S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl: Complete Survival Guide

Everything you need to survive the Zone as the Marked One: how the systems work, where the story takes you, how to reach the true endings, and how to run the game (Enhanced Edition or original) on a modern PC.

Researched September 2026 — current as of the Legends of the Zone Enhanced Edition (released May 20, 2025) and the original 1.0006-era build. Live games change; check the linked sources if something differs.

Which version do you own? Since May 20, 2025 the trilogy has been available as the Legends of the Zone Enhanced Edition with updated lighting, textures, gamepad support, Steam Deck optimization, cloud saves, Steam Workshop mods, and achievements. Per GSC, owners of the original game on PC get the Enhanced Edition free, and Enhanced Edition buyers also get the original versions. If you already own the original (Steam app 4500), it keeps working alongside the new edition.

Quick Start

This is not a run-and-gun shooter. Weapons are inaccurate until you find better ones, and a few bullets kill you. Crouch, fire in short bursts, aim for heads, and use cover.
Save often, in multiple slots. Quicksave before every fight and before crossing anomaly fields. Keep rotating hard saves too — scripted events can occasionally break.
Throw bolts. You have unlimited bolts. Throw them ahead of you in anomaly areas; anomalies react visibly when a bolt touches them.
Watch the Geiger counter. Radiation is invisible. Drink vodka or use anti-rad drugs to clear it, and do not linger in crackling areas.
Stop bleeding immediately. Bleeding does not stop on its own quickly. Bandages fix it cheaply; save medkits for health.
Carry weight is the real inventory limit. Overloaded stalkers cannot sprint. Sell junk weapons and don't hoard ammo for guns you do not use.
Eat. Hunger drains stamina over time. Bread, sausage, and canned food are cheap.
Talk to everyone at hubs. Side jobs from Sidorovich, the Barkeep, and Professor Sakharov pay for better gear.
There is no weapon repair or upgrading in this game. Swap worn guns for ones you loot rather than nursing a broken favorite (repair and upgrades came in later entries).

Core Systems

Health, bleeding, radiation, stamina

Threat	How it shows	Fix
Health damage	Health bar	Medkits (Army and Scientific variants are stronger), bandages for minor bleeding
Bleeding	Blood drop icon	Bandages or medkits
Radiation	Geiger clicks, radiation icon	Anti-rad, vodka; avoid hotspots and radioactive artifacts
Hunger	Hunger icon, stamina loss	Eat food
Psy effects	Screen distortion near psy sources	Specific protection is needed for the Brain Scorcher areas (see story)

Anomalies and artifacts

Anomalies are invisible or barely visible hazards: electrical discharges, gravitational traps that throw or crush you, and heat/fire vents. The detector beeps faster as you approach one.
Bolts are your best tool. Throw one; if it gets yanked, sparks, or burns, walk around.
Artifacts form near anomaly clusters. They sit in five belt slots and give bonuses (to bullet resistance, stamina, health regeneration, and so on), but many also emit radiation. Balance a radioactive artifact with one that removes radiation, and read each artifact's stats before equipping.
Sell artifacts you don't use to scientists and traders for serious money.

Factions

Faction	Where	Notes
Loners (free stalkers)	Everywhere, Rookie Village in Cordon	Your default friends; help them for goodwill
Duty	Rostok / 100 Rads Bar	Disciplined, anti-Zone. Friendly base with trader access
Freedom	Army Warehouses	Anarchist rivals of Duty; base with its own trader
Bandits	Garbage, Dark Valley	Hostile; drop decent early weapons
Military	Cordon checkpoints, Agroprom	Hostile; well-armed
Monolith	Northern Zone	Fanatics guarding the center; hostile
Ecologists (scientists)	Yantar bunker	Pay well for artifacts and science tasks
Mercenaries	Scattered	Hostile, well-equipped

Siding with Duty or Freedom is optional. Killing members of a faction turns it hostile. Pick based on which base you'd rather have as a friendly shop in the late mid-game.

