S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Lost Alpha is a Fan Remake of the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, similar to Black Mesa. It was released by Dezowave on April 26, 2014, the 28th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. A Updated Re-release, subtitled The Developer's Cut, was eventually released on 26 April, 2017.
The plot is still the same as Shadow of Chernobyl overall: You are a stalker (fortune-hunting trespassers in the zone) dubbed the "Marked One" who has survived a death truck, and has amnesia. Your PDA says to kill a stalker named Strelok. What follows next is a quest to discover your identity and who Strelok is.
Lost Alpha contains examples of:
- Abandoned Laboratory: A good number of them.
- Abandoned Warehouse: Serves as a base for some factions.
- Alliance Meter: Doing quests and generally being nice to the members of certain factions will increase your "score" with them, though Bandits, Mercenaries and Monolith have extremely high negative scores so you will never be on friendly terms with them. You also have a general reputation meter which tracks your rep in general.
- Anyone Can Die: Only a few of the NPCs in the game are unkillable due to being located in safe zones. The rest can die at any time onscreen or offscreen from random mutant attacks, emissions, or other stalkers.
- Boom, Headshot!: Unless its a mutant or a stalker in a exoskeleton, these are lethal to most enemies.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: The Monolith faction is this.
- Breakable Weapons: Guns degrade with use, and can and will jam.
- Crapsack World: Subverted, whilst life in The Zone is brutal, the zone is itself limited to a relatively small area of the Earth (at least for the moment) and it is mentioned that the rest of the world is profiting greatly from the zone in terms of technology (biomedicine and physics).
- Dressing as the Enemy: One mission has you finding a bandit suit and infiltrating the base of an enemy faction.
- Driving Question: Who is this "Strelok" guy your PDA says to kill?
- Fan Remake: Of the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow Of Chernobyl.
- First Town: The Rookie Village you start the game in.
- Game-Breaking Bug: In earlier versions of Lost Alpha, the game would crash if you killed the Sin members holding a stalker hostage.
- Instant Death Bullet: Occasionally averted. Stalkers can drop to the ground wounded after being shot, which gives the player a chance to heal them, assuming you aren't hostile to them.
- Multiple Endings
- With This Herring: Just like the original Shadow of Chernobyl. You exit the bunker armed with only a pistol and a jacket, because you are a rookie and aren't expected to last long.
- You Wake Up in a Room: When speaking to random stalkers and picking the "Tell me something interesting" option, they might mention that they woke up in the Zone one random day after sleeping in their flat, and that they have been stuck there for years.
- Videogame Caring Potential: You can heal wounded Stalkers and turn them friendly towards you.
- Videogame Cruelty Potential: You can also shoot said Stalkers and loot them whilst they are unable to fight back.
