429]

I like to think of the games more like im a rookie in the cordon listening to legends about the strelok, that are embelished or exaggerated due to being passed from stalker to stalker.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Yeah that makes sense.

[@Adam-yv8mn]

In stalker SoCh u can read that the armour is from west and the weapons are clearly too

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Where?

[@Adam-yv8mn]

@@anomalousdugout9557 pda encyklopedi

[@Dark_Brandon_2024]

You are right. So basically we have: - gaming part that hides the true canon - plot holes and mismatches in canon from all games - we get the distinctive features but when going deeper we create our own vision of what the stories and the universe are - books are also a great source of inspiration that can even replace some well established canon details, all because we decide in what we believe and if new details are sounding and fit in our view of stalker

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Yes.

[@kvncbl]

I really like your ramblings!

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Nice.

[@Bearsmalaysia]

Very good analysis as always.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Glad you liked it.

[@The-Black-Death]

I like to think something like "Canon" in Stalker is completely subjective in regards to the anomalous activities in the series and the potential for alternate universes or dimensions.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Yes.

[@LoneHermit]

I usually regard anything commonly accepted to be canon, with the exception of mods. But the full truth will be revealed of what and what is not canon when Stalker 2 hits.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

I think the game might bring more questions than answers, we'll see.

[@jesusisunstoppable4438]

Played the original.. Love the whole series. Their is a free version on the Net.

[@Graffels]

Wtf bro Buy the game and support GSC

[@jesusisunstoppable4438]

@@Graffels LoL You're an idi0t.. I did buy all 3 of the originals when they came out. But AS THE PERSON whom created this video says - Their are Several Free / Legal Full version Mods of the game.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Alright.

[@Frille512]

@@Graffels No

[@oddchannel8452]

How come the video is only a few seconds old, but the comments are "20 hours" old

[@hubert9841]

yeah it annoys me too becouse i wanted to make the "first" comment

[@brunoactis1104]

KZbin first comment speedrun

[@moody1320]

It's an anomaly, don't mind it

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Space anomaly.

[@TwoSheds-fu5tl]

7:48 what is this? Looks like dead city but I've never seen this piece of art before

[@anomalousdugout9557]

It is Dead City, a concept for the Thing in the Fog.

[@ORLY911]

I think the Mercenaries might be employed by western agencies, as their way of getting the best chance of getting what they want out of the zone. The crashed drone in CoP might belong to them too, no other faction would have the resources to get that, assuming the plane itself didn't belong to NATO or CIA (though why they would specifically be tailing Strelok's gang no idea, Mercs have a better reason to). What's the word on the Southern Comfort short story? I hear it has stronger ties to officiality than the big book series.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Yeah maybe. As far as I'm concerned Southern Confort is the same as others books.

[@1337user]

I wonder what STALKER 2 will do with the plot given the events in irl Ukraine. Will there be a massive failed military advance by the Russians through Pripyat like in our world? Some lore elements suggested closer ties between the Russian federation and Ukraine than in our world. Perhaps STALKER 2 could be better named "war for the zone" Thoughts?

[@anomalousdugout9557]

I don't think the lore will involve anything linked to recent events. But I could be wrong.

[@judsongaiden9878]

My headcanon is that the entire universe exists inside the bulging eyeball of an extradimensional fleshpig. 7:36 I read somewhere that there was going to be an intelligent female fleshpig that could talk and was a mission-giver. 9:15 Oink Oink Fleshy Piggy wouldn't appreciate a taxidermy fleshpig being used for that purpose. 11:05 Philadelphia Experiment 12:30 retcon 12:59 That would explain why his scars are never consistent.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

At some point all Fleshes were supposed to talk, as they would have had human brains.

[@judsongaiden9878]

@@anomalousdugout9557 That explains the talking fleshy piggies in some mods! 🤡 What would be hilarious would be if the talking female fleshpig mission-giver spoke with a Southeastern American accent and sounded like a 50-year-old alcoholic chain-smoking biker! 🤣 Accent would be similar to Ellie from the Borderlands saga. And she'd refer to you as "dearie" or "sweet-thang."

