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Central to that is what GSC are doing with the various factions that inhabit the zone. While there were a large number of factions in the original game (Freedom, Duty, the military, the mercenaries, the scientists, the neutral STALKERs and the servants of the monolith) you were only really able to follow three paths: Neutrality, Freedom, or Duty. In Clear Sky you’ll be able to join up with seven different factions, work with them, fight them, and ultimately lead your chosen side to victory.
“It’s a global war of factions within the zone,” says Bolshakov. “Now each faction has a fully fledged main camp with a number of key characters in there, like a trader, a mechanic, a leader, a barman, and all of those perform specific roles.” Where the original game only had a couple of traders and mission-hub characters, you’ll now be able to pick up tasks all over the map, and work far more closely with the other STALKERs in the zone to perform them. “You’ll see STALKERs from a faction going on specific tasks, so you have an understanding of what is going on with a faction. Each faction has a specific rival and they fight for artifacts, territory, resources and so on. You can see the conflict develop in front of you. A faction in need of certain resources will go on missions for them. Factions go to grab artifacts if there is a rare one somewhere around. You can join a faction and lead them and they can benefit for your help. As opposed to the original, where NPCs were just moving around, the factions now have specific goals to accomplish. STALKERs within a faction go on smaller missions and you can join up and help them accomplish them.”
All this expands on one of the most significant elements of STALKER: A-Life, the system that enables dynamic events to take place within the Zone. Artificial intelligence routines govern the appearance and movement of groups of STALKERs, packs of dogs, mutants, and the various faction gangs. In A-Life governed areas, you’ll be seeing battles between the various factions, as well as random events taking place. A fight you have in one run through of the game might be completely different a second time because of the appearance of bandits, or because friendly STALKERs are passing through the area and were able to help out. Anyone who has played STALKER has saved, or been saved by, an AI character in the game world. This dynamic complexity will only become more varied and accomplished in Clear Sky.
