I have more than the 60 or so hours that Steam claims I have. I can tell you it's closer to 500 with mods. This game is my Skyrim! I will preach about this game for years to come.

The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series is by far my favorite franchise of all-time. With everything the modding community has done, it's not hard for me to fall back in love with this game. An open world, sci-fi, survival, horror, shooter... It doesn't get any better than that!

BACKGROUND:
This series is based off a movie by the same name, based off of a book called Roadside Picnic. Roadside picnic tells the story of a "stalker" that goes into a mysterious zone left by aliens. In the book there are artifacts that humans find in this zone that have properties unlike anything native to Earth. Antigravity is just one property some of these artifacts.

A YouTube channel by the name GVMERS made a fantastic video of the history of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. franchise. https://youtu.be/rYNjcM7wCy8

LORE
The "zone" in these games is very similar to the depiction in Roadside Picnic. The developers of this game however, changed the location to be more "down to earth (hehe)." The games take place in Chernobyl after a second meltdown of the nuclear reactor near the city of Pripyat. I won't spoil the lore behind the causes of this second catastrophe that is The Zone.

With this second disaster comes two types of aftershocks:

"Psi-storms" pulse through the zone turning humans into braindead zombies, or brainwashed soldiers commanded by the zone.

"Emissions" are waves of destructive radiation that can rip apart humans and change the layout of the anomalies of the zone. Areas that were once safe to travel can become deadly traps of anomalies. It is easy to be lost to the zone.

GAMEPLAY
If a first time PC gamer came to me and asked me for a recommendation for a PC exclusive, this is the game I would tell them to play. It's a unique game that highlights the power of the PC community and modding.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. does so many things that few other games have done in the survival horror genre. While (vanilla) the movement may be slightly clunky and the weapon sounds aren't properly synced with the animations; the atmosphere, the gun play, the creatures, the story, and the mechanics are perfected.

Unmodded, this game has a questline that you follow as you get further into the zone and closer to the CNPP (Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant). Enemies are kinda bullet spongy and you cannot explore the entire zone right out of the gate. I'd recommend looking up vanilla gameplay to see what the base game is like but modding is where you can really tailor the experience to your preferences. The community took the amazing base game and turned it into something even better.

MODDING
Modding is as easy as dragging and dropping into your game's main directory or running an .exe. Just be sure to add the major mods first and the tweaks after. ModDB is the website I use for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. mods. The best S.T.A.L.K.E.R. mods are always at the top mods of the month for the whole site.

Play this game with mods like:
Arsenal Overhaul (100+ Nato, RU weapons, and realistic damage),
Misery (extremely brutal survival mode), and
Call of Chernobyl/Anomaly/G.A.M.M.A. (A semi-standalone versions that combine the maps from every S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game into one huge open world.) These are standalone and you do not need you to buy the game, but they do not have a real story either. Which is why I would only recommend these after you beat the vanilla story at least once.

I made a gameplay video to demonstrate how much you can mod these games which you can find here: https://youtu.be/ka06Fx-oLfc

Community mods have fixed nearly every problem with the game. The only thing the community can't fix is the unstable engine. It can crash occasionally(depending on the mods used), but if you have a decent rig you'll be fine at lower graphics settings. The game will not disappoint. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a decade+ old series. If it can keep a fairly large cult following after all this time their must be something about it that keeps it alive. It is a must buy for PC gamers.


Ratings:
Vanilla: 7/10
Modded: 10/10.

!!!UPDATE!!!

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 has been announced for 2021 2022 2023 2024 !! All hail Monolith!