Traders

Sidorovich — the bunker in Cordon's Rookie Village. Your first shop and quest giver.
Barkeep — the 100 Rads bar in the Bar/Rostok area. Main mid-game hub and story quest source.
Professor Sakharov — the scientists' bunker at Yantar. Science gear, and critical story equipment.
Skinflint — Freedom's trader at the Army Warehouses.

A-Life

The Zone is simulated. NPCs travel between areas, fight mutants and each other, and loot corpses. That means a friendly squad can get wiped out while you're away, and a mutant pack can wander into a "safe" camp. Treat every return trip as a fresh risk.

Mutants

You'll meet blind dogs, fleshes, boars, snorks, bloodsuckers (turn invisible up close), pseudodogs, zombified stalkers, and in later areas controllers, burers, poltergeists, and pseudogiants. (The chimera was cut from this game; it appears in Call of Pripyat.) General rules:

Dogs and fleshes: shotgun or backpedal while firing.
Bloodsuckers: listen for breathing, fire when they uncloak. Shotguns shine.
Controllers: break line of sight and close the distance between psy attacks.
Pseudogiants: high-damage rifles or grenades; keep moving and don't let it stomp you at close range.

Weapons and Gear

The game uses fictionalized weapon names. Some you'll meet:

Weapon	Role	Notes
Fort-12	Starter pistol	Weak; replace ASAP
Viper 5	Early SMG	Common early from bandits
AKM-74/2	Workhorse assault rifle	Ammo everywhere; good until mid-game
SGI-5k, TRs 301	Western-style rifles	More accurate; ammo less common early
Vintar BC	Suppressed sniper/assault rifle	Excellent against Monolith
SVDm-2	Sniper rifle	Long range in open areas
Gauss rifle	Late-game energy rifle	Extremely powerful; scarce ammo

Armor: upgrade from the starting leather jacket as soon as you can. Scientific suits help against anomalies and radiation; military armor and the Exoskeleton stop bullets (the Exoskeleton cannot sprint). For the late game, prioritize bullet resistance — Monolith fights are gun fights.

Story Route Outline (light spoilers)

You wake in Cordon as the "Marked One" with one task in your PDA: kill Strelok.

Stage	Area	What you do
1	Cordon	Jobs for Sidorovich; learn the basics; reach the Garbage
2	Garbage	Bandit territory, the gateway to the rest of the Zone
3	Agroprom	A military-held research institute and its underground; recover documents
4	Dark Valley and X18	Bandit base and the first secret lab
5	Bar/Rostok	The Barkeep's hub; Duty base; Wild Territory jobs
6	Yantar and X16	Scientists' bunker; Professor Sakharov's help with psy-protection; the "Miracle Machine" lab
7	Army Warehouses	Freedom base; the road north
8	Radar and X10	Disable the Brain Scorcher to open the way north
9	Pripyat	Monolith-held city
10	ChNPP	The Sarcophagus, the Wish Granter, and the hidden truth

The Brain Scorcher

Heading north past the Army Warehouses without dealing with the Brain Scorcher turns you into a mindless zombie. The story routes you through the X-labs to disable it. Follow the Barkeep's and Sakharov's quest lines — the game will not let you skip this.

Endings

The game has seven endings:

Five "false" endings come from reaching the Wish Granter (the Monolith) inside the Sarcophagus: wishes for power, wealth, humanity's end, the Zone's disappearance, and immortality. Which one you get depends on your state at that moment (for example, how much money you're carrying and your reputation). None of them are good.
Two "true" endings happen after you uncover the secret behind the Zone (the C-Consciousness), where you choose to join it or destroy it. The canon ending is refusing and destroying it.

