Two weeks have gone by since the end of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. After the destruction of the brain-melter by Strelok, everyone in the zone is pushing towards the reactor – even the military. But although the five helicopter-pilots had a detailed map with every anomaly on it, they crashed. To find out what happened, the Ukraine Intelligence sends Major Degtarew disguised as a stalker into the region east and southwest of Pripyat and ultimately the eastern part of the ghost town itself.
The second stand-alone-addon S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat puts the player back into the zone – this time after the end of the main game and with a completely new character. The core game remains the game though. The zone and it’s inhabitants still have their own lives with stalker, bandits and mutants roaming the three different areas of the game both on the ground and underneath. The player is put right in the middle, looking through the eyes of Major Degtarew with total freedom to do what he wants. Talking to NPCs, fulfilling quests, exploring the different areas, finding powerful artifacts and shooting stuff – the usual. As opposed to it’s predecessors, the quests are almost completely created by hand and have no time-limit on them although it can happen that other stalkers already completed the quest if the player waits to long. And the factions aren’t that important anymore, although the player will eventually become friendly with one or more depending on what quests the player completes and how he behaves.
This time around two new mutants are added to the wildlife of the zone: the psi-using Burer and the powerful Chimera. Two mutants, who were removed from the original game. A semi-automatic shotgun on the other hand increases the available arsenal of firepower and helmets are now separated from the body armor allowing for wild combinations. In addition the interface has been completely revamped now offering a better arranged inventory, slots for two main weapons (as opposed to one weapon and a side-arm in the previous titles) and four quick-slots to put food or medicine in for fast usage. In addition stalker that roam the zone offer a fast-traveling service in exchange for a little bit of money, allowing the player to get to almost anywhere in the area in a short time – including the really big anomalies. They are now uniquely designed and always visible on your PDA-map. Artifacts found in these anomalies often provide benefits such as increased stamina or protection, but they are also nearly all radioative. A deadly storm called an emission, that the player has to witness from inside a building or cave to survive, happens roughly once a day, causing the anomalies to react in strange ways to create more artifacts. The upgrade-system from S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky also makes a return although in a much more refined way with three-stages upgrade-trees for each item. To get access to higher upgrades, the player first needs to find corresponding tools hidden in the zone and bring them back to the technician.
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