The best MMO games in the style of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2

No matter what's going on in the world, one thing is certain: those who were fascinated by the first part of S.T.A.L.K.E.R., now look forward to the second. As you can not take the words out of the song, so from memory will not erase the walks on the Cordon and Agroprom under the roar of mutants and shouts of catching olives. Fonzing samples of Soviet car industry, gatherings with a guitar around a campfire, and dungeons crawling with bloodsuckers and snorks - everyone has his own impressions of this game. And we all want to repeat the good times, preferably in the company of our friends. While S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is just getting ready for release, we offer you a selection of multiplayer projects, similar in spirit or gameplay to this work.

And let's start with the obvious option. Stalcraft, as is easy to understand, combines elements of Minecraft and the basic principles of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. with multiplayer. This does not mean that absolutely everything in the virtual world consists of cubes - the graphics in the game are of sufficient quality to quickly forget about the angularity of the characters, looking more like Lego figurines than people. The attitude of the authors to the original helps immersion in the local atmosphere. The shooter features all the familiar guns, and even more - for example, the Vector submachine gun, which even in the amateur modifications of "Stalker" rarely meet. The scenery with various monsters, including zombies, also brings back pleasant memories. And the ominous music only adds to the spice of the experience. In short, the Stalcraft developers didn't miss the mark with the entourage.

Moreover, the action unfolds in an open world, which is also implemented a struggle of factions. You can join the "Duty" or "Freedom", and even go to the bandits to perform the tasks of his team and sell the loot to various traders. Search for geocaches, artifacts, collecting loot from dead opponents - all this serves as a nice addition to the main adventure. And for those who want a full-fledged scenario, a single-player campaign is provided. It is noteworthy that such a diverse MMO-shooter grew out of the fan mod Minecraft, and its development is the Russian team EXBO. And the game is free to play - isn't that an excuse to break into the dangerous world of the Zone?

Another multiplayer action game that grew out of an amateur modification. Only DayZ is based not on a dice game, but on the military simulator Arma 2. At some point, the employees of Bohemia Interactive discerned the potential of the project, made it stand alone, and released it on Steam in 2018. The events of the game unfold after the zombie apocalypse, there is no main plot, and the main emphasis is on survival. Wandering you alone or with friends, you not only need to avoid meetings with the infected, but also to get supplies, feed and water your character, so he did not die of exhaustion. You can travel around the open world of 230 square kilometers both on foot and in vehicles, provided, of course, you manage to fix the abandoned car and find gasoline to fill it up.

What else DayZ has in common with the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. universe is the post-Soviet setting. The country where the events take place is called Chernarus. And in its vastness are familiar objects - from garage cooperatives and grocery stores to typical Russian villages with log cabins. Yes, and presented the same car - you can drive on the hills and forests in the "Niva. What is particularly nice, all the characters on the map, except zombies, belong to the living gamers. If in the "Stalker" some are constantly biting at each other, and all together amicably shoot fanatics from the "Monolith", then here everyone decides for himself how to treat the people he meets. Nothing prevents you from being friendly and exchanging useful items. Or, on the contrary, to lie down with a rifle in the bushes to hunt for "caps", as the game calls newcomers.

It would seem that where is the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, and where are the Appalachian Mountains in the alternative history of the United States. But let's not jump to conclusions. Both game universes show us thoroughly detailed pictures of the lost world - that's one. Both have adventures based on fighting mutants and collecting loot, which can then be sold or otherwise used, that's two. Finally, Fallout 76 also has different factions fighting for power over the ruins of civilization. Only they are not called "The Debt" and "Clear Skies", but "Brotherhood of Steel" and, say, "New California Republic". At the same time, the doctrine of the same "Duty" is not far from the ideology of the "Brotherhood of Steel" - you have to try hard to find serious differences between them.

You can even cook food by the fire - make a mole rat roast or make a soup out of radioactive plants. And if you like the scenery around, build a base and guard it from uninvited guests together with your friends. It's nice that the developers are constantly developing their brainchild, releasing seasonal additions. At first, Fallout 76 had enough shortcomings: NPC, in contrast to the single game series, there was no, but the bugs and glitches were encountered at every step - almost more often than in "Shadow of Chernobyl" in the year of release. But now the MMORPG about the nuclear apocalypse is exactly as it should be. There are enough single-player stories for dozens of hours, and adventures for squads in any of the modes of your choice. Survival, building shelters, fighting monsters - what else do you need for fun?

Battlestate Games has no mutants, radiation, or dangerous anomalies. But the post-Soviet devastation is portrayed on an A-plus basis: the skirmishes take place in the abandoned city of Tarkov and its surroundings, where two military companies - BEAR and USEC - confront each other. The situation is complicated by the ubiquitous looters ("wild") and gangs of thugs led by bosses. Beasts are not brought here, of course, but to kill Killah or any other leader of bandits is often more difficult than the bloodsucker in "Stalker. Escape from Tarkov in general is difficult, so the feeling of danger does not leave you for a minute, in addition, the death of the character in the virtual world deprives you of all the loot.