The Decoder is the key. To reach the true endings you must piece together Strelok's past through the main quests (the Agroprom stash, X18, Ghost's trail in X16, and the Doctor). That leads you to Strelok's stash in a hotel room in Pripyat, which holds a Decoder that opens a secret door inside the ChNPP Sarcophagus. Without the Decoder, the only way forward is the Wish Granter and a false ending. Search Pripyat thoroughly, grab the Decoder before you push into the plant, and keep hard saves from before the ChNPP.

Survival Economy

Early money comes from artifacts and side jobs. The Barkeep's and Sakharov's tasks pay the best mid-game.
Sell looted weapons in decent condition; badly worn guns are worth little.
Keep one primary rifle, a sidearm, a shotgun or SMG for mutants, grenades, 6 to 10 bandages, several medkits, anti-rads, and food. Everything else is sale fodder.
Buy the best body armor you can afford before the Army Warehouses; the difficulty spikes from there on.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Running into anomaly fields without throwing bolts. It's one of the most common deaths.
Ignoring radiation until it's lethal. Clear it early; it keeps ticking.
Only quicksaving. A bad quicksave in a death spiral can lock you out. Keep rotating manual saves.
Hoarding every gun. Weight kills sprinting, and sprinting saves lives.
Picking fights with the Military or Duty/Freedom by accident. Friendly fire and looting their bodies in front of them sour relations.
Rushing the finale. You'll lock yourself into a false ending.
Equipping artifacts blindly. Several give radiation that slowly kills you.

Advanced Tips

Lean and crouch. Leaning around corners (Q/E by default) exposes very little of you. Crouch-walking improves accuracy and stealth.
Night advantage. Visibility drops at night for everyone. Bandit and Monolith snipers are far less dangerous in the dark; use your flashlight sparingly.
Use grenades on campers. Enemy AI flanks and uses cover well; a grenade flushes them out.
Suppressors matter. In Pripyat and the ChNPP, suppressed weapons like the Vintar BC let you pick off Monolith at range.
Stash for later. Leave extra ammo and meds in a stash near a hub to avoid weight problems.
Arena at Rostok. The arena offers paid fights for gear and money if you are confident in your shooting.

Modern PC Setup and Mods

Enhanced Edition (2025): the easiest way to play today. It adds gamepad support, Steam Deck optimization, cloud saves, achievements, and Steam Workshop for mods.
Original version: still runs on modern Windows. A 2023 patch fixed a freeze on 12th-gen Intel systems running Windows 11 in the R2 (DX9 full dynamic lighting) renderer, and a "pre-win11-patch" beta branch keeps the older build for mod compatibility.
Popular original-version mods: bug-fix mods such as the Zone Reclamation Project (ZRP) are the classic "vanilla plus" choice. Large overhauls exist too; install one at a time and always check compatibility with your game version.
If the game crashes after installing mods, remove them and verify files through Steam.

FAQ

Should I play the Enhanced Edition or the original? The Enhanced Edition for convenience and visuals; the original for the widest compatibility with classic mods. Owning one gives you both on PC.

How many endings are there? Seven: five false Wish Granter endings and two true endings.

How do I get the true ending? Follow the Strelok storyline to its end, collect the Decoder from Strelok's stash in a Pripyat hotel room, and use it on the secret door inside the Sarcophagus instead of going to the Wish Granter.

How do I get past the Brain Scorcher? Follow the story through the Yantar lab and X10 at the Radar. You need psy protection from the scientists and must disable the Scorcher itself.

Can I repair or upgrade weapons? Not in Shadow of Chernobyl; that arrived in Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat. Replace worn weapons with loot.

Which faction should I join? Neither is required. Duty's bar area is more central; Freedom's base is further north. Side with whichever base you'd rather keep friendly.

Why am I always dying to radiation? Artifacts and hotspots. Check your artifact belt, carry anti-rads, and use vodka in a pinch.

Is multiplayer still active? The original supports online and LAN PvP for up to 32 players, but public activity is low; community servers are hit-or-miss.