STALKER 2 Beastmaster Episode Four: The Last Bite

They say hope is the first step down the road to disappointment, and reader, I’ve taken a pretty big step. Previously, On my mission to live STALKER 2The heart of Chornobyl is only a wild mutation as my weapon, I want it You got a clue That someone else is trying to tame the zone’s beastly inhabitants. An electronic tracking collar in their hand and There is absolutely no foreknowledge. Around them, I went to find this kindred spirit, the zone closed in front of me again.

Cool, steel, very accurate door to boot. The scientist’s lab is locked up tight and it lasts until I enter a nearly twenty-hour civil war where I run around throwing rats in tracksuits. cool. cool! But I’m waiting for the collar.

Back to the quest process, it soon became clear to me that I didn’t need to send those rats to their deaths, as the information I wanted from their killers was also available on a PDA without a corpse in a nearby cave. . Burr, a tall, molten-looking humanoid mutant, came to kill me with a battery of disarmed rifles. It’s a force that I’m holding on to, trying to force it out so that I can weaponize it in turn. He’s smarter than his Bloodsucker cousins, but – at least he knows how to hide his guilt – and refuses to give chase, leaving me to continue my investigation alone.

As he did with mine Early oddjobbingThe pacifist approach I’m forced to take has been surprisingly effective on many successive missions. I got out of murder by bribing the person who gave it to me. I escape the ensuing double cross by throwing myself bloodlessly into the sewer. Befriending a group of former cultists and being told to bring some important machinery, I expected it to be nothing more than brainwashed zombies. Panic is about to set in when I’m attacked by the monitor, another psychic muti boy who sends my vision squinting like my eyes are attached to cardboard springs, while he’s me with a tiny arrow head. What I’m going out for is a fight of choice. .

I’m still not happy. I’m supposed to be the master of the beast, the abominable subjugator, and I’m just going about it in the sexiest, least dynamic-dependent way possible. Going back to the old cultists, I was rewarded with a beautiful Camilgade sniper rifle, as if the universe itself was saying to me, “Come on, man, do this right.” No – I must persevere. With the same smile I gave Nan when she handed me the Pixar Cars alarm clock at 17, I accepted the gun and proceeded to my next destination: a military base where I could install the recovered technology.

Still failing to pick off any monsters along the way, I reached the base after the guards were gunned down, then ran into the attackers in the tunnels below. It’s some cult members who are customizing the base for their own nefarious purposes or just want their sniper rifles back. Corridors are tight and even outnumber me with beast backup, but as before, their fully automatic weapons are no match for their run-jutsu. Climbing a ladder back up, a stranger shouted from the control tower that he should have killed me when he had the chance.

That doesn’t wash it much – I’ve been roaming around the zone without a gun for hours, my friend, so many opportunities. Regardless, he’s blocking the path to the gizmo loader, so climbing up the tower and neutralizing him is one battle I can’t just handle.

Sorting his pot reveals bad news. Plan A is a chest, he’s on a ladder, so even if I go find a mutant and bring him back here, he can’t follow me and kill me. Plan B is just ignoring him and hoping I can load the machine before he shoots him dead, because I can’t physically interact with him when he’s in the cage while I’m in combat. Miraculously, I seem to be able to test an ill-conceived plan, as the release – a deadly, zone-wide psychic wave – begins to roll. Ladder and take cover in the lab below, knowing the most exposed tower should leave my attacker open for a charge.

But no – the sky cleared and as I climbed higher, I heard more gunfire. In my eagerness to see this man die in a way that wasn’t shot, I forgot that his unit was immune to emissions, and all I feared was that he would be given a tea break in the middle of the fight.

not good. I’m out of options. He, apparently, never runs out of bullets. I’ve traveled half the zone, used the powers of the mutants to wipe out experienced soldiers, and even turned the tables on my own hunter, but this ladder climb makes it all for naught. And it is. Still Shooting me.

what do you know You can get the sniper rifle back. Here goes:

With that I failed. My oath, my promise, not to kill with a weapon is now as broken as this man’s ribs. or is it He is still breathing. He is still breathing the threat. And I have the option of just walking away and leaving him behind. As long as he’s not dead, I think I can get away with it.

Bullocks

It’s over. As I recount the hollow triumph of being able to insert one MacGuffy into another, I can picture the ghost of my father and mentor, Boris Beastmaster, shaking his head and muttering personal insults. “I’m sorry, Dad,” he whispered. “Prick,” he replied. It’s worse – I’ve only failed one search by leaving the code, but I’ve lost my reason for being. to the to live. What good is a beast master who can’t control beasts?

I really should have known from the start that I was going to lose, and for reasons that extend beyond one ladder. The zone, after all, is close enough to the living thing itself. It is mercy enough to kill and reward the brave. But even if we could build sensors that would allow us to rummage through the debris for artifacts or scanners, the zone itself violates many incomprehensible laws of physics and mathematics—it’s not hard to understand. And how can you tame something, even something you don’t understand?

However, if my path is to end, I cannot let it end with such a desperate abandonment of my principles. I’d say I’ve got one last good monster brawl left in me, and revenge on one of the tower shooter cultists seems like the perfect way to wear it down. I found him hiding a few miles to the south and immediately left him in search of something with big teeth to introduce him.

In a supply hold in a southern swamp, I found just the thing: a Bloodsucker (unlike this lifeless Burren) was quite happy to chase me hundreds of meters back. Certainly, the ritual still exists. Shocked and confused, he hits me with his AK, but I have plenty of potions and nothing to lose. Focusing intently, he completely ignored the flash of light that followed me, and within seconds, the bloodsucker had burst from the cage and thrown him down in two swings.

I may not be able to bend these beasts to my will, but when that body hits the concrete, I at least have the satisfaction of being able to snap. Redemption, if not absolute. And so, with a sigh and a smile, I approached my bloodsucking self and accepted the zone’s sentence, finally falling quietly into the hands of my chosen comrade.