The essence of the game is simple: you have to equip your character, enter the map, collect the maximum number of valuable items in the caches, survive in skirmishes with wild and other gamers' characters, and then exit through one of the special points on the terrain. But pulling it all off in practice is damn near impossible. Death awaits around every corner: if a fighter is not finished with hunger and thirst, he runs the risk of dying from wounds or a stray bullet. Even without anomalies, as in the Zone, every step can be fatal. Special mention should be made of the developers' love of weapons. If in the series S.T.A.L.K.E.R. different modifications of guns appeared only on Clear Sky release in 2008, in Escape from Tarkov any gun was initially disassembled into elementary parts. Judging by the trailers, in the second "Stalker" we will also be given to play with the weapon constructor.

Ideologically, this MMO shooter is very similar to Escape from Tarkov. Here, too, raids are at the head of the corner: you have to enter the map, survive and come out with trophies. You start in a personal bunker where you can equip a soldier, improve the gun, changing 12 pieces, see the ratings of leaders, sell or buy something, take the job, as well as choose a location and mode. There are first- and third-person battles, single-player, duo, and squad actions. You can even insure your equipment before a sortie, like in EFT. Only in the world of Lost Light the apocalypse came globally, not in a single city. You control a soldier of the Fireflies, who investigate the mysteries of the past and try to restore order after the end of the world.

It seems like a familiar picture, but Lost Light has a number of significant differences. First, no one is forced to fight with the character of another player: if he was wounded and then healed, you can offer friendship - and then act together. When you are wounded, you are free to call for help from anyone within earshot. Secondly, unlike Escape from Tarkov, this game is conditionally free, which is good and bad at the same time. On the one hand, no one takes money from you - freely download the client from Steam and run. You don't even need to register. On the other hand, the further into the woods, the harder it is to do with free money. And technically the project justifies its status - to the perfection and fineness of the work of Battlestate Games it is still far away.

And this free MMO game is directly inspired by the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series. - It's enough to look at any scene with rusty freight cars and Moskviches without doors to understand where the developers from AlphaSoft are getting their wood from. It comes with radiation, mutants, anomalies, faction warfare, shooting at opponents with a Kalashnikov rifle - in short, everything that the public associates with the universe invented by the team at GSC Game World. But the genre has obliged Will To Live Online and to some differences. Here, for example, there is a great emphasis on resource extraction, including body parts of infected animals - yes, you have to shoot boars, as in Stalker, only in much larger quantities. Heroes can be of different classes, and their skills improve as they grow in levels - this, again, is something new for the Zone.

After a short tutorial, Will To Live literally pushes the user to find partners, because the open world of the game is full of dangers. Once you cross the border of peaceful territory, you are attacked by packs of dogs, pigs, or more terrifying creatures. So you need the support of your friend. But it's worth bearing in mind that the road to glory for a stalker is long. To tell tall tales by the fire or to arrange stabbing with other novices on the training ground - it is a noble thing, but it does not increase the experience of the hero. And to pump up your character you have to run errands for a long time, to climb into the thick of it for artifacts, to save pennies on a new gun, to risk your head and the contents of your backpack in the fight for survival.

Deadside is another attempt to recreate the atmosphere of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series in multiplayer format, but without the fantastic elements. To be clear, instead of zombies there are ogres and marauders. Like Will To Live Online, this game is still in early access, but already costs money. But it has ambitions for sure: an open world of 25 square kilometers, where you can meet the destroyed after the end of the world settlements, fight with ogres, and also enter into a firefight with other server residents. There is a simulation of the changing time of day and weather, and the characters under the control of users are hungry and thirsty, so you have not only to fight, but also to search for supplies. All this is complemented by a system of crafting and construction - playing with friends, you can build a base to store loot and raid the surrounding land.

In general, the set of mechanics here is the same as in the more famous DayZ level shooters. But there are also nuances that make Deadside stand out against its genre counterparts. For example, if your character is full, he is running faster and slowly recovers health without medicine. Another influence on the choice of server: if in one world of supplies is scarce, and around the crowd of overly accurate bots, the second will focus on PvP-battles, and resources are plentiful. Options enough - no one bothers to choose the server that suits you. In general, the game looks and feels like the Russian answer to DayZ and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.. - Not without flaws, but the potential is noticeable.

The essence of stalking is to explore the ruins and search for various objects, from expensive artifacts to cans of stewed meat. Gamers have even coined a special term: "stalking. This is when you turn in the game from the main path to take a look around the shelves in an abandoned house or run along the rusting railroad cars, maybe there is something valuable hidden there. Finding something is not guaranteed, because it's fascinating. And the battles are included as an optional extra - absolutely without them in the post-apocalyptic world is not possible. That's the formula used by the authors of Stay Out: here you spend most of your time meditatively exploring the locations - alone or with partners, as you wish.

One of the advantages of Stay Out is the design of the virtual world and the ease of registration, for which it is sufficient to create a character in the editor and give him a name. Locations here are drawn in the manner of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: there are forests with small villages, provincial railway stations, industrial facilities with dungeons - and everything in the Soviet style. In addition, no money is taken for the trial - this is also a plus. And among the disadvantages should be specified technical part, as the project is in beta-testing stage, and the usual for the conditional-free MMO restrictions. For example, a hero equipped for the real currency, with a high likelihood of winning the battle against a newcomer using the standard equipment. However, enjoying the atmosphere of devastation and discovering something new does not prevent this circumstance.