Zombified Stalkers

Zombified Stalkers
Establishment
Locations	Agroprom Wild Territory Yantar Lab X-16 Army Warehouses Zaton Yanov Jupiter Underground Pripyat
Relations
Enemies	Bandits Clear Sky Duty Ecologists Freedom Free stalkers Mercenaries Military Renegades
Allies	Monolith
Technical
In-game code	zombied

Not to be confused with Zombies, a mutant that was cut from S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl.

Poor souls subjected to prolonged exposure in Yantar and a few other heavily radiated sectors. Careless stalkers gone mad and turned into walking corpses. Many such corpses wander the Zone, some wander as far as the perimeter. They are beyond help because the destructive process is irreversible. Zombified stalkers are still able to use their weapons, but they are quite dumb and can be heard mumbling meaningless, fragmented sentences to themselves. They gradually lose all their skills and turn into zombies. They are usually very aggressive and can present a serious threat in large numbers.
― Shadow of Chernobyl PDA description

Zombified Stalkers are a hostile faction that appear in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat. They are the husks of former Stalkers, driven mad by prolonged exposure to a Psy-field.

Overview

Daughter...dear daughter...child...you've become so grown.
― Zombified Stalker mumbling to himself

Stalkers undergo zombification under prolonged exposure to a Psy-field such as those in Yantar and the Red Forest. Hallucinations, psychosis, fatigue, amnesia and severe pain were all symptoms faced by careless Stalkers who exposed themselves to the fields without proper protection, and those who remained for extended periods suffered a most terrible fate, either succumbing to the emission's influence and becoming members of the Monolith or becoming zombified stalkers.

Zombified Stalkers are husks that wander the Zone, some as far as the perimeter, holding onto whatever memories of their former lives remain, until even they are lost. They are often heard mumbling incoherent, broken sentences and crying to themselves. They possess crude forms of communication, as they can be heard calling on other Zombified Stalkers when spotting an enemy.

In spite of their name, Zombified Stalkers are not actual 'zombies' as defined by popular culture, they are more like husks. Hollow shells of what once was, stripped of reason or thought and turned into mindless slaves. Zombies are basically ordinary stalkers that have been exposed to enormous amounts of radiation and Psi-waves, and haven't had the good fortune to die. They are technically still alive by medical standards at least, but their overall conscious behaviour has been surgically removed, replaced by animal instinct, hence - husk. They cannot be labeled as actual 'undead' because only the brain was affected by the Emission, not the body.

They clumsily operate firearms and maintain little tactical awareness, blindly charging into the fray and relentlessly assaulting the player in great numbers with no regard for self preservation. Their vision and reaction times have been severely inhibited, with them unable to pinpoint most anomalies and their combat abilities crippled at longer ranges.

A group of zombified stalkers.

Most of the Zombified Stalkers have a set of quotes spoken in Russian, some translated in particular: "Daughter, look how grown you are! Daddy is coming home soon...", "Zone...Zone is a bitch...I must get out of here..." "Artifacts...Artifacts...I must find artifacts...". Killing will make them say "It hurts...It hurts...", which further proves they still have basic instincts and faint memories of their former selves.

In Shadow of Chernobyl, zombified stalkers wear the armor of numerous factions of the Zone; the player can encountered zombified members of the Loners, Duty, Freedom, Mercenaries and the Military. In Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat however, all encountered zombies wear either Leather jackets, Sunrise suits, Berill-5M armoured suits or the Loners' exoskeleton.

Appearances

Shadow of Chernobyl

Zombified Stalkers can be found predominantly in areas where psi emitters are typically close by, such as in Yantar and Wild Territory (on the path that leads to Yantar) due to the psi emissions created by Lab X-16. More zombified Stalkers can also be found at Red Forest, because of the powerful psi emissions that are created by the Brain Scorcher of Lab X-19. Zombified Stalkers can also be encountered in Pripyat.

The leader of Duty General Voronin gives a mission Destroy the zombie that targets a specific zombified stalker.

Clear Sky

Zombified Stalkers can be first encountered at the Agroprom Research Institute (near the entrance to Yantar) where the player helps a group of Loners fend them off. Later, they can be encountered in Yantar, Red Forest and the Army Warehouses.

