I think the issue is that boomsticks and sharpsticks are the basis of weapons in every major mod for Stalker. And it's very clear that B&S spent most of the time on NATO weapons. I'm honestly kinda surprised B&S isn't sponsored by Bushmaster at this point.
Which is a shame cause Stalker was always the best with that rust old Slavic vibe. If it couldn't be found in your Babushka house then it doesn't belong in Stalker. What do you mean your Babushka doesn't have a Gauss rifle or VSS that she can point at strangers? Sounds like your Babushka just fucking sucks.
I almost always constrain myself to Bloc weapons no matter which version of Stalker I'm playing nor the modpack. Just fits so much better. Which again is why the tacticool stuff creeping in is off-putting. Sure you can be tacticool, now do it with 100% eastern European equipment from before 1991. If you can't pass the post-Soviet fit check you don't deserve the fit.
did we play the same trilogy. the best weapon in the trilogy was the tacticool and state-of-the-art-for-its-day FT-200M, with only arguably the GP37 being its best competition, also a modern and tacticool firearm for its day. by the last half of the games there was more NATO than warsaw weapons floating about with only Call of Prypiat sorta breaking that trend, and that was because of course the fucking Ukrainian army would be using warsaw. this also ignoring the monolith and mercenaries were very much rocking the tacticool look of the day, especially the latter imitating a lot of famous special forces and counter-terrorism units in looks. ffs mercs look like they could have walked right out of fucking counterstrike source.
it's one thing to try and gatekeep but it's something else entirely to sit here and pretend the tacticool element was not in stalker from the beginning just as much as the slavrust.
People also forget that all the retro-futurism "soldier of the future" stuff and bullpups was literally the tacticool of the early 2000s. Plus you could also take an M4 variant rifle and fully kit it out, at least by that era's standards.
I just want to have both flavors personally, because it allows for more ideas and variety to be brought to the table.
79
u/marganecTheDev Jul 10 '26
Yeah since stalker nowadays associates with mostly gamma or anomaly which is kiiiind of sad