[@CharcharoExplorer]

Things like Final Day or the other example you gave should be cannon. That was translated into multiple languages and was officially in the game. Just because we dont see it doesnt mean it isnt official cannon. Nothing contradicts some of those things. For the Scar / Strelok and the recorded message, there is a way to resolve that issue. But it is a bit hard. If one accepts that Strelok visited the underground after Scar (somehow) and Scar enrolled into the faction wars even a bit. Like maybe even if he went to Dark Valley to help Freedom with their MErc problem (I know Scar could do it earlier but it fits here). Its important to note that mods themselves have their own canon too. So the best STALKER (NLC 7) has its own canon. It isnt canon to the original series obviously, but it has its own rules. And vice versa. Which is fair.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Perhaps you are right.

[@shinigamit0d142]

hows the mobile game isnt in the iceberg ? it's so obscure i never knew it exists

[@anomalousdugout9557]

My iceberg was only about what was in the trilogy.

[@elmoteroloco]

The Zone remains

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Yes.

[@japekto2138]

We can still thank the mods because some elements from them will be in STALKER 2.......PDA map, medkit animation for example.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Yeah maybe.

[@Graffels]

7:39 The thing in the fog sounds terrifying. Is there anything else known about it besides it's name?

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Yes, you can read about it in design documents. It was basically the early depiction of the psy-emitter in lab X-16.

[@gabreliano8866]

MONOLITH RULES THE WORLD

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Ok.

[@NomadShadow1]

wow, I didn't even know that stalker mobile was a thing.....

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Crazy right?

[@lordmegusta9708]

Have you ever heard or ever tried stalcraft? Its basically what the title says. They took stalker into minecraft and after a long time its now out as a demo version for EU, Asia and US regions on steam. You could give it a try but its basically grind MMO RPG and VERY PvP oriented game.

[@Jelkitosix666]

its shit

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Yes I know about it but I will never play it.

[@robcampbell2164]

Engage the player in formulating answers with the lore. The lore is given from different perspectives with each title. Reveal the truth at some point in the IP. I hope STALKER 2 doesn't reach this final stage yet.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

We shall see.

[@S.T.A.L.K.E.R_fan]

I had one theory : since in the main game theres no bolt action rifle in the game, so STALKER Anomaly just slap sniper skins on and make their functions like a shotgun. (I've shot Kar98k without suppressor and people nearby thought it was a shotgun sound even tho i was shooting a sniper related gun the kar98k) And this is pretty weird🗿

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Mods be like.

[@Rongaming3065]

This game should be popular in subcontinent I am the only fan from subcontinent

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Surely you are not alone.

[@TheAustrianAvenger]

12:28 hmm... I always thought Strelok was already at the powerplant. In one cut scene he showed the doctor an artifact and said something like "you wouldn't believe where I was" therefore I thought we as player made the second trip to Chernobyl in SoC. damn it... I made my third playthrough not long ago and still know shit.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Allegedly Strelok made 3 trips to the center. At the beginning of Clear Sky, at the end of Clear Sky, and at the end of Shadow of Chernobyl.

[@tamfuwing1]

Love the thorough slaughter of the burer LOL.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

He had it coming.

[@yercules]

10:04 Damn, you folded that fkn burer twice. If the bullets didn't kill it, it def snapped its own neck, lmao

[@yercules]

And once again, thank you for the great video!

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Yeah that was a fun ragdoll.

[@gaunterodim5872]

what is the name of the mod at 3:35?

[@B.L.I.N.O.V.]

I think that is OGSR

[@anomalousdugout9557]

OGSE.

[@GhenTuongHB]

Clear Sky is canon and the best stalker game. It has better duty propaganda than that of SoC. No one can tell me otherwise.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Yes.

[@papalegba6796]

The zone doesn't care about lore. It doesn't care about anything.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Perhaps.

[@papalegba6796]

@@anomalousdugout9557 the zone doesn't care about you or I. The zone just is.

[@vladneacsu]

Stalker lore is complicated in the way Warhammer 40K is complicated. Everything could or couldn't be canon.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

I guess.

[@jesusisunstoppable4438]

I agree to a point.. Stalker is a story about 1 stalker that's You the player. -- And that's how the Developers created the game... But their are other Stalkers with their own stories... -- So I wouldn't expect EVERY Stalker to have the Exact same experience. Just like when people play the game -- That's their Stalker Story.. It's Not exactly like everyone else's. So Cannon is based on the Original Story Of 1 Stalker.. But it's Not the whole story.

[@Zeke1984]

canon is everything the first game shows you, period. The rest are inconsistencies due to bad writing, precisely for not respecting what was shown before. In my humble opinion, although clear sky broadens the lore of the game, I do not consider it canon due to the contradictions, and call of prypiat directly does not contribute anything, it is worse than cs...

