One of the greatest DLCs I've ever played. Just amazing, perhaps even better than the base game.
The most surprising aspect to me was the unbelievable amount of content. I went into this DLC thinking "Oh it's just adding the CNPP that was missing from the base game" and if it was just that, I'd have been happy.
I'm gonna list all the new locations here, but spoiler warning for the locations and the story:
[spoiler]The first location you enter is the iron forest. In my opinion it has the best and I really mean the best atmosphere of all the locations in the game. The setting, the large metal structures, the transformers and cables. The sound design, the electric hum, radio interference and the beautiful ambience theme. It makes for an undescribable eary and creepy immersive experience. You also get your first tease of the CNPP because you're so close to it, it's just across the cooling ponds but just out of reach.
After that it's a bit of base game until you get to continue the DLC.
Again I thought "Now we get to the CNPP", but no. You go back to SIRCAA. And it's not just retreading the same SIRCAA that I just visited a couple missions ago. We revisit the destroyed SIRCAA ruins with an entirely new area. You spend quite a lot of time in there and it's very daunting, especially that centrifuge in the huge dome.
And after that again, even more new locations.
You get two new missions which you can do in whatever order you want. I'll start with the one I did first.
There is this perimeter dam all the way back in the lesser zone. When I first played the base game back in 2024, I stumbled across that area and explored all I could, but ultimately came to the conclusion that it was an unfinished future location.
Before that you get to the Krug Antenna Complex which I recognized as the location where Major Degtyarev cleaned out the bloodsucker lair back in Call of Pripyat, very cool callback. And afterwards you go to, lo and behold, the perimeter dam with a completely new interior.
Im glad I did it in that order, because Zulus mission was even better and just blew my mind.
Again, all I expected was the CNPP map, but what awaited me in his mission instead is a full blown Silent Hill Backrooms rendition of Lymansk, which ties back to that creepy radio transmission that teased us all the way back in the original release at the Bridge to Lymansk location.
This mission was so uniquely amazing, completely different from anything we've had in the STALKER games so far. I'm not gonna spoil too much here because you just need to experience it yourself.
Ok, but now we go the CNPP, right?
Hell no, another new location, we go to the iconic lab X16 from Shadow of Chernobyl. It's a full blown joint assault with Freedom and Duty teaming up to take down the main antagonist. The location is just as impressive as it was in SOC.
Now it's just one more step before we finally travel to the CNPP. Now keep in mind, this is from the Freedom path, as I haven't played the Duty path yet. We enter the Monorail station in Rostok and find ourselves in a warehouse with perhaps the most horrifiying anomaly yet. Some sort of sentient liquid metal. The entire warehouse is filled with it. It wriggles and writhes like some biological mass, but it's entirely metal. Very unsettling. After a bunch of fighting we end up on the Monorail and finally head for the CNPP.
What an adventure. All of this, 90 hours of gameplay for me, and we haven't even glimpsed at the CNPP yet.
I don't even want to say much about the CNPP, because I also want you to experience it for yourself. But it is obviously the highlight of the DLC and the climactic conclusion to the story, either on Freedom's or on Duty's side.
At the end you even get another bonus tease on top. Remember the faction war system from Clear Sky? Yeah, it's back alright and in my opinion, even better than it was in Clear Sky. That's right. Everything I described so far apparently wasn't enough for GSC, so they even added a whole new faction war system. It's only one battle within the CNPP region though. But I assume, it's some sort of playtest, perhaps for the upcoming second DLC or maybe even for the Multiplayer.[/spoiler]
I didn't dive much into the story or the new weapons, artifacts and side quests, but that is kind of my point.
JUST the multitude of new locations alone is already incredibly impressive and there is so much more on top of that. Easily worth the 30 € pricetag. Hell I'd say this DLC pretty much doubles the available content of the base game. Thank you GSC and god, I can't even wait for the second DLC.
