Note: we are in the middle of the new 2012 update, the current and the latest available mod version is STALKER Complete 2009 1.4.4 until further notice.
If you haven’t played 2007’s most immersive and atmospheric shooter, or you’re back for replay, this mod is for you. This is the world of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. like you’ve never seen before, with updated graphics and added functionality that don’t change the original story or gameplay. The game hasn’t been changed beyond recognition, but rather enhanced while preserving the core elements that made it the unique experience is it.
What makes this mod different?
It was designed by professional graphic artists with rich experience in the field, following industry standards for creating interactive 3D environments. It features artistic works and modifications from many community members unified under one art direction. The game has been redesigned with new visual qualities, and is offered as one convenient, complete package to reach a user base beyond the modding community. This mod has been created with a thought of bringing the beautiful and immersive game of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl from the previous generation when it was created to an up-to-date experience you’d expect from games currently being developed.
The following list details the carefully chosen collection of technically advanced and aesthetically brilliant modifications that were created by talented modders, concept artists, and programmers over the past two years. They are meant to technically and artistically enhance the original feel and atmosphere the developers meant you to experience, without compromising it in the process. You’ll notice every single detail has been retouched and has a polished feel to it.
This is ideal for first time players or people who finished the game in the past and now are coming back to replay it on newer, more powerful hardware on improved resolution and graphics.
STALKER Complete 2009 defined the standards for making S.T.A.L.K.E.R. mods, and its successful formula has inspired many similar projects.
Natural lighting, vast panoramic views, depth of field, parallax mapping, SSAO, over 900 reworked texture files, including vehicles and armor suites with manual bump editing, you won't believe it's the same game.
Developed by a professional art studio, the weather system in Stalker Complete 2009 is a pinnacle of visual game design. It features work by several artists including challenge winners from conceptart.org (the largest concept art community which produces works for games and movie industries). It’s based on the same elements and principles found in representational art such as aerial perspective, composition, balance, and color theory, to name a few. The key features include:
- Natural multi-phase day and night transitions, based on daily observations, photographs, and studies by artists from Dolgov Studios.
- Vast distant views, creating large open world around the player.
- New multi-phase moon design authored by Dolgov Studios.
- Proper sun travel according to date (01.05.2012) and geographic location (Ukraine).
- Enhanced High Dynamic Range lighting and Sun effects (including realistic sunsets and sunrises).
- Increased weather cycling.
- Different types of storms, fast and slow.
- Wet surfaces during rain.
- High resolution nighttime constellation map.
- Improved water animations.
(authors: Dolgov Studios, Argus-textures, Trojanuch, Sergy172)
This mod takes full advantage of Shader Model 3.0 and introduces advanced shader technology first seen in the game “Crysis”. This tool allows creating close-to-life illusions of true relief and depth, in addition to adding rendering techniques creating an enormous difference in the way the game looks. Improvements include:
- Parallax Occlusion Mapping - Gives 2D textures the illusion of 3D geometry, most visible on surfaces such as brick walls.
- Screen Space Ambient Occlusion - A shading method that approximates the way light radiates in real life, creating soft shadows in corner-type places with a difficult lighting sample.
- Depth of Field - An effect that creates a gradual decrease in sharpness determined by the subject distance. For example, a distant landscape will appear blurry when compared to closer objects.
- Motion Blur - A streaking effect frequently used to show a sense of speed when the camera quickly moves around.
- Particle system - Enhanced rendering of fire, explosions, smoke, muzzle, sparks, falling leaves, anomalies, fog, and more.
- Water Shaders - Improved water effects ported from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky.
- Fire Dynamic Lighting - Fire now illuminates the surroundings, casting dynamic shadows.
