Stalker 2 artist kickstarts the Zone Kit modding scene with a flood of glorious nonsense mods featuring Shrek, CJ, and—you guessed it—Thomas the Tank Engine

It's a big day for Stalker 2, which saw the return of A-Life in the big 1.5 patch as well as the addition of the absolutely massive (as in, bigger than my whole entire primary SSD) Stalker 2 Zone Kit, a modding toolkit that will enable users to "modify existing content or create new experiences—animations, weapons, mechanics, and even wonders of the Zone."

Even though the Zone Kit has been out for less than a day, there are already dozens of new Stalker 2 mods available on Mod.io, and for much of that early rush you can thank Sanekum, a prolific modder who appears to be Aleksandr Silantev, a self-described "senior brick artist" who is more formally credited as an architecture artist and outsource art manager at GSC Game World.

It's cool that GSC is putting the effort in to kickstarter the Stalker 2 modding scene, but what I really enjoy here is the work Silantev has chosen to share with the world. These are classic mods, baby.

CJ from San Andreas? Check. Shrek? Check. Thomas the Tank Engine? You better believe that's a check. You can replace boars with Sherman tanks, or rat swarms with cans of meat, or turn Siderovich into a sort of centaur thing, except instead of a horse body it's more of a messed-up mutant deer—the Sideerovich, naturally. You can also turn him into a handgun if that's what you're into.

There's even a version of recent "Italian Brainrot" meme Crocodilo Bombardiro, which went so viral on TikTok earlier this year it's spawned everything from songs to gaming shovelware to Kerbal Space Program designs. The original meme contains a disgusting reference to bombing kids in Gaza that seemingly hasn't prevented the "character" from gaining rapid popularity, appearing in nearly a dozen Steam meme games already.

For its part, the Stalker subreddit seems to prefer the Strelok E3 hairstyle as "peak," and you know what? Fair enough.

Can't believe Stalker 2 got peak mods on day one of modkit release from r/stalker

(That's apparently based on an E3 trailer from 2021, by the way.)

"Can't wait to see someone fight Shrek in the Swamps while outrunning several Sherman Tanks with only Sidorovich in their hands to survive," redditor PaleCriminal6 wrote, describing a scenario that has a reasonable chance of happening by this weekend, if it hasn't happened already.

Alongside Silantev's work, there's a growing number of less fanciful (but perhaps more practical) mods, like animated menu screens, weapon and animation tweaks, and A-Life adjustments, and there will no doubt be more, and more advanced mods, in the future. GSC Game World said the current version of the Zone Kit is "phase one," and that "there will be even more things to do with the Zone" when phase two arrives.

Establishing a thriving mod scene is vital for the long-term success of Stalker 2. As others in the subreddit pointed out, mods represent durability, especially for games like Stalker 2 that have boundless potential and almost as much jank. The original Stalker benefitted tremendously from post-launch mods, and redditor No__Mango2962 predicted the same for the sequel: "I can see it now. Stalker 2 may have had a rocky start, but five or so years from now this game will be considered an absolute gem and a fan favorite."

I've reached out to GSC Game World to confirm this is actually Silantev's work, and will update when I hear back.