STALKER: Anomaly notes and lore

This entire blog contains spoilers for the STALKER series as a whole, which may or may not be limited to the games and any surrounding media in the franchise, alongside the mod that combines the three STALKER games called STALKER: Anomaly. You should download the mod (it's free and located <a href="https://anomalymod.com/">right here</a>) and at least the first STALKER game because it's really cool and fun and I like it a lot. (Haven't played the latter two games, so I don't know about them.)

For the sake of simplicity, from this point on, I will be referring to STALKER: Anomaly as simply "SA".

This blog will also go on to describe any thoughts I have on the topics listed, especially when it comes to the mutants, as I've noticed a lot of interesting physical characteristics and small details after playing Anomaly for so long. 

I've been playing since late 2024 when I discovered it, and I almost immediately fell in love with it, and I estimate that I've played somewhere between 300-500 hours. Fairly recently I've added SA to the GOG launcher, and it says that I've been playing it for almost 150 hours at the time of writing (that being July 30th, 2025). With how good SA is, I expect this to continue expanding over the coming months and years.

Feel free to leave your own thoughts and feelings in the comments below.

FACTIONS

Listed factions

Loners: 

Bandits: 

Ecologists: 

Duty: 

Freedom: 

Monolith: 

Clear Sky: 

Mercenary: 

Unlisted factions

UNISG: 

Sin: 

Renegades: 

Zombified: 

MUTANT CONNECTIONS

Human/Bloodsucker relation as stated by the 'Bloodsucker skin' item.

Human/Controller relation as stated by the PDA description for the Controller.

Human/Fracture relation as stated by both the PDA description for the Fracture, and the 'Fracture hand' item.

Human/Rat relation as stated by the PDA description for the Rat.

Human/Snork relation as stated by the PDA description for the Snork, and by what Butcher says if asked about any stories he has. (He mentions something about the scientists saying how snorks are "moulages", or (from what it sounds like to me) imprints of humans in some regard, though what this actually means is unclear.)

Human/Zombie as stated by the PDA description for the Zombie.

Boar/Flesh as stated by the PDA description for the Boar, 

Burer/Karlik relation as stated by the PDA description for the Karlik.

Fracture/Zombie potential relation, as both Fractures and Zombies are visually similar (both retain raggedy clothing and haggard, skeletal appearances) and in my own experience, can be found near one-another fairly often. No definitive evidence in my "investigation" thus far, though, so take this with a grain of salt.

Dog/Pseudodog relation as noted in either the Dog or Pseudodog description.

Pseudodog/Psydog relation as stated by the PDA description for the Psy-dog. 

Psysucker/Bloodsucker relation as noted in the PDA description for the Psysucker.

Tushkano/Lurker relation as noted by the description for the 'Lurker tail' item.

Rat/Tushkano relation, as described in the PDA description for the Rat.

TO BE ADDED
Chimera, 

MUTANT PARTS

Boar chop, fang, leg, pelt

Burer hand

Bloodsucker heart, jaw, meat, skin

Cat claw, tail, thyroid

Controller brain tissue, hand, scalp, 

Chimera claw, 

Dog meat, heart, liver, tail

Flesh eye, hide, meat, 

Fracture hand

Lurker eye, hide, meat, tail

Karlik

Pseudodog fang, fur, meat, tail

Pseudogiant eye, hand, hide,

Psydog fur, meat,

Psysucker hand, meat

Snork hand, leg

Tushkano head, "rodent" meat

Zombie hand

Note: I'm making this as an aside because the story and the information that Butcher reveals I find to be extremely interesting to the world of STALKER, and even if it's technically not "canon", any piece of work that interests me sufficiently is on it's own a work that is of value to the world and deserves to be recognized as such. With this in mind, then, I'd like to speculate a little on what I think the STALKER franchise as a whole is indirectly commenting on. From my perspective, the series is a large commentary on things like war and the military industrial complex, but I think that's the most obvious and immediate take-away one can get. The most interesting part to me is how the mutants and monsters appear to be a kind of exploration into the aftermath of disasters and what human beings both create and become as a result of massive tragedies like the Chernobyl meltdown, for example.

Before starting, I want to present what "moulage" might mean in relation to the snorks. From what I can tell, the definition is the following, as provided by Merriam-webster.com as of Tuesday, August 19th of 2025: "1: An impression or cast made for use as especially evidence in a criminal investigation."

First, starting off with the most obvious and clear example that I've mentioned are the snorks. These enemies are some of the most human-like monsters in the game, excluding those of the Zombified class and zombies themselves. I think this is because the snorks are at least unintentionally a representation of the direct effects of large-scale tragedies given form - they are only recognizable as human beings in that their bodies resemble the human form, but they in reality are significantly more animalistic and degraded than any human being could possibly be. This, combined with Butcher's comment from the scientists about snorks being "moulages" makes me think that these monsters aren't actually human in nature, rather that they are somehow distorted reflections of human beings given a physical form, but rather than acting like people, they are quite literally the basest and most carnal form of the human subconscious - though, I will note that there seems to be no sexual element of these creatures included whatsoever, so it makes me believe that they are only partial representations of the human mind; specifically that they are representations of only the most violent and cruel desires of humans - that of "succeeding" over others through violence. Why this might be, I am not sure - maybe it's a latent desire of all living things to succeed that is left in these degraded forms of snorks, maybe it has something to do with the "death drive" as Freud mentioned - perhaps these monsters are seeking death and have no other means of expressing it, as their bodies (and their vocal chords, especially) have been degraded and broken by the effects of the Zone.