Best Games To Play If You Like Stalker

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home December 23, 2024 4 Views 15 Min Read
Best Games To Play If You Like Stalker

It can be hard to find a game that scratches the Stalker series itch. You know, the stuff that makes it charming, like the radioactive, post-apocalyptic wastelands, the terrifying, mutated creatures and high-energy anomalies, or trying to get “friendly” with the locals.

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If you’re here, though, either the robust selection of mods available just aren’t doing the trick for you, or you’ve exhausted everything to do in Stalker 2. Whatever the case, while they can’t promise an identical Stalker experience, the games listed below are able to get pretty darn close to that experience in one way or another.

Updated on December 19, 2024 by Tom Hopkins: Now that Stalker 2 is out, fans of the series have another game to jump into. However, that’s the obvious choice. Between the launch of the first and most recent games in the series, loads of similar games have been released.

13

Metro Exodus

A screenshot from Metro: Exodus Enhanced Edition (2020) wherein the player is perched atop a high building, looking at a panoramic view of a destroyed city, covered in snow in a post-apocalyptic setting.

The Metro series is the obvious choice when it comes to games that are similar to Stalker. Not only is the vibe similar, but it’s also set in an expansive post-apocalyptic Eastern Europe.

The latest game in the series is Metro Awakening, a shorter experience that’s exclusive to VR platforms.

However, unlike the other games in the series, Exodus takes place in an open world. The previous games all took place in the dark tunnels under Moscow, but the structure was expanded to include the world above the surface. You take on bandits and mutants, all while trying to survive – just as you do in Stalkerr.

12

Days Gone

Deacon With A Talon 7 in Days Gone.

Days Gone hasn’t been the most highly rated of the PlayStation first-party exclusives, but it’s certainly garnered a cult following. Where it is similar to the Stalker series is in its setting. You explore an open post-apocalyptic wilderness, full of mystery and things that can kill you.

Where the two games differ is in the speed of the action. The hordes of zombies in Days Gone are a constant threat, with hundreds of undead attacking you at any one time. Stalker is a slower experience, with you needing to be tactical in how you approach every threat. If you enjoy the setting of Stalker though, you’ll likely enjoy Days Gone.

11

Pacific Drive

An old car is parked on a hill while an alien looking beam of light glows in the distance.

If you enjoy the first-person perspective and survival aspects of Stalker, Pacific Rift is the perfect game for you. It even features the anomalies and strange obstacles you’ll be familiar with. However, not everything is the same.

There’s a big focus on the car you get to explore in, as well as the puzzle-solving aspects. It’s not a shooter in the same way as Stalker, so you won’t be taking on enemies in as aggressive ways. The dark and mysterious vibe of Stalker also doesn’t carry over, with the game being set in a fictionalised version of the late 90s.

10

Wasteland 3

A mostly black and white loot UI showing a grid-based inventory with a smoke grenade and other tactical gear inside.

Released

August 28, 2020

Developer(s)

inXile entertainment

If you’re able to forego the real-time, first-person aspects of the Stalker games, Wasteland 3 is still able to tick the post-apocalyptic, RPG, faction, and tactical combat checkboxes, packaging the entire experience into a squad and turn-based adventure full of tough, ethical decisions.

While this game might not feel quite as open-world as it does in Stalker, you’ll likely be pleased by the degree of spontaneity and volatility of the environment and the enemies you encounter. While it’s a shame you won’t be prowling the wastes of The Zone, why not give this fictional alternate reality set in Colorado a chance?

9

Generation Zero

A first-person POV of hands wearing black gloves holding and firing a suppressed pistol in a wooded area during Autumn.

Ah, FPS, real-time, survival-horror goodness where stealthy gameplay is rewarded, all set in an alternate timeline where late 1980s Sweden has been overrun by a wide variety of autonomous, deadly machines. It doesn’t quite feel the same as fighting off a pack of Pseudodogs or a Chimera, but these robots are still pretty intimidating at times, especially the building-sized ones.

In Generation Zero, your best friends are knowledge, guerilla warfare, and a lot of ammunition accompanied by upgraded weapons and gear. Learn the patterns, behaviors, and weaknesses of your mechanical enemies, and strike them when the odds are in your favor.

8

Atomic Heart

A gold-gloved, technologically augmented hand firing a blast of freezing cold, blue and white liquid.

Released

February 21, 2023

Developer(s)

Mundfish

While Atomic Heart has plenty of robotic enemies to fight, since practically every mechanical servant went haywire, sparking a global catastrophe in this utopian version of the Soviet Union set in the 1950s, you might be pleased to hear there are plenty of mutants to fight, too.

With humanity at stake, you’ll play as Major Sergey Nechayev, communicating and collaborating with your boss, robotics designer Viktor Petrov, to figure out what went wrong. Whether it’s a variety of melee weapons, cyborg-like enhancements, or a good old-fashioned AK-47, you’ll figure out how to deal with the enemies in your way, some way or another.

