The story of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky take the player one year before the events of the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game in 2011.

A group of stalkers has for the first time reached the very heart of the Zone – Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, and brings about a cataclysm on the brink of a catastrophe. An immense blowout of anomalous energy changes the Zone.
There are no more reliable and relatively safe roads. The entire levels vanish in the outbursts of anomalies. Stalkers and even expeditions die or end up sealed on the lost territories. New areas, which remained unknown since the time of the Zone emergence, appear on the Zone map. The Zone continues to shake with blowouts.

Changes of the Zone map known to stalkers shake the fragile balance of forces in the Zone. Among the groupings, there flare up hostilities for the new territories, artifact fields and spheres of influence. There are no more old enemies or friends – now everyone is for himself. The Factions War has started between the groupings.

The protagonist is a mercenary who appeared at the edge of the opposition between stalker factions, Strelok and even the Zone itself. The main character will have to play the key role in the events, which led to creation of the Zone up to the point from which the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game begins.

Here are some key features of "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky":

· Atmosphere of the Exclusion Zone
· Research of new depths of the Zone – Red Forest, Limansk, Pripyat Undergrounds and more.
· A-Life-driven War of the Factions
· Possibility to play and lead any faction to victory
· Advanced A-Life system
· Varied behaviour of NPC stalkers in the A-Life world
· Advanced spectacular storyline scenes
· Improved AI of computer-controlled characters
· Skirting around dynamic obstacles by NPCs
· Use of grenades by NPCs
· Fast Travel
· Improved concept of detectors, artifacts and anomalies
· New system of upgrades for weapons and armor
· Weapons and armor repair
· Reworked HUD and PDA
· New version of the game engine - X-Ray 1.5.
· DirectX 10 renderer
· Improved DirectX 9 renderer - parallax bump, soft particles, depth of field, motion blur, eye adaptation effect.
· Cutting-edge and detailed game graphics (normal map)
· Inverse kinematics
· New animation enginde

What's New in This Release: [ read full changelog ]

· Added a possibility of making screenshots of players by the server admins (to fight against wallhack cheats). These are console commands (make_screenshot, screenshot_all)
· Fixed player banning bug
· Fixed saving a player's rank and money after restarting the round (if a player closed game process and later reconnected)
· Multiplayer game stability increased