S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Lost Alpha Fan Mod Brings Game Back to its Roots

When the first S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game was released in 2007, titled Shadow of Chernobyl, avid fans awaiting its release noticed something odd about it. While it was widely regarded as an excellent game, and one I particularly enjoyed, those who were hoping it’d be kept closer to its original vision were left a bit displeased.

That’s where Lost Alpha comes in. It’s a huge mod created by some of the game’s biggest fans who’ve attempted to revive the “old” S.T.A.L.K.E.R.. Because the game was never finished in an earlier state (eg: it was not rebuilt late in the development cycle), Lost Alpha‘s modders had to make a lot of guesses, but studied old materials meticulously. A major boon came in 2009 as well, when the game’s developers, GSC, released assets from a build in 2004, a time when the game would have been in development for about two years.

We started to develop Lost Alpha in the summer of 2008. The project first started out as a modification to add back the cut levels which all Stalker fans knew of. After a while, it became more than just a modification, it became our dream game, how we saw S.T.A.L.K.E.R. We hope to give you the same feeling when you first played S.T.A.L.K.E.R. A new chapter with familiar elements without which S.T.A.L.K.E.R. would not be the game we all grew to love. Lost Alpha was a labour of love. We are passionate about it and we hope you all will enjoy it as much as we enjoyed creating it!

Enjoy S.T.A.L.K.E.R., but don’t care that much about the game’s “original vision”? You’re in luck, because there seems to be a billion different mods for the game.