(authors: Sky4CE, Eggchen, NatVac)
This mod includes a texture overhaul featuring the “Photorealistic Zone”, a total rework of every texture in game by Argus over a nine month period. Special attention has been given to preserve the game’s original look while the original textures have been replaced with higher quality versions and manually bump-edited files. The textures are heavily optimized to reduce performance impact. Elements that are improved include: (authors: Argus-textures, Domestos) The game’s notorious reputation of being a huge bugfest ends here. Over the past two years a joint community effort has accumulated fixes for most known bugs and crash to desktop exits left out by developers after patch 1.0005. With the release of the unofficial community patch, bug fixes and numerous positive gameplay tweaks are implemented, such as realistic weapons names, reduced head bobbing, increased actor’s height, increased inventory weight limit, extended quest times, and more. (authors: NatVac, Fatrap, Victim, DC-, silverpower, omero, Decane, fitzroy_doll, Artificial Intelligence received major reworking: (authors: xStream, BAC9-FLCL, KoGar, Darius6, {imperialreign}, MulleR, Mongol)
This mod replaces a massive amount of in-game sounds, including weapons, anomalies, equipment clatter, footsteps, nightlife, bullet fly-by sounds and more with higher quality versions. Also, the mod adds unique ambient sounds for each weather cycle. “Repetitive” NPCs will now only say their lines once (such as the “Get out of here, stalker” line), and hundreds of additional ambient sounds like bar kitchen cooking, nighttime horror sounds, fog sounds, and more have been added to the game, creating a more immersive audio experience. The mod also adds a new music collection, featuring 84 new acoustic guitar compositions added to the existing set plus a few vocal songs in authentic language unique to each faction. This is the only music mod where compositions have been performed live and recorded specifically for this game by a musician (no MIDI or generic karaoke tracks were used). This is live music with human touch that blends seamlessly with the ambient soundtrack, and makes you want to spend more time by the campfire. Also, NPCs will now randomly play the harmonica in addition to the guitar. Finally, 19 authentic music tracks can be heard on the radio and from the megaphones throughout the Zone. (authors: Dolgov Studios, MulleR, Mongol) S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl is not exactly a textbook example when it comes to localization. Misspelled words, typos, grammatical errors, and humor lost in translation can be charming at times given the context, but creating unnecessary difficulty in understanding their meaning. Most of the text received a grammar-friendly rewrite, providing a much improved English localization. (authors: Tharawdeal, Onionradish, Dethtoll) A visual overhaul mod isn’t complete without a new, custom user interface. This is why we are proud to present our very own Main Menu, Loading Screen, and redesigned HUD. Created by our graphic design firm, the interface incorporates existing in-game art and photographs of actual Chernobyl disaster zone artifacts, adding a unique art style and authentic feel. Certain buttons have been conveniently reorganized for more intuitive access and new shortcuts added, such as ESC+S which works like a “smart quick-save”, creating a separate save file with the level name, in-game date, and timestamp each time it’s used. (authors: Dolgov Studios, NatVac) After your journey ends with the “good” ending, you’ll get the dialogue that will let you continue the game in freeplay mode, allowing creatures and NPCs to migrate freely about in the environment. It will be a living and breathing zone with self sustained A-Life and unscripted events. This feature doesn’t remove the ending scene, so players will still have the enjoyment of viewing the cinematic completion of the game. You can skip the entire story line from the start by pressing ESC+T while in-game and teleporting to the last map or by clicking Freeplay and “Equip for Level” to start from the first map. There is also a large number of small subtle changes that make big difference in overall experience. ReadMe contains extended list of mods and their respective authors who contributed to this project.
motiv-8, BobBQ, Snowball, TSL16b, Eggchen, barin, Alex-Tommy, GSC forums...)
(authors: Darius6, {imperialreign}, MulleR, Mongol)
This mod will run smooth as long as you have a video card with Shader Model 3.0/4.0 and large amount of memory to accommodate the high quality textures. It performs better than S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat, while providing similar and often better visuals. It’s DirectX9 and the X-Ray engine at their full potential and the best looking mod for this game.
Someone wrote: Lighting – the new day-night cycle’s particularly spectacular – and textures are what’s most lovingly touched by the hand of mod, but on the non-graphical front much of the in-game text gets a more grammar-friendly rewrite and the HUD receives a much-needed overhaul.
Someone wrote: This is the "STALKER Complete 2009" mod [...], which does an admirable job of making the game look like it was, well, made in 2009. New textures, new lighting and new weather effects help get the game looking ship-shape [...]
