The Zone is home to many wonders, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a single stalker that includesmutantsin this category.
InSTALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl, mutants serve two purposes: to kill you or toexhaust your suppliesso another mutant or stalker can kill you.
These abominations are everywhere you look, especially if there is a stash or objective nearby.
This list helps you tell apartwhat kind of mutant you are dealing with, and how to kill itquickly. Good hunting, stalker.
Death By A Thousand Bites
Tushkano, rodent, hamster, it’s all the same. These little goblins die easily and do not deal much damage, but they are the bane of a stalker’s existence.
Rodents always live in packs, sometimes exceeding two dozen at once, and prefer to roam in closed spaces like sewer pipes or underground corridors.
They can leap to considerable heights so you cannot realistically climb away from them, and their habit of swarming humans makes it hard toget rid of them with grenadesif you want to make it out alive.
The easiest way to kill a horde of rodents is topull out a shotgun and blast the area with buckshot.
The most infuriating part of it all is that this is guaranteed to give out your position to hostile stalkers and other mutants, all because some mutated giant rat couldn’t control its murderous urges.
13Blind Dog
Not Your Mama’s Puppy
The blind dog is not too different from the stray dog you can find in your neighborhood, except it traded its eyesight for an excellent sense of smell and hearing.
Blind dogs can navigate around anomalies and are hard to lose once they are on your tail. They have a relatively low health bar and thin hides that can be penetrated even by 9x18mm FMJ rounds.
They traditionally run up to you, dish out a couple of bites, and then run back to reposition. While a blind dog’s bite is not particularly deadly, it almost always leaves you bleeding.
Most blind dog deaths come from stalkers who are caught by a pack and take too long to bandage a bleeding wound, eventually succumbing to the pack. You can avoid this fate by climbing on any structure and shooting them from there.
The Leaping Crab Pigs
Once upon a time, the running joke of the Zone, the flesh, is now a serious enemy. They normally roam in packs of four to six.
These crustacean-swine hybrid blobs do not deal massive damage to stalkers, but they move quickly and can pounce from a decent range to hit you.
The flesh inSTALKER 2: Heart of Chornobylis vicious, and will repeatedly claw at you until one of you is dead.
The flesh has no special weak spots or any protection worth mentioning, soeven Skif’s PTM can do the job if you want to spare your main weapon.
Alternatively, the flesh has a poor sense of anomalies, so hiding behind one as it charges remains viable.
Hostile, Hungry, And Tanky
The boar is one of the least mutated animals native to the Zone, but it developed a taste for human flesh that is mildly inconvenient to stalkers.
Most boars roam in groups of two to five, and their poor senses mean it is possible to sneak by them without a fight sometimes.
Boars can attack using their tusks or headbutt their target. They prefer the latter and stay mobile during fights to leverage that.
A boar charge can knock you down, taking almost half of your health pool in the process, and leaving you vulnerable to other enemies.
Although boars have a modest health pool, their brains are quite small and protected by a thick skull. The best way to kill them is topepper their flankswithshotgun shells.
Decomposing Harbingers of Doom
Objectively, the Snork should be no big deal. These decaying human remains die with a few shots, and their attacks are not particularly powerful.
What makes snorks terrifying is their method of hunting. These specimens tend to roam in groups and charge their prey from multiple directions. They are exceptional jumpers, so seemingly safe platforms offer no comfort for a fleeing stalker.
Snorks can kick, bite, and scratch stalkers, but it is their leaping strike that stands out. The snork jumps over 2 meters in the air to strike. You eitherhit it mid-air with everything you have, or it gets you.
Murder-Parkour Enthusiasts
There is nothing particularly comforting about this kitty. Cats are relatively rare compared to other mutated animals, but they make up for it in ferocity.
The Zone’s Cat is a large feline with exceptional agility, a terrifying roar, and very sharp claws. They dodge incoming shots, can jump onto any platform, and deal massive damage with each swipe.
Althoughany round is effective against cats,landing a hit is no easy feat. You can get around this by using buckshot shells, or a submachine gun with an extended mag.
8Poltergeist
Violent Interior Designers
The danger posed by a poltergeist is inversely proportional to the size of the room you are in.
Theseinvisible mutantswith telekinetic powers attack by flinging loose objects at you, which take away a third or more of your health bar per hit. If a poltergeist floats past you, it can inflict physical attacks, but the mutant tries to keep its distance.
STALKER 2: Best Early Game Armor
In the Zone, it’s drip or drown.
Despite not being as dangerous or aggressive as other entries down this list, the poltergeist has a massive health pool that allows it to wear you down.
There are two ways of dealing with these creatures. The first one is through sheer violence:run after it Rambo-style and use every bit of ammunition you have.
If you are low on ammo or are not in the mood to fight, you can exploit a major weakness in this mutant’s senses.
The poltergeist detects movement, soif you crouch and pace yourself, it is possible to leave the area without wasting ammoand meds.
Occasionally, you will meet the fiery variety of the poltergeist. The fire variety is quieter and more aggressive, resorting to spawning fire anomalies directed at you. The same principles apply in a fight.
7Mutated Elk
A Hunter’s Dream
Sometimes, a hunter misses a more traditional game in the Zone, and this hellhole delivers.
This elk might look ordinary from afar, but the Zone’s mutations have given it a carapace that covers most of its body. Ammo with decent armor-piercing capacity comes in handy here.
The mutated elk has a large health pool and employs charge attacks similar to the boars, but its shriek can disorient you for a few seconds.
The unique aspect of the mutated elk is thatit rallies other nearby mutants to fight on its side, instead of competing with them.
Its tactic is to distract you with that blind dog while it lines up a deadly attack, so stay sharp.
The Deadliest Master of Telekinesis
The Burer is one of the cruelest mutants inSTALKER 2. Burers start by throwing objects at you much like poltergeists do, but they can also yank your weapon out of your hands.
Once the Burer is wounded, it raises a barrier around itself, becoming temporarily immune to damage.
Burers have excellent reflexes, which lets them return grenades to the sender before they go off.If you fail to pick your weapon back up, Burers can turn them on youand fire until ammunition runs out, before hitting you with them.
This is a death sentence if you bring in a light machine gun or, the Wish Granter forbid, an RPG to the fight.
The secret to killing a Burer is to stay mobile to avoid its distance punch that can hit you behind cover.
Trigger its barrier with any weapon, thenbring out a heavy weapon like a .308 or 7.62x54R rifle. As soon as the Burer lets its guard down, unload the entire magazine against it.
5Bloodsucker
The Invisible Vampire
The developers ofSTALKER 2are evil, but not as much as the bloodsucker. You meet this mutant on the very first mission, and it has a habit of showing up when you least need it.
The bloodsucker has a huge health pool, making light cartridges nigh useless against it.
Once it sniffs out a target, the bloodsucker blends in with the surrounding terrain while rushing to strike, making it almost impossible to spot, let alone hit.
Bloodsuckers only uncloak immediately before striking, giving you mere seconds to score a hit. Each bloodsucker strike drains your health almost by half and inflicts a bleeding wound.
If you attempt to corner it, a bloodsucker will claw at you repeatedly until you back off or die. This rarely ends well for the stalker.
Your best shot at fighting a bloodsucker is tohave a high-damage weapon with a large magazine and a decent rate of fire. Wait until it runs straight at you, then unload the entire magazine as soon as you notice its cloak.
You will likely get hit at least once, but you will have time to use a medkit in between.
Although it may feel counterintuitive,marksman rifles like the EBR or the SVD are perfect at dealing with bloodsuckers. Semi-automatic shotguns like the Saiga D-12 are also strong contenders here.