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Not really.

[@PROSTO4Tabal]

stalker game is my wife

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Nice.

[@oboroth51]

Seperating lore and game mechanics is bad game design.

[@Jelkitosix666]

why? do you really think when someone explains to link how to use the a button is good game desing? it works because its a goofy game here id doesnt because its suposed to be real

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Not really.

[@bankaiiibankaaa4573]

Stalker lore is like warhammer lore, the truth is somewhere there, what's right and what's wrong, what's good and what's bad. Yet, the whole concept of this post apocalyptic world is awesome and we all enjoy it.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Yeah maybe.

[@milandobos548]

As I remember, in CoP you can read it in the pda.. or SoC idk.. I remember I've read that in an official game that the Mercs are thinked to be westerners

[@anomalousdugout9557]

I don't think so.

[@milandobos548]

@@anomalousdugout9557 I don't want to argue about it. I just remember it from somewhere. Probably who made this theory made this conclusion from the western weapons like M4, USP etc. Their suit reminds me a bit for the SAS uniform . Or probably they think that the West sent them to take the documents, and with them embarass the Soviet Union more (because there is a theory about the CCCP hasn't fallen apart in the Stalker universe), or simply just Russia. In the Cold War both sides wanted to do this, so maybe this is why they thought the Mercs are Westerners. As for me, I think the Mercs are like the foreigner fighters in Ukraine nowadays. The faction recruits anyone, who wants money, and trustable for doing what they are paid for. Or even that can happen that the Ukrainian Government pays them, because they don't want to dirty their hands with jobs like this. The Mercs take the documents out from the secret labs silently, and noone will now what happened in the X-labs. In the Zone, anything can happen. That is why I like that game. It'so realistic in that way, that like irl, you make theories about things, which you can't explain. (In game the X-labs, anomalies etc. Irl ghosts, holy things etc.) Maybe I have read that in Anomaly.. or on some kind of Stalker wiki. I just remember it, but as I've said before, I'm not sure where, and I can't prove it is true. Also that could be an option that the Mercs are from the Eastern Block, but as a disguise they are equipped with Western weapons (so they can blame it on them). Just to say something else: I like your channel. It's so good to hear a lot of interesting informations, or theories which I haven't known before. Keep up the good work!

[@chadicus8725]

I could have sworn I remember reading that in the PDA too. I'll try and remember to check that next time I play. At least they may be funded by western organizations.

[@milandobos548]

Or a more simple explanation: Mercs ar payed so well that they can afford Western weapons. Also Freedom and Monolith uses them, because they are more organized and rich factions since they are operating in the Northern side of the Zone. Maybe we the supported by the West means that actually they are not supporting them, just indirectly, because the weapons come from there, but black dealers get them.

[@latewizard301]

Apparently in the Russian version, the mercs are portrayed as German people, because of an accent they use while talking. Now this is something I've heard from other players, and I can't hear any difference in accents. And ofc, they use western armour and equipment. But that could be black market stuff. Tbh, I don't think we're supposed to know where mercs are from.

[@volgrom6628]

Top quality videos from Stalker series. Much love from Brazil, peace stalker!

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Thanks :)

[@moody1320]

Did the bloodsucker just give up on attacking you at first?

[@anomalousdugout9557]

He was chilling.

[@CabalCorporation]

While I could touch on many different topics presented in the video, I'll latch onto Strielok. He was the one marked by the Zone. Not just the marked one, but the true Marked One. He's the only person that could see the artifacts without special equipment. You just don't see any NPC picking up artifacts off of the ground without mods in SoC. Even given the cut content, he was the only one given dreams. The original Stalker trilogy is, without a doubt, a story of Strielok. Either you hunt him, you are him, or you help him, he is the main character. And don't forget, anything you've experienced is the will of the Zone. You will act your act, but it will be the Zone's will to keep it or discard it. Good hunting, Stalkers.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Yes, perhaps this is correct.

[@WroobelChannel]

I was just watching one of Your vids, and bam, new one

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Surprise.

[@XanderNiles]

Yeah, while playing the three games I have perceived a lot of inconsistency during the gameplay because I'm not a big fan of reading all the dialogs but I've read some of them and it's clear like night and day that there are plot holes.

[@anomalousdugout9557]

Yeah there are some problems.