Someone wrote: [...] the graphical changes are immediately smack-you-in-the-face obvious. It's stunning. Whereas looking at old STALKER made me think of, well, a 2007 eastern European PC title, the texture and shader upgrades in STALKER Complete 2009 made the place instantly come alive.
Someone wrote: Stalker Complete 2009 combines several modifications that improve Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl in matters of graphics, gameplay and atmosphere.
Someone wrote: As mods go this is one of the most subtle imaginable. It does not attempt to change the atmosphere or effect of the game world, but simple to enhance it. 900 new textures, an improved sky and weather system, and the introduction of expanded graphics options make this one of the most exquisitely beautiful experiences ever to grace a gaming system. [...] this is, finally, the finished and complete version of Stalker - as good as it could possibly have been on release.
Cool. I think I'll find my copy of STALKER.
i have a quastion. can you upgrade your weapons ?
Not sure I just added this to ModDB for the author.
That settles it. I'm gonna buy this game :)
Personally i would have loved to see a bit more than just graphics enhancements. Especially the gameplay that you don't alter can always use some improvement, the original game lacks immersion right at this point. Might it be possible to merge this mod with others, like "Oblivion Lost"?
i think oblivion lost does lots of this stuff anyway (maybe not as much). But I found that mod not very fun. I found the original game much more fun.
this isn't just a graphics enchancement mod. It fixes alot of things gameplay wise as well. Like silent and deadly knife attacks, repair kit, enemies don't spot you miles away, and so on.
i installed it but when i want to start a new game it freezes at the loading screen and then the exe stops working
yeah it sounds like you need the base build installed as well.
That's great and all but what about actual realism, as in weapon realism?
I have yet to see a 9mm pierce 4 layers of steel n padded armor with an added kevlar layer.
Or a 5.56 not being able to kill anything from two steps away aiming at the head.
I guess I'll just slap one of the ultra-tactical-realism mods in here then.
Huge fan of the entire Stalker series, can't thank you enough for doing this! If only there was a project this ambitious for every game out there..
Seems like a big pack of mods, but that's not necessarily bad :), might check it out when I am back on my old PC (or new one :P). Sounds like this will be quite buggy though.
Does it work with the STEAM version?
Yeah it works with the Steam version
Wohooo! . man am i happy. not all mods for all steam games work, most work only on the retail versions. It has to do with STEAM using its own instalation and instal location , with STALKER SoC being so good im happy to be able to replay it and with better eye-candy ^_^
wow, this sounds REALLY awesome! I'm definitely going back to playing Stalker again.
downloading now.
Looks amazing. I will find my stalker disk for this. Can I install this over oblivion lost to use both at the same time?
I don't think so. OL is already a mod collection so chances are very high the both of them are going to interfere with each other.
That's great - finally give me a reason to play STALKER, which I managed to avoid to date.
Alright, I downloaded it and installed.. I can say it really adds sooo much to the gaming atmosphere..
Rain suddenly fell down and sounding like rain for once, the nights look great, grenades fly through the sky.. Awesome..
Although on gameplay it is nearly the same ****** way it works.. Enemey AI have been improved though. But the game still lacks realism and the drivable vehicles..
I just don't dare to install any mods that add this, since they might **** the rest up.
Final conclusion: It makes Stalker looks good and feel atmospheric for the first time ever...
I think to use it with Oblivion Lost, I would just take the stuff I want from this. Both of these conflict obviously since this isn't just textures. So if I just take the textures, meshes, sounds, and anims folders with I am guessing the particles.xr file I should get most of the visual changes with all of the gameplay changes from OL.
I receive many errors and a lot of lag. I guess one or the other. It would be great if someone could combine em.
That is a HUGE list of stuff.
I'm waiting for the next AMX mod to try stalker again.
BTW anyone know of good mods for clear sky? Almost everything's for the 1st game.
This looks absolutely ******* INCREDIBLE. I never got around to playing the first stalker, but I just picked it up at gamestop today for this.