7

Road To Vostok

A first-person perspective of looking through a rifle scope with a red crosshair in a snowy environment.

Although it’s in early access, Road to Vostok has much to be desired, especially if the thought of a Sandbox, Survival, FPS experience with a focus on realism, combat, and looting in a post-apocalyptic setting excites you.

A background image showing an underwater base in Subnautica with a circle PNG on top showing a player from Don't Starve.

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While the game isn’t open-world in the same way that Stalker is, there are already plenty of interconnected maps with randomized events that crank up the PvE difficulty the closer you get to Vostok. Also, make sure you pay attention to your character’s medical conditions in the field and visit the trader to maintain your weapons and gear.

6

Fallout: New Vegas

A first-person perspective of a wrist-mounted screen showing a variety of items in the players inventory in orange-yellow text.
Fallout: New Vegas

Released

October 19, 2010

If you were playing Fallout: New Vegas around its initial release, you’d miss out on Stalker’s in-depth survival mechanics. However, thanks to modern additions and updates, you can take Fallout’s typical RPG, FPS, and looting experience and introduce new survival aspects by playing in Hardcore mode.

Now with additional sadistic game mechanics, like sleep deprivation, dehydration, starvation, and less effective medical supplies, you should be able to feel that familiar, Stalker-esque struggle, but this time, caught between the factions warring in the dusty deserts of the Mojave.

5

Zero Sievert

A gray, grid-based looting UI of a player searching a bandit's inventory.

As long as you don’t mind pixel art graphics with a top-down perspective, Zero Sievert translates from the Stalker experience quite well, allowing you to explore a variety of maps full of random events, including anomalies and airdrops, fight off mutants, die to radioactive zones, and build trust with different factions.

The game is completely single-player, focused on brutal PvE that can be tailored to your liking, allowing for some forgiveness here and there if you need a more lenient experience or an incredibly difficult challenge with permadeath mechanics.

4

Escape From Tarkov

Released

July 27, 2017

Developer(s)

Battlestate Games

While it’s true that Escape From Tarkov is primarily a multiplayer, extraction-shooter experience that lacks mutated creatures or anomalies, the combination of PvP and PvE threats, a complex medical and health system, and a wide variety of realistic weaponry makes for an exciting, albeit unforgiving experience.

If you jump into Escape From Tarkov, you’ll be introduced to a whole new work of hardcore extraction shooters.

There are plenty of quests to do, and depending on whether you choose to align yourself with BEARs or USECs, certain factions on some of the maps will be either more trusting of you or immediately hostile on sight. EFT isn’t the perfect alternative to Stalker, but it can get your heart thumping in the same way.

3

Project Zomboid

A player looks through their inventory from an isometric perspective next to multiple dead zombies on a road.

If you squint your eyes a little bit, you’ll be able to pretend the zombie hordes found wandering throughout Project Zomboid are a bunch of Zombified Stalkers that have succumbed to the adverse effects of prolonged Psy-field exposure. Okay, that’s not very ideal, but on the bright side, this game offers plenty of depth, with a heavy focus on preparation, adaptation, tough decisions, and scavenging for loot.

An image of a base in Valheim with a circle PNG of Astroneer.

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You can play solo or with friends, and depending on the challenge you’re looking for, start the game at the beginning of the zombie outbreak or much later into it when basic needs, like water and food, are much harder to find. Oh, and be sure to stave off detrimental effects like boredom, depression, or infections.

2

DayZ

A snowy town in Dayz with multiple buildings and bodies strewn across the main road.

DayZ

Released

December 13, 2018

Developer(s)

Bohemia Interactive

Despite being a combination of PvP and PvE, DayZ encapsulates most of the Stalker experience through Survival-FPS gameplay, keeping you occupied with plenty of crafting, scavenging, and combat opportunities in an open-ended, zombie-infested region called Chernarus.

If you’re still on the fence, or you’re not sure it’ll be worth your money, that’s understandable. Thankfully, there are plenty of mods to help tailor the experience to your liking and a helpful list of beginner tips from knowledgeable writers here at TheGamer to help give you an idea of what to expect.

1

Metro: Last Light

A mining elevator illuminated by red light with an NPC beckoning to the player to join him.

If you’re looking for gritty, post-apocalyptic, mutant-slaying, anomaly-infested experience set in Moscow’s metro system during a nuclear winter, then that’d make sense, because Metro: Last Light’s first-person shooter, survival-horror gameplay is pretty darn similar to the Stalker series.

This is the perfect game to go back to if you’ve played the more modern Metro games, which are more similar to Stalker.

Sure, you won’t encounter any Psy-Dogs or Bloodsuckers, but you should give the game a chance and decide how you feel about it after you’ve fought off some Blind Ones, Librarians, or hordes of Nosalis. Plus, the weapons in the game feel incredibly immersive and, at times, hilariously improvised, which is fitting for a post-apocalyptic world.

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