-Loners: Typical Stalkers come to escape the struggles of their life outside the zone, either searching for quick riches, or to avoid prosecution for crimes, debts, etc. Generally neutral, friendly, and cooperative.
-Bandits: Loners and other faction members that have turned to crime within the Zone to survive/get rich. They steal, rob, mug, hustle, and kill anyone they can get one over on to steal all their weapons, food, medicine, and artefacts. Depending on the particular game, they are anywhere between automatically aggressive to all non-bandits to basically Loners but with a different set of factions that they will automatically become violent with. Lower level bandits can generally be reasoned with or intimidated into being compliant, but their bosses are pretty much categorically mob boss scumbags who you should only cooperate with if you're looking to get rich at the expense of someone else's misfortune.
-Military: Ukrainian military personnel that are either running special forces operations into the Zone, or manning military outposts and checkpoints into and out of the Zone. Outsiders to the Zone, their attitude toward literally everyone in the Zone is somewhere between maliciously dismissive and outright hostile. Depending on the game, their standing orders are basically anywhere between "keep the vagrants corralled in the Zone and let God sort them out" and "shoot to kill, these are criminals nobody will miss".
-Duty: Founders are ex-military personnel abandoned by the Ukrainian government after special forces operations went sideways. After surviving, they form a faction that acts as a Zone-based paramilitary force who believes that the horrors and supernatural forces of the Zone are dangerous and should be studied in secret by scientific personnel, only so that it can be understood well enough to be destroyed. Perpetually at odds/war with Freedom, though the level of hostility varies depending on the time and place. Live under strict code of conduct similar to a military cadre, to give members a sense of purpose and belonging in a chaotic place. Freedom and Duty are in a tense ceasefire by the time of the latest game, and have very little sense of comity between each other.
-Freedom: Anarchistic (though not necessarily in the leftist manner of the term) faction that believes the wonders of the Zone should be open to the world and researched openly for the good of mankind. Believe that, in spite of the dangers of the zone, there are great things to be discovered within, and the Ukrainian military and Duty are misguided in their efforts to hide the Zone from the world, with some members believing that the evils of the Zone propagate precisely because Duty and the military are singularly focused on killed anything "mutant" or "unnatural" in the Zone with impunity. Drink and smoke weed a lot, call everyone "bro", friendly with basically everyone other than the military, Duty, and the Monolith.
-Monolith: Brainwashed former Stalkers and military personnel who serve a mysterious hivemind entity formed in the breached reactor at the Chernobyl NPP. Basically a religious cult, who like to collect artifacts as religious icons and blessings, and also tend to build antennae out of scrap in the Zone for reasons unknown. Hostile to literally everyone that are not Monolith. Highly effective fighting forces with advanced equipment, may possibly operate as a partial hivemind in combat, and are even able to use secret weapon development documents found within secret military labs in Pripyat and the surrounding area to develop things like Gauss Rifles.
-Ecologists/Scientist: Government personnel with outside funding that are sent to work with the locals to study the mutants and artefacts of the Zone. Motivations and ulterior motives are opaque, but they pay very well for work, and have access to advanced medical and scientific equipment. Pacifist by nature, and pay for security details and exploratory squads from the local Stalker groups.
-Clear Sky: Breakoff group of the hivemind that controls the Monolith that seeks to destroy the Zone. Disbanded by the end of STALKER: Clear Sky.
Basic faction overview:
-Loners: Typical Stalkers come to escape the struggles of their life outside the zone, either searching for quick riches, or to avoid prosecution for crimes, debts, etc. Generally neutral, friendly, and cooperative.
-Bandits: Loners and other faction members that have turned to crime within the Zone to survive/get rich. They steal, rob, mug, hustle, and kill anyone they can get one over on to steal all their weapons, food, medicine, and artefacts. Depending on the particular game, they are anywhere between automatically aggressive to all non-bandits to basically Loners but with a different set of factions that they will automatically become violent with. Lower level bandits can generally be reasoned with or intimidated into being compliant, but their bosses are pretty much categorically mob boss scumbags who you should only cooperate with if you're looking to get rich at the expense of someone else's misfortune.
-Military: Ukrainian military personnel that are either running special forces operations into the Zone, or manning military outposts and checkpoints into and out of the Zone. Outsiders to the Zone, their attitude toward literally everyone in the Zone is somewhere between maliciously dismissive and outright hostile. Depending on the game, their standing orders are basically anywhere between "keep the vagrants corralled in the Zone and let God sort them out" and "shoot to kill, these are criminals nobody will miss".
-Duty: Founders are ex-military personnel abandoned by the Ukrainian government after special forces operations went sideways. After surviving, they form a faction that acts as a Zone-based paramilitary force who believes that the horrors and supernatural forces of the Zone are dangerous and should be studied in secret by scientific personnel, only so that it can be understood well enough to be destroyed. Perpetually at odds/war with Freedom, though the level of hostility varies depending on the time and place. Live under strict code of conduct similar to a military cadre, to give members a sense of purpose and belonging in a chaotic place. Freedom and Duty are in a tense ceasefire by the time of the latest game, and have very little sense of comity between each other.
-Freedom: Anarchistic (though not necessarily in the leftist manner of the term) faction that believes the wonders of the Zone should be open to the world and researched openly for the good of mankind. Believe that, in spite of the dangers of the zone, there are great things to be discovered within, and the Ukrainian military and Duty are misguided in their efforts to hide the Zone from the world, with some members believing that the evils of the Zone propagate precisely because Duty and the military are singularly focused on killed anything "mutant" or "unnatural" in the Zone with impunity. Drink and smoke weed a lot, call everyone "bro", friendly with basically everyone other than the military, Duty, and the Monolith.
-Monolith: Brainwashed former Stalkers and military personnel who serve a mysterious hivemind entity formed in the breached reactor at the Chernobyl NPP. Basically a religious cult, who like to collect artifacts as religious icons and blessings, and also tend to build antennae out of scrap in the Zone for reasons unknown. Hostile to literally everyone that are not Monolith. Highly effective fighting forces with advanced equipment, may possibly operate as a partial hivemind in combat, and are even able to use secret weapon development documents found within secret military labs in Pripyat and the surrounding area to develop things like Gauss Rifles.
-Ecologists/Scientist: Government personnel with outside funding that are sent to work with the locals to study the mutants and artefacts of the Zone. Motivations and ulterior motives are opaque, but they pay very well for work, and have access to advanced medical and scientific equipment. Pacifist by nature, and pay for security details and exploratory squads from the local Stalker groups.
-Clear Sky: Breakoff group of the hivemind that controls the Monolith that seeks to destroy the Zone. Disbanded by the end of STALKER: Clear Sky.