It looks alright and I enjoyed playing. I wonder what we do with patches however. Does it work with any game patch? Does it work with games patched to 1.0006, too?
yes it does, it works with 1.0005 and 1.0006, as 1.0006 was only a multi-player patch. It didn't effect single player
Very nice!! Please make it compatible with the driveable vehicle mod though
Ohhh...I installed 1.0005/6 patch and the complete mod (with the patch) but it crashed at the beginning.
I've tried a lot of things but it still crash...
It's a really nice mod, from what I have read at the top of the page, though I can't seem to get it working, when I start Stalker it says that there is no system.ltx file, though it is there. What should I do?
With Object Detail 75% u mean change r2_ssa_lod_a to 75 ?
This game is briliant! I love it! My favorite shooter!
I installed the base, the patch, changed the the lines to true and true, and changed the gloss to 2.5. What am i missing? It comes up as if its stopping a bug, then shuts down my game before the menu comes up. Help please.
Ok, do not work with the patch.
However, it's a pleasure to play this game again with these enhancements.
I forgot how hard this game was, and it's great atmosphere : waiting for an other patch to play it again.
Good work.
How do i enable Sun Shafts?
How do I get to freeplay. I finished the game, declined CC and ended up going through all that crap to get the true ending and I dont get any option to freeplay. What am I supposed to do?
if i start the game the game crash and i gooing to the desktop
STALKER is atmosphereic in so many ways it needs this! I love all the details you guys have put in. It makes STALKER feeel like Crysis with good gameplay graphics and storyline. Now STALKER puts Cryis to shame! Great job! Cant wait to get out my dusty CD!
The ABC bag isnt working...Why...?
Does this mod work with the 1.0004 patch. I have Faiakes Mod, ABC Mod, Oblivion lost, Priboi Story, Rebalanced Mod, AMK Mod, ect. I would like to try this but if I patch to 1.0005, then all my other mods won't work right. I have always heard that 1.0005 patch had only MP fixes and I only play SP. Thanks for the Info.
You heard wrong in a way. 1.0005 included single player fixes, 1.0006 was a multiplayer only patch.
this mod should work with 1.0004, i'm not completely sure but give it a try, backup your current gamedata folder and i'm sure you've done before, and give it a try.
Is this really needed? I get such horrible performance on Stalker already, despite beating out the recommended easily. I'm sure in 4-5 years when hardware can over-come poorly coded games(Like Cryostasis), this'll be good, and I'll finally play Stalker then.
No one is forcing you to get this, to some its needed and to some it isn't. I for one enjoy it and think it makes my experience in STALKER all the better.
I wish it would work for me :( I want my Stalker experience to be enhanced too.
This mod really, really sexifies the game, its an incredible improvement.
... i want to try it!! but the ai has been modified??
Excellent mod, really made me want to play this game again.
However, I didn't get a dialog to continue the game in freeplay mode. I do decline the C-Conciousness offer and finish from there, but nothing.
Otherwise great to see that mods like this one exist.
You don't get a dialogue.
The final cutscene plays and you find yourself in front of these vortex-thingys.
Step into it and whoosh it's the Kordon all over again.
what happens if I don't sleep regularly in this mod?
Nothing I guess.
I slept only once to wait for a rainstorm to end.
Whoever got this mod to work PLEASE HELP US. I absolutely love Stalker and playing it with all of these enhancements sounds great. I follow every instruction yet I crash If I run the damned thing. So anyone please?
It is great, indeed.
All I did was:
- install the game (Worldwide DVD Version)
- patch it to 1.00005
- copy the base gamedata folder to the gamedirectory
- overwrite the gamedata folder with version 1.32
- edit the game_data-line in the mentioned .ltx-file
Worked awesome and crash-free in Windows 7 RC1.
Thanks for the great fun, Henley!!
Hey, if anyone was having problems like me with installing both patches here is what I did:
Update the game with patches but don’t update through the game itself as it won’t work.
Install both mod patches
Copy the base gamedata folder to the game directory
Overwrite the gamedata folder with version 1.32
Edit the game_data-line in the mentioned .ltx-file