Call of Pripyat

In Call of Pripyat, Zombified Stalkers can be encountered in all outdoors areas of the game, either wandering throughout the level in groups of two to three, or sitting at camps. They are frequently seen at the Parking Lot anomaly in Yanov and the Pripyat River Port, guarding the area alongside Monolith stalkers. There is also a number of non-respawning zombified stalkers that can be found at certain areas of the game:

• A large number of them can be found at the Zaton Sawmill, guarding the level's sole Tools for basic work.
• A number of them can also be found at Kopachy in Yanov; unlike other zombified stalkers, they are strangely passive and will not attack the player unless provoked beforehand. During the mission Kopachy, they can assist the player in eliminating the hostile Mercenaries. After the mission is completed, these zombified stalkers will disappear from the village.
• There is also a small number of them in the Volkhov AA Complex in Yanov, guarding Sokolov's Note.
• Six zombified stalkers can be found at the entrance of the Oasis, west to the Ventilation Complex in Yanov.
• A dozen zombified stalkers are encountered at the very end of the Jupiter Underground, in the final stretch of the level before the ladder to Pripyat.
• Six zombified stalkers can be found at the entrance of the Testing Workshop.
• There is also a large number of them in the Yubileiny Service Center, guarding the entrance to Lab X-8 alongside Monolith stalkers.
• Zombified Stalkers are encountered in large numbers in the streets of Pripyat during the final mission.

Trivia

A group of zombified stalkers "talking" with each other.

• Although it is said that any stalkers caught in a psy emission will have his brains scrambled and be turned into a Zombified Stalker, it was never seen in any of the games. In Clear Sky, stalkers will always seek cover, and anyone scripted to stay outside will be removed from the game until the emission is over. In Call of Pripyat, emissions simply kill anyone who happens to be outside during them, except for quest/plot important characters who seem to be completely immune and Monolith stalkers.
• The Zombified stalkers in Call of Pripyat can sometimes be found crouched around a fire pit, murmuringmeaningless words to each other as if in a conversation, and even "laugh" like their normal human counterparts. This can be a sign that they still hold some form of humanity, and attempt to communicate with each other. Around barrel fires, they'll stick out their hands into the heat in order to keep warm.They have some kind of life form or basic instinct for survival.
• "Idle" zombified Stalkers can somehow run away from a thrown grenade and take cover in Shadow of Chernobyl and for some reason, attacking zombified stalkers do not have this behavior. This was fixed in Call of Pripyat in which they ignore thrown grenades.
• In Call of Pripyat, Zombified Stalkers will even loot weapons and artifacts, and will even use scavenged weapons if they are better than their current weapons. This is why the player can sometimes find multiple weapons on the last zombified stalker killed in a horde.
• Zombified Stalkers wearing exoskeleton always have mask on their heads in Shadow of Chernobyl, but they don't have one in Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat.
• They rarely engage in combat with mutants as mutants never seem to attack them. However, under circumstances where high numbers of Zombies come across a pack of dogs or similar highly aggressive mutant, the zombies will open fire if one gets too close. The resulting fight is quite entertaining.
• They normally carry the same amount of supplies as normal stalkers, although all of the equipment that the player may find is usually weaker than anything the player already has, or is almost always in less than perfect condition. The only things of note they carry is ammunition, bandages, in rare cases anti-rads and medkits. Killing them is usually an inexpensive and easy way to stock up on supplies throughout the game, a few well-aimed shots or a volley of buckshot to the head normally sufficient to take one of them down.
• Zombified Stalkers never carry food in Shadow of Chernobyl. In Call of Pripyat, some of them do carry food.
• At Yantar, the Zombified Stalkers to the front of the science bunker will have names just like ordinary stalkers, but the Zombified stalkers in the area around Vasiliev's corpse will all have the name "Zombified Stalker". This may mean that the stalkers originally guarding the bunker when the player arrives were Zombified in an Emission.

Gallery

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A zombified Freedom member in Lab X-16 in Shadow of Chernobyl.

Ditto.

Zombified stalkers being burned by burner anomalies.

A zombified Loner in Zaton in Call of Pripyat.