GSC GameWorld has announced that the remastered trilogy of the original STALKER games, titled STALKER: Legends of the Zone, will be released on PC on May 20th. To mark the occasion, the team also released a new trailer, available below.

STALKER: Legends of the Zone features enhanced lighting effects like godrays, screen space reflections, and global illumination to create a more immersive atmosphere. The remaster includes upscaled textures and highly detailed 3D models for NPCs, weapons, and environments. Advanced shaders improve water and wetness effects, complemented by upgraded skyboxes for a dynamic world. Additionally, players can enjoy 4K pre-rendered cinematics and an improved weapon field of view for better combat visibility.

Figure 1. STALKER: Legends of the Zone Trilogy

The trilogy includes several PC-exclusive features, such as Steam Workshop support, giving players easy access to a wide range of user-created mods. It also offers cloud saves and is optimized for play on the Steam Deck. Figure 1 shows STALKER: Legends of the Zone Trilogy.

Honestly, this official remaster doesn’t look quite as impressive as some of the STALKER mods I’ve seen. I’m not saying it looks bad, but in my opinion, it can’t quite match up to mods like STALKER Anomaly or the STALKER Complete Mod.

It’s also worth mentioning that these remasters won’t include any co-op support. That’s a bit disappointing, especially since there’s already a Co-Op Mod available for STALKER: Call of Pripyat. It’s a shame the developers didn’t add this feature to the older STALKER titles.

Overall, I was hoping for a bit more from these remasters. If you’ve never experienced modded versions of STALKER before, these remasters will look impressive. But for anyone familiar with heavily modded older STALKER games, this release feels like a bit of a letdown.

Here’s hoping the trilogy launches in a polished state—otherwise, fixing issues could become a real headache, especially since the team is likely focused on STALKER 2 right now. We might see a new patch for STALKER 2 around May or June to enhance its A-Life 2.0 system, roughly 6 to 7 months after the game’s release.

The devs have also released the official PC requirements for the trilogy [1]. To play at 1080p on low settings with 60 FPS, you’ll need at least an Intel Core i3-7100 or AMD Ryzen 3 1300X, 8GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 or AMD Radeon RX 560.

To enjoy gaming at 1080p with max settings and 60 FPS, you'll need at least an Intel Core i5-6600K or AMD Ryzen 5 1600X, 16GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 580.

References:

1. https://www.dsogaming.com/news/stalker-legends-of-the-zone-trilogy-remaster-is-officially-coming-to-pc-on-may-20th/

Cite this article:

Janani R (2025), STALKER: Legends of the Zone Trilogy Remaster Set to Launch on PC on May 20th, AnaTechMaz, pp. 173